Psychological & Social Risk Factors (AQA A Level Psychology): Revision Note

Stress & personality as risk factors

Stress

• Chronic stress may increase the likelihood of someone becoming addicted to substances and behaviours that give temporary relief as a way of coping with the stress

• If a person has good social support, then this can reduce the likelihood of stress resulting in addiction

• Conversely, the stress associated with poverty and overcrowded living conditions can increase the likelihood of a person turning to addictive substances

• There is a correlation between poor and overcrowded urban areas and high levels of people with addictions

• However, this does not mean that overcrowding and poverty cause addiction, as people with addictions may move to live in these areas because housing costs are cheaper and there is greater availability of addictive substances

• There is also the possibility that addiction increases stress due to the social problems and poverty it can cause, leading to yet more substance abuse to cope

• Personality traits may be a risk factor for addiction

  • e.g., people with a pathological personality 

    • Sufferers may be vulnerable to addiction because the addictive substance or behaviour offers them relief from their negativity

    • People with a pathological personality may be more stressed and find life difficult, and so the temporary high gained from gambling or drinking alcohol, for example, would increase their likelihood of doing it

Personality

• Some psychologists have proposed an addictive personality as a risk factor, with high neuroticism levels predisposing to addictions (Eysenck, 1997)

• High levels of psychoticism have also been linked to addiction, as the pleasurable feelings associated with substance dependence help reduce feelings of aggression and emotional detachment (Eysenck, 1997)

• Cloninger (1987) suggested a tri-dimensional theory of addictive behaviour

  • People who were inclined to be addicted had imbalances in three temperament dimensions

    • Harm avoidance – the amount that a person worries and sees the negative elements of a situation, making them cautious, apprehensive, and likely to avoid risky behaviours

    • Novelty seeking – an individual will actively and impulsively seek new environments and exciting experiences

    • Reward dependence – a strong need for approval and social attachments, being motivated by the anticipation of positive outcomes

  • People who are high on novelty seeking and low on harm avoidance, with a need to fit in socially, may be at risk of becoming addicted to substances and behaviours that gain them approval and provide excitement

Research which investigates stress & personality as risk factors

• Epstein et al. (1998) found a strong correlation between incidence of childhood rape and adult alcohol addiction, but only for women diagnosed with PTSD suggesting a child will only have an addiction problem if they have a vulnerability (e.g., early abuse) and a later stressful situation (e.g., PTSD)

• Howard et al. (1997) conducted a meta-analysis of research investigating Cloninger’s tri-dimensional theory and found that novelty seeking predicted alcohol abuse, but harm avoidance and reward dependence had a less consistent relationship with addiction

• Ivanov et al. (2008) found that many studies show a link between impulsivity and addiction, possibly because they share a neurological or genetic basis

Family influence & peers as risk factors

• Family influences can operate through social learning or expectancies

  • Social learning:

    • When the child observes family role models (parents or other family members) enjoying smoking and/or drinking alcohol, the child learns through watching the enjoyment the smoker or drinker experiences (vicarious reinforcement) that this is a positive and pleasurable thing to do

    • Social learning theory can explain how the imitation of family role models may constitute a risk factor for addiction

  • Expectancies:

    • These are schemas formed from learning and experience in the family environment, which allow the child to predict their parents’ reaction if the child tries these addictive substances, e.g. My parents will go mad if they know I’ve been smoking

    • Expectancies explain how the perception of family approval of the behaviour can be a risk factor, e.g. My parents are cool with me smoking

    • If a child believes their parents approve of an addictive behaviour by engaging in it themselves, then the child feels free to try the activity, as they do not fear disapproval

• Peer influence is potentially a great risk factor for addiction, as the same principles of social learning and expectancies apply as with family influence

  • Peer pressure has been linked to first-time use of nicotine and recreational drugs, especially in adolescence

Research which investigates family & peers as risk factors

• Bonomo et al. (2001) found that teenagers who had experienced an alcohol-related injury were significantly more likely than others to have parents who drank alcohol daily

• Livingston et al. (2010) found that final-year high-school students who were allowed by their parents to drink alcohol at home were significantly more likely to drink excessively the following year at college

Evaluation of psychological and social risk factors

Strengths

• Research evidence suggests that certain personality traits have high predictive validity with regards to addictive behaviour, lending support to the theories of Eysenck (1997) and Cloninger (1987)

• Identifying risk factors, such as the influence of family and peers, can lead to educational campaigns in schools to help reduce the start of substance dependence in vulnerable teenagers, showing that research on risk factors has real-life applications

  • E.g., Tobler et al. (2000) created a peer pressure resistance training programme to prevent young people taking up smoking

Limitations

• There are interactions between all risk factors – combinations matter more than single risk factors, and these determine the nature and severity of an addiction

  • Some risk factors can be protective, e.g., certain personality traits and family and peer influences make addiction less likely; therefore, the path to addiction is much more complex than suggesting one risk factor is more important than the other

• Research into risk factors is correlational; therefore, there are issues determining cause and effect

  • E.g., in the correlation between stressful poverty and addiction, it is not always clear which came first, the addiction or the stressful living conditions

  • In the correlation between peer influence and addiction, it could be that adolescents who are already vulnerable to drug use are likely to be attracted to deviant peer groups

Issues & Debates

• The idea that chronic stress, personality traits, and social learning increase the likelihood of addiction supports a deterministic view—that people are shaped by internal or external forces

  • This can reduce individual accountability and may impact the way society views responsibility in addiction

• Focusing only on individual factors (e.g., personality) is psychologically reductionist, as it overlooks complex interactions with environmental and social contexts

  • A holistic approach better captures the interplay of multiple risk factors and the variability in addiction vulnerability