The Relation of Personality to Alcohol Abuse/Dependence in a High-Risk Sample

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1 The Relation of Personality to Alcohol Abuse/Dependence in a High-Risk Sample Alexandra Loukas The University of Texas at Austin Jennifer L. Krull University of Missouri Columbia Laurie Chassin Adam C. Carle Arizona State University ABSTRACT The current study had two goals. The first goal was to test the mediational role of young adult personality in the relation between parental alcoholism and young adult alcoholism. The second was to examine the associations between personality and alcohol use motives and reasons to limit drinking in order to explore possible mechanisms by which personality may influence alcohol abuse/dependence. Multilevel modeling techniques were used to analyze data obtained from a community sample of young adult children of alcoholics and demographically matched controls. Results revealed that young adult neuroticism and agreeableness each, in part, mediated the effect of parental Alexandra Loukas, Department of Kinesiology and Health Education; Jennifer L. Krull, Department of Psychology; Laurie Chassin, Department of Psychology; Adam C. Carle, Department of Psychology. This work was supported by a training grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (T32 MH18387) and by a grant from the National Institute of Drug Abuse (DA05227). Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Alexandra Loukas, Department of Kinesiology & Health Education, University of Texas at Austin, Bellmont Hall 222, Austin, TX 78712; phone (512) , fax (512) , electronic mail: alexandra.loukas@mail.utexas.edu. Journal of Personality 68:6, December Copyright 2000 by Blackwell Publishers, 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA, and 108 Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4 1JF, UK.

2 1154 Loukas et al. alcoholism on young adult alcoholism. Moreover, individuals high in neuroticism reported stronger coping motives to use alcohol, individuals low in agreeableness reported stronger coping motives and weaker upbringing reasons to limit drinking, and individuals low in conscientiousness reported stronger coping and enhancement motives to use alcohol, and weaker performance reasons to limit drinking. Children of alcoholics (COAs) are at elevated risk for the development of alcohol use disorders (Chassin, Pitts, DeLucia, & Todd, 1999; Cotton, 1979). Although adoption and twin studies show that parental alcoholism is related to offspring alcoholism both through genetic and environmental factors (see McGue, 1997, for review), the mechanisms underlying parental alcoholism effects are not yet well understood. Researchers have suggested that certain personality characteristics, some of which are highly heritable, may predispose COAs to the development of alcohol abuse/dependence (Cloninger, 1987; Tarter, 1988). In particular, COAs have been described as more neurotic, impulsive, prone to depression, and antisocial than are their non-coa peers (Clair & Genest, 1987; Sher, Walitzer, Wood, & Brent, 1991), and these characteristics have also been associated with alcoholism (for reviews see Sher & Trull, 1994; Zucker & Gomberg, 1986). Empirical evidence, however, regarding personality characteristics among COAs has been conflicting. For example, although some researchers have reported that COAs score higher on neuroticism than do non-coas (Sher et al., 1991), other studies have failed to document such differences (Schuckit, 1983). Reasons for these conflicting findings may be methodological and include the use of varying definitions of personality as well as the use of varying assessment tools, with few studies using standardized personality measures (Martin & Sher, 1994; Windle, 1990). In addition, many of these studies are based upon small samples, examine treated populations, rely on offspring reports of parental alcoholism, or fail to control for the effects of comorbid parental psychopathology (Sher, 1997). These methodological problems make it difficult to draw firm conclusions regarding the relation between offspring personality and parental alcoholism. Another limitation of previous research involving personality is an almost exclusive focus on differentiating COAs from non-coas (Windle, 1990), with little work directed toward determining whether personality actually accounts for or mediates the effect of parental alcoholism

3 Personality and Alcohol Abuse/Dependence 1155 on offspring alcoholism. One exception is a study conducted by Martin and Sher (1994), which used the NEO Five-Factor Inventory (Costa & McCrae, 1989) to examine the relations among parental alcoholism, young adult alcoholism, and young adult personality. The researchers found that college student COAs were more open to experience but less agreeable and conscientious than were their non-coa peers. Moreover, individuals with a past 12-month alcohol diagnosis scored higher on neuroticism and lower on agreeableness and conscientiousness than did individuals who were never diagnosed. These findings are consistent with agreeableness and conscientiousness as mediators of parental alcoholism effects. The mediational role, however, was not directly tested. The first goal of the current study was to explicitly test the mediational role of personality in the relation between parent and offspring alcoholism while addressing the methodological limitations of previous research. In particular, our data were drawn from a community sample of alcoholic and comparison families in which both parent and young adult alcohol diagnoses were directly ascertained, and personality was assessed using an empirically derived theory (the Five-Factor Model of personality; Digman, 1990). Moreover, the effects of co-occurring parental psychopathology were statistically controlled in order to examine the unique effects of parental alcoholism in the mediational relationship, over and above parental antisocial personality disorder, affective disorder, and anxiety disorder. A further limitation of existing research is that most previous studies simply correlate personality with alcohol use disorders without examining ways in which personality might operate to cause alcohol abuse/dependence. That is, few studies have assessed the mechanisms by which personality might influence the development of alcohol abuse/dependence. Thus, the second goal of the current study was to address this limitation by examining the relation of personality to young adults alcohol use motives and their reasons for limiting drinking. These constructs represent subjective reasons either for consuming alcohol or for limiting intake and have been reported to be the most proximal predictors of drinking behaviors (e.g., Cooper, Frone, Russell, & Mudar, 1995). Previous research has indicated that individuals may consume alcohol in an effort to decrease negative affect (i.e., coping motives), increase positive affect (i.e., enhancement motives), and also to facilitate social exchange (i.e., social motives) (Cooper, Russell, & George, 1988; Cooper, Russell, Skinner, & Windle, 1992; Farber, Khavari, & Douglass,

4 1156 Loukas et al. 1980). Likewise, although substantially less work has been conducted in this area, individuals report limiting alcohol use for upbringing reasons (parents or religion discourage drinking), self-control reasons (do not want to lose control), performance reasons (do not want alcohol to interfere with their performance in work, school, or family), and selfreform reasons (concerns about social feedback) (Greenfield, Guydish, & Temple, 1989). These alcohol use motives and/or reasons for limiting use have been linked to a variety of drinking outcomes including level of alcohol consumption, frequency of intoxication, number of drinking problems, and alcohol use disorders (e.g., Carey & Correia, 1995; Carpenter & Hasin, 1998; Cooper et al., 1988, 1995; Greenfield et al., 1989). We hypothesized that personality characteristics may be related to alcohol diagnoses in part because certain personality characteristics may predispose individuals to develop particular motives for alcohol consumption and reasons to limit alcohol use. Little research, to date, has been directed toward examining how personality may influence individual motives for using alcohol and reasons to limit its use. One particular personality characteristic, sensation seeking, has been found to be related to alcohol use motives (e.g., Cooper et al., 1995; Stacy, Newcomb, & Bentler, 1991). Specifically, Cooper and her colleagues (1995) demonstrated that individuals high in sensation seeking used alcohol in an effort to increase positive affect. Yet, systematic examination of the associations among other personality characteristics and alcohol use motives is still lacking. According to negative affect regulation models (e.g., Sher, 1991), individuals may be highly motivated to consume alcohol in order to decrease their levels of negative affect. With respect to personality, individuals who are high in neuroticism experience elevated levels of negative affect and anxiety (Costa & McCrae, 1992). These individuals may be particularly likely to drink in an effort to alleviate or cope with their aversive feelings (see Sher & Trull, 1994) and, thus, they may report motives to drink in order to regulate negative affect. Personality may also play a central role in alcohol use disorders because it may be associated with individuals reasons to limit their alcohol consumption. In particular, deviance prone individuals, those who are highly unconventional, nonconforming, and seek high levels of pleasure (i.e., high extraversion, low conscientiousness, and high openness to new experience), should be less likely to limit their drinking behavior because they are not likely to be deterred by the potential

5 Personality and Alcohol Abuse/Dependence 1157 negative consequences (including social sanctions) incurred by excessive drinking (Jessor & Jessor, 1977). Alternatively, those who are trusting, compliant, and value interpersonal relationships (i.e., agreeable) may likely limit their alcohol use because they do not wish to disappoint their parents or other external authorities. Likewise, individuals who are self-disciplined, responsible, and dependendable (i.e., conscientious) (Costa & McCrae, 1992; Digman, 1990) may limit their drinking because they wish to avoid jeopardizing their performance in the roles they occupy but also because they may not wish to lose control over their own behaviors. In sum, the current study had two goals. First, we tested the role of personality characteristics as mediators of the relationship between parental alcoholism and young adult alcohol diagnoses. Second, we examined the relation of personality characteristics to young adults motives to use alcohol and to their reasons to limit alcohol use. We did this using a community sample of COAs and demographically matched controls with direct assessment of parental and young adult alcohol diagnoses. METHOD Participants Participants were from an ongoing longitudinal study of parental alcoholism (Chassin, Curran, Hussong, & Colder, 1996; Chassin, Rogosch, & Barrera, 1991; Chassin et al., 1999). The study included three annual assessments of adolescents and their parents and a long-term follow-up conducted 5 to 7 years after the initial assessment. Data reported here were from the first and fourth assessments (Time 1 and Time 4 respectively). At Time 1, there were 246 adolescents with at least one biological alcoholic parent who was also a custodial parent (COAs) and 208 demographically matched adolescents with no biological or custodial alcoholic parents (non- COA controls). The long-term follow-up was conducted when the original adolescents were in young adulthood (ages 18 26). Sample retention was high, and included 407 young adults (90% of the original targets) divided among 213 COAs (86.6% of the original sample) and 194 controls (93.3% of the original sample). Retention was also successful for parents: 325 fathers (80% of those who had participated at least once plus 24 new participants), and 390 mothers (80% of those who had participated at least once plus one first-time participant) were interviewed at Time 4. At Time 4, for the first time, full-biological siblings were included in the study if they were in the age range of Three hundred and twenty-six siblings

6 1158 Loukas et al. (87% of those that were eligible, M age = 22, SD = 2.86) were interviewed. Combining data for the original adolescents and their siblings produced a possible Time 4 sample of 734 young adult children nested within 414 families. Due to missing data, however, the maximum sample size in the current study was 692 young adults nested within 395 families. 1 Of these, 203 families (n = 337 young adult offspring) had at least one alcoholic parent and 192 families (n = 355 young adult offspring) were demographically matched controls. The families ranged in size from one (42.0%) to five (0.08%) children (M = 1.8, SD = 0.78). Recruitment Recruitment procedures are presented in detail elsewhere (Chassin, Barrera, Bech, & Kossak-Fuller, 1992). COA families were recruited using court records (n = 103), wellness questionnaires from a health maintenance organization (n = 22), and community telephone surveys (n = 120). Children had to be non-hispanic Caucasian or Hispanic, Arizona residents, aged 10.5 to 15.5 years (at Wave 1), and English speaking. Moreover, for COAs, a biological and custodial parent had to meet the criteria of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd ed., DSM-III; American Psychiatric Association, 1980) for alcohol abuse or dependence or Family History-Research Diagnostic Criteria (FH-RDC; Andreasen, Endicott, Spitzer, & Winokur, 1977) based on spouse reports (if the alcoholic parent was not interviewed). Demographically matched controls were recruited using telephone interviews. Controls were screened to match the COA participant in ethnicity, family composition, age, and socioeconomic status. Neither biological nor custodial parents could meet DSM-III criteria (or FH-RDC criteria) for alcohol abuse or dependence. Recruitment biases are discussed in detail elsewhere (Chassin et al., 1992; Chassin, Pillow, Curran, Molina, & Barrera, 1993). The alcoholic parent was required to be custodial as well as biological so that the adolescent had the potential to be exposed to this parent s influence. This recruitment produced an 1. Varying sample sizes were due, in part, to two different data collection procedures (in-home interviews vs. mail-out questionnaires). For instance, parents reported on young adult personality in the Time 4 follow-up interview, and if one parent was missing data, information from the other parent could be used. To shorten the length of the follow-up interview for the young adult participants, however, information regarding self-reported personality was collected via a mail-out questionnaire. This procedure resulted in more missing data than did the in-home interview. Moreover, for participants who had relocated out of state, abbreviated interviews were administered and questions regarding motives for using alcohol and reasons to limit alcohol use were not included.

7 Personality and Alcohol Abuse/Dependence 1159 overrepresentation of two-parent families. Also, those who refused participation were more likely to be Hispanic. The sample was unbiased, however, with respect to alcoholism indicators that were available in archival records. In support of the representativeness of the alcoholic sample, their comorbidities were similar to those reported in the Epidemiological Catchment Area Study (Helzer & Pryzbeck, 1988). The underrepresentation of single-parent families and the higher refusal rate for Hispanics, however, suggest caution in generalization. Procedure The procedures are described in detail elsewhere (Chassin et al., 1991; Chassin et al., 1999). Data were collected using three annual and one long-term follow-up computer-assisted interviews with the adolescents and their parents. Confidentiality was reinforced with a Department of Health and Human Services Certificate of Confidentiality. Measures Parental alcoholism and associated psychopathology. Lifetime DSM-III diagnoses of alcoholism (abuse or dependence), affective disorder (major depression or dysthymia), and antisocial personality were obtained at Time 1 using a computerized version of the Diagnostic Interview Schedule (DIS, Version III; Robins, Helzer, Croughan, & Ratcliff, 1981). Lifetime DSM-III-R (American Psychiatric Association, 1987) diagnoses of anxiety disorder (excluding simple phobia only) were obtained at Time 4 using a computerized version of the DIS (C-DIS III-R, Robins & Helzer, 1991). For parents who did not meet lifetime criteria at Time 1, the C-DIS sections for alcohol abuse and dependence and depression were readministered at Time 4 to allow for diagnosing new cases. If only one parent was interviewed, alcoholism diagnoses for the other parent were made using spouse report according to FH-RDC. For all other diagnoses, noninterviewed parents were considered not to meet criteria. 2 For the current analyses, all diagnoses of the biological father and mother were coded as dichotomous variables, either present (at least one parent met lifetime criteria) or absent (neither parent met lifetime criteria). 2. Previous work from this laboratory that explored the consequences of assuming that non-interviewed parents did not meet diagnostic criteria has found that this assumption had little impact upon final results predicting young adult alcohol abuse/dependence (see Chassin et al., 1999).

8 1160 Loukas et al. Young adult personality. Young adult personality was measured at Time 4 by parent and young adult reports on the NEO Five Factor Inventory-Form S (NEO-FFI; Costa & McCrae, 1992). This 60-item measure assesses neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness with each subscale comprised of 12 items. The response scale ranged from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5), and higher scores reflect higher levels of neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. Internal consistency (coefficient alpha) of the NEO-FFI subscales in the present sample ranged from.72 to.85 for young adult reports, from.64 to.92 for maternal reports, and from.57 to.92 for paternal reports. For the current analyses, parental report of young adult personality was computed by averaging across maternal and paternal reports (where both were available) for each of the five subscales. In cases where only one parent provided information regarding their offspring s personality, only those data were used. Zero-order correlations between maternal and paternal reports of the five subscales of young adult personality were significant and positive, ranging from.46 to.69. Young adult alcohol diagnoses. DSM-III-R diagnoses of alcohol abuse or dependence were obtained at Time 4 using a computerized version of the DIS (C-DIS III-R; Robins & Helzer, 1991). For the present analyses, a variable was created to reflect problems that were active in the past 5 years. For the past 5 year diagnosis, only young adults who both met lifetime diagnostic criteria and reported a symptom within the past 5 years were considered to manifest the disorder. Young adult alcohol diagnosis was considered a dichotomous variable; either the young adult received a diagnosis or did not receive a diagnosis. Young adult COAs (prevalence = 47.2%) were significantly more likely than non-coas (prevalence = 24.5%) to receive an alcohol diagnosis, χ 2 (1) = 38.79, p <.001. Young adult alcohol consumption. An alcohol consumption composite was calculated as the mean of two items assessed at Time 4: How often did you drink wine or beer or wine coolers in the past year (scored from 0 Never to 7 Every day )? and In the past year, how often have you had 5 or more drinks (of beer, wine, wine cooler, or hard liquor) at one time (scored from 0 Never to 7 Every day )? The correlation between the two items was positive and significant (r =.67, p <.001). Young adult alcohol use motives. Young adult self-reported alcohol use motives were assessed at Time 4 with the coping, enhancement, and social motives subscales of Cooper s (1994; Cooper et al., 1992) four-factor measure. Only young adults who reported ever consuming any alcohol completed this measure; thus, discrepancies in sample size across analyses reflect the exclusion of abstinent young adults. Responses to items ranged from 1 (not at all important)

9 Personality and Alcohol Abuse/Dependence 1161 to 5 (very important), and for each subscale items were averaged such that higher scores reflect more importance given to that reason for drinking. Internal consistencies (coefficient alphas) were.86,.91, and.89 for the coping motives, social motives, and enhancement motives subscales, respectively. Young adult reasons to limit drinking. Young adult self-reports of reasons to limit drinking were assessed at Time 4 using the self-control, performance, and upbringing subscales of the Reasons for Limiting Drinking Scale (Greenfield et al., 1989). Three items were added to the performance subscale to assess the extent to which alcohol use interfered with job, parenting, and partner/spouse responsibilities. An additional item (wouldn t want to disappoint my parents) was moved from the performance subscale to the upbringing subscale because it did not reflect interference with role responsibilities but rather concern with parental expectations. Finally, an additional upbringing item (not old enough to drink legally) was dropped because it was not relevant to those individuals in the sample who were over 21 years of age. The resulting subscales were administered to the entire sample of young adults; however, responses to role-related items of the performance subscale were provided only by individuals occupying those roles (e.g., student, spouse, employee). Responses to all items ranged from 1 (not very important) to 4(very important), with higher scores reflecting higher importance. Coefficient alphas were.77,.76, and.81 for the 6-item self-control, 5-item performance, and 4-item upbringing subscales, respectively. Overview of Analyses Research questions were addressed in two separate stages. First, the mediational role of personality in the relation between parental and young adult alcoholism was tested. This was followed by examination of the relation between those personality variables found to be consistently related to young adult alcoholism and alcohol use motives and reasons for limiting alcohol use. Because of the difficulties inherent in properly conducting complicated mediational analyses in multilevel data, and because we were interested in determining how the mechanisms underlying personality effects may operate in general (rather than specifically in regard to COAs), we chose to conduct our analyses in these two stages rather than as a single large mediational model involving serial linkages. Mediational Analyses The first set of analyses tested the indirect effect of parental alcoholism on offspring alcoholism through young adult personality. That is, we tested whether personality characteristics mediated or accounted for the relation between parental alcoholism and young adult alcohol diagnosis. Separate single mediator

10 1162 Loukas et al. analyses were conducted for young adult and parent reports of each of the five personality variables. Estimating each mediated, or indirect, effect involved fitting two models: one relating parental alcoholism to the personality variable the other relating the personality variable to young adult alcohol diagnosis (while controlling for parental alcoholism). Family level covariates of parental anxiety disorder, parental antisocial personality disorder, and parental affective disorder diagnoses as well as individual level age and gender covariates were also included in these analyses. To appropriately accommodate the clustered nature of the data (i.e., siblings nested within families) and simultaneously control for family level and individual level covariates, multilevel modeling techniques were used to estimate the coefficients necessary for a simple mediational analysis. The estimate of the effect of parental alcoholism on the personality variable was obtained using a random coefficient multilevel model of the type described by Bryk and Raudenbush (1992) or Goldstein (1995). The estimate of the effect of the personality variable on young adult alcohol diagnosis (a dichotomous outcome measure) required an adaptation of multilevel techniques employing a logistic link function (Goldstein, 1991; Goldstein & Rasbash, 1996). Following methods described by MacKinnon and colleagues (Krull & MacKinnon, 1999; MacKinnon & Dwyer, 1993; MacKinnon, Warsi, & Dwyer, 1995; MacKinnon, Warsi, & Hoffman, 1999), an estimate of the mediated effect was obtained by multiplying the appropriate coefficients from the two multilevel models, with standard errors calculated using delta method approximation (Sobel, 1986). RESULTS Prior to conducting the multilevel mediational analyses, intraclass correlations (ICCs) were computed for each of the personality variables as well as for the alcohol diagnosis outcome measure. The ICC is an index of the degree of within-family homogeneity among siblings (Haggard, 1958). ICCs of parent and young adult self-reports of personality characteristics ranged from.07 to.39, indicating that there was a certain degree of similarity in the personality of biological siblings, though there also remained an appreciable amount of variability. ICCs of this magnitude have been shown to significantly bias the results of traditional single level analyses (Barcikowski, 1981; Moulton, 1986), suggesting that a multilevel approach was appropriate for analyses involving these variables. Moreover, ICCs for young adult alcohol abuse/dependence were.31 and.34 for young adult and parent report samples, respectively. This magnitude of ICC indicates a substantial degree of similarity in the binary alcohol diagnosis variable for siblings of the same family.

11 Personality and Alcohol Abuse/Dependence 1163 Table 1 presents the results of the multilevel mediational analyses testing whether personality characteristics could account for parental alcoholism effects on offspring alcohol diagnoses. Estimates of the two coefficients used in calculating the mediated effect (i.e., the effect of parental alcoholism on personality and the effect of personality on young adult alcohol diagnosis) and the product estimate of the mediated effect are presented for both young adult (columns 2 4) and parental reports (columns 5 7) of each of the five personality measures. Neuroticism. Young adult report of neuroticism was found to partially mediate the relationship between parental alcoholism and young adult alcohol diagnosis. Thus, parental alcoholism was associated with elevated levels of neuroticism, which in turn increased the likelihood of alcohol abuse/dependence. However, neuroticism did not entirely account for the effect of parental alcoholism on young adult alcoholism (i.e., including the mediated effect in the model did not eliminate the direct effect of parental alcoholism on young adult alcohol abuse/dependence, b direct effect = 0.93, SE = 0.20, p =.000). Parental report of neuroticism showed a similar but non-significant trend. This was due to the fact that parental alcoholism was only marginally predictive of parent reported neuroticism (p =.07). Agreeableness. Young adult report of agreeableness showed a marginally significant mediational role (p =.06) in the relation between parental alcoholism and young adult alcohol diagnosis. In the parental report model, however, the mediated effect was statistically significant, demonstrating the mediational role of agreeableness more clearly (p =.006). Children of alcoholics showed lower levels of agreeableness, and those with lower levels of agreeableness were more likely to have alcohol abuse/dependence. However, just as for neuroticism, agreeableness only partially mediated the relation between parental alcoholism and young adult alcoholism (i.e., the mediated effect did not eliminate the direct effect of parental alcoholism on young adult outcome, b direct effect = 0.86, SE = 0.20, p =.000). Extraversion. Neither young adult report nor parental report of extraversion significantly mediated the relationship between parental alcoholism and young adult diagnosis. Parental alcoholism was not predictive

12 Table 1 Results of Mediational Analyses for Young Adult Self-Report of Personality and for Parent Report of Young Adult Personality Young Adult Report Parent Report (n = 637 siblings in 383 families) (n = 692 siblings in 395 families) Personality Parental Parental Characteristic Alcoholism to Personality to Alcoholism to Personality to Young Adult Young Adult Mediated Young Adult Young Adult Mediated Personality Alcoholism Effect Personality Alcoholism Effect Neuroticism 0.16** (0.06) 0.44** (0.14) 0.07* (0.03) 0.09 (.05) 0.56*** (0.16) 0.05 (0.03) Agreeableness 0.09* (0.04) 1.04*** (0.20) 0.09 (0.05) 0.13** (0.04) 1.14*** (0.20) 0.15** (0.05) Extraversion 0.03 (0.04) 0.05 (0.18) 0.00 (0.01) 0.02 (0.04) 0.06 (0.19) 0.00 (0.00) Openness to Experience 0.02 (0.05) 0.43* (0.18) 0.01 (0.02) 0.03 (0.03) 0.33 (0.24) 0.01 (0.01) Conscientiousness 0.01 (0.05) 0.59*** (0.17) 0.01 (0.03) 0.06 (0.08) 0.72*** (0.14) 0.04 (0.06) Note. Standard errors are in parentheses. p <.10. *p <.05. **p <.01. ***p <.001.

13 Personality and Alcohol Abuse/Dependence 1165 of extraversion nor was extraversion predictive of young adult alcohol diagnosis. Openness to experience. No significant mediational effect for openness to experience was found for either young adult or parent report. For the young adult report, parental alcoholism did not significantly predict openness, though openness significantly predicted young adult alcohol abuse/dependence. For the parent report, parental alcoholism did not significantly predict openness, and openness was not significantly related to young adult alcohol diagnosis. Conscientiousness. No significant mediated effect was found for conscientiousness. This was due to the fact that parental alcoholism did not significantly predict either young adult or parental report of conscientiousness. Conscientiousness, however, was significantly related to young adult alcohol diagnosis for both reporters. MotivestoUseAlcoholandReasonstoLimit Alcohol Use Analyses Of the five personality variables investigated in the first set of analyses, neuroticism, agreeableness, and conscientiousness were all found to be significantly related to young adult alcohol abuse/dependence in both the young adult report and parental report models (see Table 1). Therefore, the second set of analyses, designed to explore the mechanisms through which personality might ultimately affect alcohol abuse/dependence, examined the relations between young adult reports of these three personality variables and each of the motives to use alcohol and reasons to limit alcohol use. As with the previous set of analyses, the clustered nature of the data (i.e., siblings within families) and the need to simultaneously examine the effects of both family level and individual level variables necessitated the use of multilevel modeling techniques. An initial series of multilevel models was estimated predicting each of the motives and reasons to limit subscales from one of the personality variables and a set of covariates. The covariate set included family level parental alcoholism and individual level young adult gender and age. An individual level alcohol composite was also included as a covariate in these analyses in order to statistically control for any differences in motives to use alcohol or

14 1166 Loukas et al. reasons to limit drinking that were simply due to the young adult s level of alcohol use. These analyses were followed by a second series of multilevel models in which the other two motives or reasons were included as additional covariates (e.g., social and enhancement motives were treated as covariates in the multilevel equation predicting coping motives). Because the motives and reasons subscales were highly interrelated (the motives to use alcohol scales were correlated.51.69, and the three reasons for limiting alcohol use scales were correlated.54.63), this second series of analyses was conducted to examine the effects of the personality variables on each motive or reason uniquely, with any common variance among the set of motives or reasons statistically removed. RESULTS Prior to conducting the multilevel analyses to assess the relations between the personality characteristics and the cognitive constructs, we examined the ICCs for each of the alcohol use motives and reasons to limit use subscales. ICCs ranged from a low of.07 for the coping motives to a high of.29 for the upbringing reasons to limit. The ICC for the alcohol consumption variable was.22, indicating a sizeable degree of similarity in the alcohol use of biological siblings. ICCs of this magnitude indicate that a multilevel modeling approach is appropriate for analyses involving these variables. Table 2 presents the results of the analyses predicting the three motives to use alcohol (columns 1 3) and the three reasons to limit drinking (columns 4 6) from the neuroticism, agreeableness, and conscientiousness measures. Results of the initial analyses examining each motive/reason separately are followed by results from analyses in which other motives/reasons subscales were covaried. Motives to Use Alcohol Neuroticism. Results of the initial set of analyses showed that neuroticism was significantly positively related to all three of the motives subscales. Individuals with higher levels of neuroticism reported stronger coping, social, and enhancement motives. In the second set of analyses in which the effects of the other motives were statistically controlled,

15 Table 2 Relation of Neuroticism, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness toalcoholusemotivesandtoreasonstolimitdrinking Motives to Use Alcohol Reasons to Limit Alcohol Use Coping Social Enhancement Upbringing Self-Control Performance Neuroticism 0.44***(0.05) 0.22***(0.06) 0.20***(0.06) 0.07 (0.05) 0.01 (0.04) 0.03 (0.05) 1 Neuroticism 0.33***(0.05) 0.01 (0.05) 0.03 (0.05) 0.06 (0.04) 0.02 (0.03) 0.01 (0.04) Agreeableness 0.24** (0.08) 0.07 (0.08) 0.11 (0.08) 0.20** (0.07) 0.11** (0.05) 0.15* (0.06) 1 Agreeableness 0.19** (0.06) 0.05 (0.06) 0.01 (0.06) 0.10 (0.06) 0.01 (0.04) 0.05 (0.05) Conscientiousness 0.22** (0.06) 0.21** (0.07) 0.24*** (0.06) 0.18** (0.06) 0.15** (0.04) 0.26*** (0.05) 1 Conscientiousness.10 (0.06) 0.03 (0.05) 0.08 (0.05) 0.02 (0.05) 0.03 (0.03) 0.14** (0.04) Note. Standard errors are in parentheses. 1 With other motives to use alcohol or reasons to limit drinking subscales statistically controlled. p <.10. *p <.05. **p <.01. ***p <.001.

16 1168 Loukas et al. however, neuroticism was found to be uniquely related only to the coping subscale. Agreeableness. Both sets of analyses showed that agreeableness was negatively related to coping motives, such that less agreeable individuals reported stronger coping motives. Conscientiousness. Conscientiousness was significantly negatively related to all three motives in the first set of analyses. In the second set of analyses, when the effects of the other motives were statistically controlled, conscientiousness was marginally negatively related to only the coping (p =.07) and enhancement (p =.10) motives subscales. Given the high levels of correlation among the three motives measures, however, even a marginal unique effect seems notable. Reasons for Limiting Drinking Neuroticism. No significant relationships were found between neuroticism and any of the three reasons to limit alcohol use subscales in either of the two multilevel analyses. Agreeableness. The initial set of analyses indicated that agreeableness was positively related to all three reasons to limit alcohol use subscales, such that more agreeable individuals reported stronger upbringing, selfcontrol, and performance reasons to limit alcohol use. However, results of the second set of analyses suggested that once the effects of other reasons to limit were controlled, only upbringing reasons were uniquely predicted by agreeableness, and this effect was only marginally significant (p =.08). Given the high levels of correlation among the reasons to limit subscales, however, this marginally significant unique effect may warrant cautious interpretation. Conscientiousness. The initial set of analyses indicated that conscientiousness was positively related to all three reasons to limit subscales. Only the effect of conscientiousness on performance reasons to limit drinking (with more conscientious individuals reporting stronger performance reasons to limit) remained significant in the second set of

17 Personality and Alcohol Abuse/Dependence 1169 analyses, in which the effects of other reasons to limit were statistically controlled. DISCUSSION The purpose of the current study was twofold: to examine the role of young adult personality as a mediator of the effect of parental alcoholism on young adult alcoholism, and to assess the processes involved in the relation between personality and the development of alcohol abuse/dependence by testing whether personality is related to alcohol use motives and to reasons to limit alcohol use. Previous research has indicated that COAs exhibit personality characteristics that may predispose them to developing alcohol abuse/dependence (e.g., Cloninger, 1987; Tarter, 1988). For example, research conducted by Martin and Sher (1994) suggests that agreeableness and conscientiousness may mediate the effects of parental alcoholism on offspring alcoholism. Results of the current study expanded upon Martin and Sher s (1994) research by explicitly demonstrating the mediational role of two personality characteristics. In particular, we found that young adult neuroticism and young adult agreeableness each, in part, mediated or accounted for the relationship between parental and offspring alcohol abuse/dependence. Young adult COAs were more likely than non-coas to show elevated levels of neuroticism and lower levels of agreeableness, both of which predicted an increased likelihood of alcohol abuse/dependence. The role of neuroticism in mediating parental alcoholism effects on young adult alcoholism is consistent with negative affect regulation models. Children of alcoholics experience higher levels of negative affect and are thus more likely to develop alcohol problems, perhaps as a result of using alcohol to cope with this dispositional negative affectivity (Sher, 1991). The role of agreeableness in mediating parental alcoholism effects may be related more to deviance proneness models of alcoholism (Sher, 1991). Individuals who are low in agreeableness are characterized by hostility, aggression, self-centeredness, and indifference to others (Costa & McCrae, 1992; Digman, 1990). Such individuals may drink to excess because they place little value on external norms and expectations. Moreover, deviance prone individuals are also likely to be attitudinally more tolerant of alcohol consumption and to interact in social contexts that are accepting of excessive drinking, and for these reasons as well may engage in problematic alcohol consumption (Jessor & Jessor, 1977).

18 1170 Loukas et al. The current results, however, also demonstrated that neuroticism and agreeableness did not fully account for the effects of parental alcoholism on young adult alcoholism. That is, the direct effect of parental alcoholism on young adult outcome remained significant even after the personality characteristics were added to the model. These results indicate that variables other than personality may also play an important role in the intergenerational transmission of alcoholism. Additional support for hypotheses about how personality characteristics raise risk for alcoholism comes from our analyses assessing the relation of personality variables to alcohol use motives and to reasons to limit drinking. For instance, results revealed that neuroticism was uniquely associated with stronger coping motives for using alcohol. Similar to previous research, we found that individuals who were high in negative affect (e.g., those high in neuroticism) placed more importance on the use of alcohol to cope with or alleviate the aversive feelings they were experiencing (Cooper et al., 1995; Farber et al., 1980). The sustained use of alcohol as a coping strategy may promote reliance upon alcohol to alleviate negative feelings, which may lead to more drinking and in turn, increase risk for alcohol use disorders (Cooper et al., 1988). Low levels of agreeableness were also associated with stronger coping motives to use alcohol. Individuals who are low in agreeableness (i.e., characterized by hostility, aggression, self-centeredness, and indifference to others) are more likely than their high agreeableness counterparts to experience interpersonal conflict (Suls, Martin, & David, 1998) and violence (Heaven, 1996) and thus they may rely upon alcohol to cope with the elevated levels of distress they experience. Additional findings demonstrated that agreeableness was associated with upbringing reasons to limit drinking, such that individuals who are low in agreeableness report that they do not limit their drinking out of respect for external authorities. Perhaps because low agreeable individuals place little value upon interpersonal relationships and are indifferent to the values and expectations of others, they do not consider limiting their drinking behavior to reflect parental, religious, or other external expectations. We also found that conscientiousness was uniquely related to both coping and enhancement motives to use alcohol. Individuals low in conscientiousness reported using alcohol both to cope with negative affect and also to increase positive affect. Conscientiousness primarily reflects the presence of impulse control and those who are low in this trait are described as impulsive, careless, and disorganized (Watson,

19 Personality and Alcohol Abuse/Dependence 1171 Clark, & Harkness, 1994). Previous research has shown that impulsivity is related to individual differences in sensitivity to alcohol s reinforcing effects (Sher & Levenson, 1982). In particular, individuals who are high in impulsivity may be more motivated to drink to cope with negative affect because they derive greater stress-response-dampening benefits from alcohol. Moreover, those low in conscientiousness may also drink for enhancement reasons because they lack appropriate inhibitory control over drinking (see Sher, 1997), because they minimize the potential risks of pursuing stimulating experiences (Watson et al., 1994), or because they wish to increase the positive affect associated with the reinforcing pharmacological effects of alcohol (Levenson, Oyama, & Meek, 1987). In addition to these associations with coping and enhancement motives to use alcohol, conscientiousness was also related to performance reasons to limit drinking. Individuals low in conscientiousness did not limit their drinking behavior out of concern that they might jeopardize their performance at school, work, or in the family. Given that individuals low in conscientiousness do not consider the long term consequences of their actions, are impulsive, careless, and disorganized (Costa & McCrae, 1992; Digman, 1990), it is likely that they are not concerned that alcohol may interfere with their role responsibilities and consequently they do not limit their drinking. Although the current study improved upon previous research by directly ascertaining parental and young adult alcohol diagnoses, by directly testing the mediational role of personality, and by examining the development of alcohol abuse/dependence in a community sample of young adult COAs and non-coas, there remain a number of limitations that must be addressed. First, the analyses were cross-sectional and thus do not allow causal relations to be inferred. Because previous researchers have not been able to conclusively determine whether deviations in personality characteristics precede or result from the development of alcoholism (Sher, 1991), further studies using a prospective research design and that can map temporal precedence are warranted. Second, although data from biological siblings were included in the current analyses and were modeled appropriately using multilevel modeling techniques, the current design cannot partition environmental from genetic sources of variation (McGue, 1997). Third, we examined the role of personality in alcohol abuse/dependence by testing the relation of personality to alcohol use motives and reasons to limit use. Our findings, however, do not preclude the effect of other factors including peer

20 1172 Loukas et al. influence and role occupancy. For example, individuals with certain personality characteristics (e.g., impulsivity, unconventionality) may be at increased risk for alcohol abuse/dependence because they seek out and associate with peers who support and reinforce excessive drinking behaviors (e.g., Patterson, DeBaryshe, & Ramsey, 1989). Finally, the current study focused on personality mediating the relation between parent alcoholism and offspring alcoholism, and other possible mediators were not considered. Other research (see Sher, 1991), however, suggests that parental socialization, peer contexts, and individual variations in level of cognitive functioning should also be examined. In summary, the current study extended previous research by directly assessing young adult personality as a mediator of the relation between parental and young adult alcoholism, and also by examining the mechanisms by which personality may affect alcohol abuse/dependence. Young adult COAs were more likely than their non-coa peers to exhibit elevated levels of neuroticism and lower levels of agreeableness, each of which contributed to the development of alcohol abuse/dependence. Moreover, results revealed that individuals high in neuroticism reported stronger coping motives to use alcohol, individuals low in agreeableness reported stronger coping motives to use alcohol and weaker upbringing reasons to limit alcohol use, and individuals low in conscientiousness reported stronger coping and enhancement motives to use alcohol as well as weaker performance reasons to limit alcohol use. Overall, results demonstrated that certain high risk personality characteristics not only mediate the relation between parental alcoholism and young adult alcoholism, but also play a role in young adults motives to use alcohol as well as their reasons to limit alcohol use. REFERENCES American Psychiatric Association. (1980). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (3rd ed.). Washington, DC: Author. American Psychiatric Association. (1987). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (3rd ed., rev.). Washington, DC: Author. Andreasen, N. C., Endicott, J., Spitzer, R. L., & Winokur, G. (1977). The family history method using diagnostic criteria: Reliability and validity. Archives of General Psychiatry, 34, Barcikowski, R. S. (1981). Statistical power with group mean as the unit of analysis. Journal of Educational Statistics, 6, Bryk, A. S., & Raudenbush, S. W. (1992). Hierarchical linear models: Applications and data analysis methods. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

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