Heavy, Problematic College Drinking Predicts Increases in Impulsivity

Impulsigenic personality traits are among the many factors demonstrated to predict drinking behavior among late adolescents. The current study tested the opposite possibility, that during the emerging adulthood developmental period, problematic drinking behavior predicts increases in impulsigenic traits. This possibility is important because such traits increase risk for multiple forms of dysfunction. Using a prospective design, we studied the personality traits and drinking behavior of 458 traditional college freshmen over one year. We found that drinking problems predicted increases in urgency (the tendency to act rashly when highly emotional), lack of planning (the tendency to act without forethought), and lack of perseverance (difficulty maintaining focus on a task). Maladaptive personality change may be one mechanism that increases risk transdiagnostically for some individuals who drink problematically during college. Increases in impulsigenic traits predictable from problem drinking put individuals at risk for not only more drinking, but a host of other negative outcomes.