Personality Measured in Elementary School Predicts Middle School Addictive Behavior Involvement

Leila Guller, Tamika C.B. Zapolski, Gregory T. Smith

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

27 Scopus citations

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 languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)523-532
Number of pages10
JournalJournal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment
Volume37
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 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

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Personality Measured in Elementary School Predicts Middle School Addictive Behavior Involvement'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this