Abstract
Middle school addictive behavior involvement is highly predictive of future dysfunction. We tested whether a set of high-risk personality traits, measured in elementary school, predicted drinking, smoking, and binge eating in middle school. We studied 1,906 children in two waves: Wave 1 was the last year of elementary school and wave 2 was the first year of middle school in the participating schools. In a design controlling for sex, pubertal status, prior engagement in addictive behaviors, and other high-risk personality traits, we found that (a) fifth grade urgency, the tendency to act rashly when emotional, predicted drinking, smoking, and binge eating during sixth grade; and (b) fifth grade low conscientiousness, which reflects a failure to plan ahead or persevere on tasks, predicted drinking and smoking during sixth grade. It appears that high-risk middle school addictive behavior can itself be predicted from individual differences present in elementary school. Implications for future research and prevention are discussed.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 523-532 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Journal | Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment |
Volume | 37 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Sep 11 2015 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2014, Springer Science+Business Media New York.
Keywords
- Addictions
- Adolescence
- Alcohol
- Longitudinal
- Personality
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Clinical Psychology