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4 Individual differences in risk for addiction - Coggle Diagram
4 Individual differences in risk for addiction
GENETICS AND ADDICTION
Long History
Pedigree charts, then alcohol seen as moral failing, then psychology further developed where alcohol use across families seen (family studies, adoption studies)
Twin studies
Graph - strong heritability of addiction across these twin studies - 40% - 70% of the variance is accounted for
Heritability not to do with the brain changes that psychoactive substances cause - bc there's heritability of problem gambling (30%-50%)
Multivariate twin analysis
Found there's a big heritable overlap in genetic vulnerability across substances (overlap is .82)
Another study found genetic factors correlations with substances are strong across the board - so there's a general risk for addiction which is inherited
Therefore, the individual who becomes addicted to e.g., 1 drug, is bc of their environment which influences their additive risk
PERSONALITY AND ADDICTION
MODELS OF PERSONALITY
Eyesenck's PEN model - the big 3
Reinforcement sensitivity theory (BIS, BAS, FFFS)
Cloninger - differences in neurobiological systems (harm avoidance, novelty seeking, and reward dependence)
Big 5 - OCEAN
Zuckerman - sensation seeking
Personality traits that relate to addiction
Traits where you act without restraint
Impulsivity - broad & narrow
Psychoticism
Antisocial sensation seeking
Traits that are sensitive to reward
Behavioural approach system (BAS)
Reward reactivity
Extraversion
Trait that is both impulsive (in broad sense) and reward sensitive
Sensation seeking
Traits that have negative emotionality
Traits related to Neuroticism
Traits related to Behavioural inhibition (BIS)
Trait anxiety
Depression
Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory
Behavioural Approach System (BAS)
Underpins the affect (hope), behaviour (approach) & cognitive responses (go for it) to reward
Fight Flight Freeze system (FFFS)
Underpins the affect (fear), behaviour (avoidance) & cognitive responses (escape) to punishment
Behavioural Inhibition System (BIS)
Underpins the affect (anxiety), behaviour (assess the risks) & cognitive responses (be careful) to conflict
BAS system - which is in the brain reward pathway - leads to traits like reward sensitivity & impulsivity, and these traits relate to substance use
Our movement to and away from punishment underpins personality (traits)
Other personality traits related to BAS
Impulsivity, constellation of traits, sensation seeking, extraversion
Carver & White (1994) - BAS scale which had 3 subscales: reward responsiveness, drive, fun seeking (i.e., impulsivity)
Study found that drug addicts & alcoholics were high on BAS reward, drive & fun seeking - hence being high on BAS/these impulsive & reward traits are associated with increased substance use
Study on healthy samples also found BAS traits had a relationship with illicit substances & level of alcohol (the higher you are on BAS traits, the more you use illicit and alcohol substances)
TRAIT IMPULSIVITY
Defined in broad terms = acting without deliberating, poorly planned, behaving prematurely, unduly risky, undesirable consequences
Impulsivity is now recognised as a multifaceted construct
Two-component model (Dawe & Loxton, 2004)
Reward sensitivity = sensitivity & motivation to acquire rewards - dopaminergic system
Rash impulsiveness = can't inhibit approach behaviours in light of negative consequences (deficit in PFC)
Reward sensitivity is imp at the beginning (initial substance use), but after a while rash impulsiveness is imp and as a result the individual begins to have problem substance use (substance misuse) & this further degrades OFC.
So impulsivity is broken up into reward sensitivity and rash impulsiveness, and this impulsivity is influential throughout the entire process of addiction, as reward sensitivity is imp in the earlier stages, whereas rash impulsiveness is imp in the later stages
UPPS model
There were several contrasting measures for impulsivity, so they factor analysed the measures and found theres 4 components of impulsivity
Lack of premeditation
= can't plan ahead, think about consequences i.e., rash impulsiveness
Lack of perseverance
= not doing what you're supposed to be doing (not persevering)
Sensation seeking
= seeing out thrilling experiences
Urgency
= acting impulsively due to elevated emotions
Positive urgency
= doing risky things when in a positive mood
Negative urgency
= behaving in a risky way when in a negative mood
His own study = meta-analysis, looked at self-reported impulsivity (UPPS model & reward sensitivity), and alcohol use in adolescents (alcohol consumption & problem alcohol use).
Found that
sensation seeking
highly correlated w/
alcohol consumption
Positive & negative urgency
traits highly correlated w.
problem alcohol use
(this urgency traits relate to how adolescents can't control actions & can't regulate emotions)
Same study he focused on problem cannabis & alcohol use
Found that
positive & urgency
positively correlated w/
problem alcohol use
& w/
problem cannabis use
Another study looked at cannabis frequency & problem use
Found that
sensation seeking
highly correlated w.
cannabis frequency
Also,
positive urgency & lack of premeditation
highly correlated w.
cannabis problem use
Mood induction study - see if urgency trait moderates relationship between mood induction & use of alcohol
3 different mood inductions, sham taste test, how much they drank
Found that those higher in positive urgency/high mood consumed more alcohol - so not just about being in positive mood, but need to be in high positive mood, bc only in the
high
mood/urgency was there more alcohol consumed
There is a bidirectional relationship - high impulsivity levels can influence heavy substance use, but heavy substance use can affect impulsivity further (by degrading executive functions)
However, there's criticism for this, bc these UPPS traits may be superfluous, where if you control for other traits, then the effect wash out (this also happened in the Stautz paper)
Measurements of impulsivity
Self-report questionnair
e = e.g., the UPPS model, the BIS-BAS scales, they ask about every day behaviours, or ask about specific situations
Behavioural tasks
= administered in lab e.g., sham taste test, abstract, precisely operationalised, general set of tendencies, state components
HOWEVER - there's lots of behavioural tasks measuring impulsivity
Study tried to see if all behavioural tasks can be grouped together - it can be, you measure attention, response inhibition, impulsive decision-making, set shifting = these 4 tasks broadly group together all the different behavioural tasks of impulsivity out there
Stop signal task
- can measure response inhibition, but this is a narrow focus, bc different tasks measure different cognitive processes beyond response inhibition, and these all have an impact on impulsive behaviour & substance use behaviour - hard to disentangle which cognitive process is most imp
Also self-report tasks & behavioural tasks for impulsivity don't correlate with each other, but they do correlate with substance use