Basic personality dimensions and risky alcohol consumption in young adults

SCHMIDT, V.; CALERO, A.D.; INJOQUE-RICLE, I.; MAGLIO, A. L.

San Pablo

Congreso; 2011 Meeting of the Latin-American Society for Biomedical Research on Alcoholism; 2011

Costa and McCrae´s Five Factor Model (FFM; 1985, 1991, 2005) is one of the most useful personality models of the last decades. According to the FFM, personality traits can be grouped in five basic dimensions: Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. Given the great amount of different results found in previous researches when this model is used in young adults, the present study investigates which personality dimensions contribute to risky alcohol consumption in young adults from Buenos Aires. Two-hundred and eighty six young adults participated in this study (17% male) with a mean age of 23-years-old (SD = 4.9). They participated voluntarily and their anonymity was preserved. 82% of the participants had completed their high-school studies, 14% college, and 4% university studies. The NEO-PI-R Personality Inventory (Costa & McCrae, 1992; adaptation: Leibovich & Schmidt, 2003, 2009), a socio-demographic questionnaire, and an alcohol consumption questionnaire (Cremonte, 2009) were administered. Logistic regression analysis was conducted, considering the personality dimensions as independent variables and the presence or absence of risky consumption as dependent variable. The interaction effect of gender on the results was also tested. Significant regression models for men and women are presented, as well as some interaction effects among the variables introduced in the models. The results showed that conscientiousness is the dimension that best predicts risky alcohol consumption. The models indicate that gender has a moderator role between personality and alcohol consumption. Male models have better predictive capacity. This result is consistent with those obtained in national and international studies that use the FFM and other personality models.