1 Article Critique
“Do men with excessive alcohol consumption and social stability have an addictive personality?”
Crystal Branch
PSY 325 – Statistics for the Behavioral and Social Sciences
Jonathan Mends-Cole
March 8, 2017 2 The article, Do Men with Excessive Alcohol Consumption and Social Stability Have an
Addictive Personality? offers great insight and research on the topic of alcoholic men and their
personalities and asks the question of whether or not men with social stability that drink alcohol
excessively actually have an addictive personality. Alcohol affects each person differently. Some people
that drink excessively are sometimes called "happy drunks" and others "mean drunks" and so on. The one
thing that everyone agrees on is that alcohol does affect an individual’s personality and can be addictive,
creating alcoholics. The article Do Men with Excessive Alcohol Consumption and Social Stability Have
an Addictive Personality? offers us great insight into the research and statistics of men that drink
excessively and are socially stable. In this paper, I will determine what question the authors are attempting
to answer through their research, I will evaluate the article and critique the statistical analysis that is
employed in the study. Determine what question(s) the authors are trying to answer through this research.
Next, I will explain if i would have included more or other variables and I will examine the assumptions
as well as the limitations of the statistical study. I will answer whether or not I would have done anything
differently in this case and why. Finally, I will identify how the authors applied statistical testing to the
problem presented and interpret the findings of the author using statistical concepts. Consuming alcohol at
excessive rates is dangerous to anyone. While consuming alcohol is not addictive in most people it will
alter their personality in several ways. Understanding how and why research like this is done and being
able to understand their findings is a benefit to anyone studying psychology and will help people to
understand a myriad of different topics.
In the article, Do Men with Excessive Alcohol Consumption and Social Stability Have an
Addictive Personality? the researchers are studying men who consume excessive amounts of alcohol to 3 see if they have an addictive personality. The men in this study are also socially stable, which has an effect
on the research findings. The researchers are trying to see if the men that consume excessive amounts of
alcohol (and are socially stable) have a different personality of those who drink normal amounts of
alcohol. The article states, "The main objective of the present study was to investigate personality traits in
a group of male individuals with excessive alcohol consumption and in controls by comparison with
normative data and also by a multivariate projection-based approach" (Berglund, Roman, Balldin,
Berggren, Eriksson,, Gustavsson, & Fahlke, 2011).
The article explains that there are two types of alcoholics, the first being a Type 1 Alcoholic, which
is characterized by social stability with a later start of turning into an alcoholic. The second type described
is Type 2. Type 2 alcoholics have early signs of alcoholism and have a serious dependence on alcohol and
may have medical health issues and in some cases, social consequences. A Type 2 alcoholic will have
more of a risk of developing liver and kidney problems and may also have a hard time in social settings
and have a difficult time maintaining healthy relationships.
During the study, it was found that Type 2 alcoholics have a different personality profile when
compared with Type 1 alcoholics. Type 2 alcoholics are also more likely to be aggressive, impulsive, and
seek out medical prescriptions. On the other hand, Type 1 alcoholics have very few, if any, psychological
and social symptoms.
The hypothesis that was being tested during this research was whether or not socially stable men
have an addictive personality based on the amount of alcohol they drink. The researchers started their
study in a unique way; with a phone conversation to see if each man was eligible for the study. The men
that were eligible were invited to the research center for an exam. They were also studied psychiatrically
using a well-structured interview by a very knowledgeable psychiatrist that specializes in the treatment of 4 alcoholism at a university hospital. Among the questions that were asked, were how many years they had
consumed the same level of alcohol and what age they were when it started. This data was taken by the
experts to be calculated and then recorded. The participants also had to write down how much alcohol they
consumed daily, in what was known as an Alco-card. This self-monitoring reminded me of my mother,
who is on Weight Watchers, and has to write down everything she eats. Doing this helps a person really
see in black and white what their triggers are and this was helpful to the men in the study because it kept
an honest account of all alcohol consumed. Moving forward in this study, at the two week point, a trained
nurse assessed the results of the participants, using the Hamilton Depression scale. This was done to check
for depression and other anxiety symptoms. The nurse was also responsible for administering the selfrating scale to do an assessment of the individual’s personality profiles. The scores could be anywhere
from 0-56. (Berglund, Roman, Balldin, Berggren, Eriksson,, Gustavsson, & Fahlke, 2011).
In the research process and writing of the article, statistical analysis was used in several
places. The first place that statistical analysis was used was in the study of all the individual raw data from
the personality tests. KSP was actually transformed into normative T-scores, (which is the mean SD:50 ±
10) which are the personality scores.
The PCA (principal component analysis) is responsible for handling many different variables and
few observations and also few variables and many different observations, offering interchangeable
information. The analysis that was done on the individuals and not the whole group is what was tested and
studied. The method is designed mainly to remove and also display the systematic variation in the data set.
The PCA is responsible for making score plots that show the summary of the relationship between the
individuals and a loading plot that categorizes variables that are important for making these specific
relationships. In this case, it would be the different personality dimensions of the KSP. "The systematic 5 variance of individuals with excessive alcohol consumption and controls in the scales of the KSP was
investigated using the PCA. The score plot indicated no between-group separation (see Fig. 2a). There
was, however, signi?cantly more outliers in the group of individuals with excessive alcohol consumption
(n = 11; 11%) in comparison to controls (n = 4; 3%); v2 = 4,94, 1 df, p < 0.05. The majority of the outliers
in the group of individuals with excessive alcohol consumption had higher psychic anxiety and lower
impulsiveness and monotony avoidance" (Berglund, Roman, Balldin, Berggren, Eriksson,, Gustavsson, &
Fahlke, 2011).The variable adds can be read from the loading plot. The closer that the origin of
coordinates is the more the more the variable contributes to the recognition of the pattern (Berglund,
Roman, Balldin, Berggren, Eriksson,, Gustavsson, & Fahlke, 2011).
The assumptions of this statistical study was to find out if men who were socially stable
who drank excessive amounts of alcohol had an addictive personality. The researchers assumed to find the
answer to this question and be able to use statistical data and research in their answer. Their assumption
turned out to be correct and they did find this answer after doing tedious, time-consuming research.
There were several limitations to this study. The first being that the control group was
enlisted from a population-based Swedish Twin try. Also, it is possible to claim that the samples
were quite small for this statistical analysis as far as PCA goes. There were only a total of 231 individuals.
Perhaps the biggest limitation was that the study participants were all middle aged men, that were invited
to participate through advertisements. Personally, I think that if men in other age groups were incorporated
there would have been a broader group to study and it would have provided a better overall srudy.
If I had been the one conducting this research study, I would have done a few things differently.
The first thing is that I would have had a larger group of men participate. I think that by having a larger 6 group, the results would have been different, perhaps more accurate. The other thing I would have done
differently would be to include men of all ages, not just middle aged men.
In this study, the authors and researchers used statistical testing because it was the best and only
way to determine whether or not there was enough evidence to support or discard an estimation, or
hypothesis, about the process and the study itself. The researchers were attempting to determine what the
relationship was between individuals and those of the control groups. Their main purpose was to
investigate personality traits in a group of male individuals with excessive alcohol consumption and
compare this with the normative data and also by a multivariate consumption as well as the controls had
their mean values within the normative range. The normative range being T-scores, mean ± 2 SD; 30-70),
in all 15 sca.
The authors of this study came to the conclusion that men that drink alcohol excessively and were
socially stable (and not taking part in any other treatment programs) do not have a different personality
when compared to other middle-aged socially stable men. The article states, "The article states, "Our
hypothesis that male individuals with excessive alcohol consumption do not have a speci?c ”addictive”
personality, was con?rmed in this study. Thus, this group as well as the population-based control group
had mean values within the normative range in all scales of the KSP. Furthermore the score plot in the
PCA did not indicate a between-group separation. Our ?ndings, obtained by either norm group
comparisons or through the use of the statistical method of PCA, are thus in agreement with our own
previous ?ndings (Berglund et al., 2006; Eriksson et al., 2001a) that individuals with excessive alcohol
consumption do not differ in personality patterns from a general reference population as assessed by the
Temperament and Character Inventory (Berglund, Roman, Balldin, Berggren, Eriksson,, Gustavsson, &
Fahlke, 2011). 7 Conclusion
