Abstract
People’s use of alcohol is related in a variety of ways to their personality traits. Such traits include the person’s tendencies to become disappointed or depressed in the face of failures (high neuroticism) and their tendencies to blame themselves, others, or circumstances. Part of depression is rumination, as in involuntarily continuing to think about one’s disappointments. Different forms of rumination have different kinds of effects on moods and alcohol consumption. People also vary in their tendencies to become engaged in successful or promising pursuits of meaningful goals, which may make it easier or harder for the person to avoid overuse of alcohol. Alcohol consumption often relates to a person feeling and perhaps acting more extraverted, which may provide satisfaction in a way that promotes using alcohol. There are also individual differences in the degrees of pleasure or discomfort people experience from consuming or abstaining from alcohol. People vary in their self-control tendencies, such as using protective behavioral strategies as in setting explicit limits on amount consumed on a given drinking occasion, which can assist in avoiding overconsumption.
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Cox, W.M., Klinger, E. (2022). Personality and Alcohol Use. In: Why People Drink; How People Change. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93928-1_5
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