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Associations between volume of alcohol consumption and social status, intelligence, and personality in a sample of young adult Danes
Author(s) -
MORTENSEN ERIK LYKKE,
JENSEN HANS HENRIK,
SANDERS STEPHANIE A.,
REINISCH JUNE MACHOVER
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
scandinavian journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.743
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1467-9450
pISSN - 0036-5564
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9450.2006.00520.x
Subject(s) - disinhibition , psychology , neuroticism , personality , clinical psychology , extraversion and introversion , anxiety , alcohol consumption , social anxiety , psychiatry , big five personality traits , alcohol , social psychology , biochemistry , chemistry
Relatively few studies have investigated associations between volume of alcohol consumption and psychological characteristics in normal samples. A sub‐sample, comprising 363 men and 331 women between 29 and 34 years of age, was selected from the Copenhagen Perinatal Cohort on the basis of perinatal records. The sample was divided into four consumption categories: abstainers (including occasional drinkers), light, moderate, and risk drinkers. ANOVA and relevant contrasts were used to test the significance of differences among consumption categories. Both abstaining and risk drinking were associated with low social status family background, low education and intelligence. Abstaining was associated with low disinhibition and social recognition scores, while risk drinking was associated with high neuroticism and, in males, high disinhibition, low social recognition, and low achievement scores. Compared with light drinkers, a more “carefree” life orientation characterized male moderate drinkers, while relatively high scores on anxiety, dysthymia, and somatoform symptom scales characterized female moderate drinkers.