Family history of alcoholism, alcohol use disorders and the five-factor model of personality

Abstract

This study examines NEO-FFI correlates of risk for alcoholism, alcohol use disorders and alcoholism subtyping dimensions in a mixed-gender sample of 468 young adults (mean age = 21.3) presumed to be at high risk (n = 239) or low risk (n = 229) for alcoholism on the basis of a family history of paternal alcoholism. The NEO-FFI is a brief personality inventory measuring each of the key dimensions of the five-factor model of personality (FFMP), a comprehensive, empirically-derived model of personality structure. Familial risk for alcoholism was positively associated with openness and negatively associated with agreeableness and conscientiousness. Alcohol use disorders were positively associated with neuroticism and negatively associated with aggreeableness and conscientiousness. With the exceptions of alcoholism subtyped by comorbid antisocial personality disorder and by familial alcoholism, all of the alcoholic subtypes examined were related to at least one of the five dimensions. We conclude that the FFMP holds promise for studying personality traits in alcohol use disorders and in bringing a unifying perspective to research and clinical work in this area.