According to science, this personality trait can promote alcoholism

According to new research by Belgian scientists, this particularly pervasive personality trait can favor the emergence of a serious disorder associated with alcohol consumption.

Is alcohol addiction – at least in part – conditioned on our personality? In any case, this is suggested by new research conducted by a team of Belgian scientists from the Faculty of Psychology of the University of Louvain, and published on August 1, 2022 in the journal. Alcohol addiction: clinical and experimental research.

According to the results of this study, it does appear that certain personality traits are more likely to lead to social separation, Like perfectionism and self-criticismmay actually contribute to an increased risk of developing a serious alcohol use disorder.

Alcoholism (also) a personal matter?

To reach such a conclusion, the Belgian researchers recruited 65 adults with a serious alcohol-related disorder undergoing hospital treatment, and 65 other healthy volunteers.

Each participant then completed an assessment known as the Hewitt Multidimensional Perfection Scale, to assess the prevalence of each of these three forms of perfectionism:

• Perfect self focus: Exaggerated performance standards imposed on oneself.
• Socially prescribed perfection: Visualize high expectations from others.
• Other-oriented perfectionism: Setting unrealistic standards for others.

After this evaluation, the researchers also sought to estimate symptoms of depression and certain types of anxiety in each of the participants.

Focus on perfection

After making all of these assessments, the researchers found that the group of participants with severe alcohol use disorder reported more pronounced anxiety and depressive symptoms than the control group.

At the same time, 79% of the participants in the first group showed a greater focus on self-perfection and 88% showed higher socially defined perfection traits than the control group.

In short, these people set unrealistic personal standards for themselves and showed a high sensitivity to the expectations of others. On the contrary, no significant difference was found for other-oriented perfectionism.

The results are consistent with other risk factors

Data from this study also suggests that self-directed perfectionism in people with severe alcohol use disorder may be more prevalent among men and more educated people. In contrast, the researchers also found that this self-centered perfectionism was not associated with alcohol use among moderate alcohol drinkers in the control group.

Finally, the team notes that the results of this work are consistent with other known risk factors that can lead to serious alcohol use disorder:

• low self-esteem.
• Excessive self-criticism of social cognition disorders.
• Contradictions between the view that an individual has of his true self and his ideal self.

The researchers therefore concluded that this alcohol use disorder appears to be directly related to high perfectionism, beyond the influence of other comorbid psychiatric conditions.