Genetic Epidemiology, Translational Neurogenomics, Psychiatric Genetics and Statistical Genetics Laboratories investigate the pattern of disease in families, particularly identical and non-identical twins, to assess the relative importance of genes and environment in a variety of important health problems.
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PMID
34766786
TITLE
Big Five personality traits and illicit drug use: Specificity in trait-drug associations.
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE NlmCategory: OBJECTIVE
High neuroticism, low agreeableness, and low conscientiousness are consistent correlates of drug use, though such patterns may be due to common familial influences rather than effects of personality per se. The present study aimed to explore associations of Big Five traits with various forms of drug use independent of confounding familial influences by leveraging differences within twin pairs to identify potentially causal (i.e., within-pair) effects of personality on use.
METHOD NlmCategory: METHODS
High neuroticism, low agreeableness, and low conscientiousness are consistent correlates of drug use, though such patterns may be due to common familial influences rather than effects of personality per se. The present study aimed to explore associations of Big Five traits with various forms of drug use independent of confounding familial influences by leveraging differences within twin pairs to identify potentially causal (i.e., within-pair) effects of personality on use. 980 same-sex twin pairs from the Australian Twin Registry Cohort III ( = 31.70, 71% female) were interviewed regarding lifetime (mis)use of cannabis, cocaine/crack, prescription and illicit stimulants, prescription and illicit opioids, sedatives, hallucinogens, dissociatives, inhalants, and solvents, and completed a Big Five inventory. Co-twin control analyses predicted the use of each drug from all traits simultaneously.
RESULTS NlmCategory: RESULTS
High neuroticism, low agreeableness, and low conscientiousness are consistent correlates of drug use, though such patterns may be due to common familial influences rather than effects of personality per se. The present study aimed to explore associations of Big Five traits with various forms of drug use independent of confounding familial influences by leveraging differences within twin pairs to identify potentially causal (i.e., within-pair) effects of personality on use. 980 same-sex twin pairs from the Australian Twin Registry Cohort III ( = 31.70, 71% female) were interviewed regarding lifetime (mis)use of cannabis, cocaine/crack, prescription and illicit stimulants, prescription and illicit opioids, sedatives, hallucinogens, dissociatives, inhalants, and solvents, and completed a Big Five inventory. Co-twin control analyses predicted the use of each drug from all traits simultaneously. Individual-level analyses generally showed the expected associations of neuroticism, agreeableness, and conscientiousness with drug use. Familial effects were also somewhat generalized: high neuroticism, high openness to experience, and low agreeableness were associated with the use of several drug types. More specificity emerged for within-pair effects. High neuroticism was associated with prescription drug misuse; high extraversion was associated with cocaine/crack and stimulant use; high openness to experience was associated with cannabis use; low agreeableness was associated with cocaine/crack use and illicit opioid use; and no within-pair effects emerged for conscientiousness.
CONCLUSIONS NlmCategory: CONCLUSIONS
High neuroticism, low agreeableness, and low conscientiousness are consistent correlates of drug use, though such patterns may be due to common familial influences rather than effects of personality per se. The present study aimed to explore associations of Big Five traits with various forms of drug use independent of confounding familial influences by leveraging differences within twin pairs to identify potentially causal (i.e., within-pair) effects of personality on use. 980 same-sex twin pairs from the Australian Twin Registry Cohort III ( = 31.70, 71% female) were interviewed regarding lifetime (mis)use of cannabis, cocaine/crack, prescription and illicit stimulants, prescription and illicit opioids, sedatives, hallucinogens, dissociatives, inhalants, and solvents, and completed a Big Five inventory. Co-twin control analyses predicted the use of each drug from all traits simultaneously. Individual-level analyses generally showed the expected associations of neuroticism, agreeableness, and conscientiousness with drug use. Familial effects were also somewhat generalized: high neuroticism, high openness to experience, and low agreeableness were associated with the use of several drug types. More specificity emerged for within-pair effects. High neuroticism was associated with prescription drug misuse; high extraversion was associated with cocaine/crack and stimulant use; high openness to experience was associated with cannabis use; low agreeableness was associated with cocaine/crack use and illicit opioid use; and no within-pair effects emerged for conscientiousness. Trait associations common across drugs may be primarily attributable to familial effects. There appears to be more drug-specific influence of personality on use with respect to potentially causal within-pair effects. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
DATE PUBLISHED
2021 Nov 11
HISTORY
PUBSTATUS PUBSTATUSDATE
entrez 2021/11/12 12:11
pubmed 2021/11/13 06:00
medline 2021/11/13 06:00
AUTHORS
NAME COLLECTIVENAME LASTNAME FORENAME INITIALS AFFILIATION AFFILIATIONINFO
Dash GF Dash Genevieve F GF Department of Psychological Sciences.
Martin NG Martin Nicholas G NG Queensland Institute of Medical Research.
Slutske WS Slutske Wendy S WS Department of Psychological Sciences.
INVESTIGATORS
JOURNAL
VOLUME:
ISSUE:
TITLE: Psychology of addictive behaviors : journal of the Society of Psychologists in Addictive Behaviors
ISOABBREVIATION: Psychol Addict Behav
YEAR: 2021
MONTH: Nov
DAY: 11
MEDLINEDATE:
SEASON:
CITEDMEDIUM: Internet
ISSN: 1939-1501
ISSNTYPE: Electronic
MEDLINE JOURNAL
MEDLINETA: Psychol Addict Behav
COUNTRY: United States
ISSNLINKING: 0893-164X
NLMUNIQUEID: 8802734
PUBLICATION TYPE
PUBLICATIONTYPE TEXT
Journal Article
COMMENTS AND CORRECTIONS
GRANTS
GRANTID AGENCY COUNTRY
NIDA NIH HHS United States
GENERAL NOTE
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