Alcohol involvement and the Five-Factor model of personality: a meta-analysis.
The purpose of this meta-analysis was to quantify the relationship between the Five-Factor Model of personality and alcohol involvement and to identify moderators of the relationship. The meta-analysis included 20 studies, 119 effect sizes, and 7,886 participants. Possible moderators examined included: five-factor rating type (self vs. other); study time-frame (cross sectional vs. longitudinal); sample type (treatment vs. non-treatment); type of alcohol involvement measure used; gender of the participants; and age of the participants. The meta-analysis showed alcohol involvement was associated with low conscientiousness, low agreeableness, and high neuroticism, a personality profile that: a) fits on the low end of a superordinate personality dimension that has been called self-control; and b) makes treatment difficult. Several significant moderators of effect size were found, including the following: studies of individuals in treatment for alcohol problems showed a more negative pattern of personality traits than did other studies; cross-sectional studies, but not longitudinal studies, showed a significant effect for agreeableness, perhaps suggesting that low agreeableness may have a different causal link to alcohol involvement from the other factors; mixed-sex samples tended to have lower effect sizes than single-sex samples, suggesting that mixing sexes in data analysis may obscure effects.
School of Psychology, University of New England, Armidale, NSW, Australia. jmalouff@une.edu.au
John M
JM
Malouff
Einar B
EB
Thorsteinsson
Sally E
SE
Rooke
Nicola S
NS
Schutte
D000367:Age Factors; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000523:psychology*; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000523:psychology*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008960:Models, Psychological; D010551:Personality; D012737:Sex Factors