Hangover Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Hangover, including details on alcohol, treatment, drugs, effects.

Associations between volume of alcohol consumption and social status, intelligence, and personality in a sample of young adult Danes.

Mortensen EL, Jensen HH, Sanders SA, Reinisch JM

Department of Health Psychology, Institute of Public Health, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. e.l.mortensen@pubhealth.ku.dk

Relatively few studies have investigated associations between volume of alcohol consumption and psychological characteristics in normal samples. A sub-sample, comprising 363 men and 331 women between 29 and 34 years of age, was selected from the Copenhagen Perinatal Cohort on the basis of perinatal records. The sample was divided into four consumption categories: abstainers (including occasional drinkers), light, moderate, and risk drinkers. ANOVA and relevant contrasts were used to test the significance of differences among consumption categories. Both abstaining and risk drinking were associated with low social status family background, low education and intelligence. Abstaining was associated with low disinhibition and social recognition scores, while risk drinking was associated with high neuroticism and, in males, high disinhibition, low social recognition, and low achievement scores. Compared with light drinkers, a more "carefree" life orientation characterized male moderate drinkers, while relatively high scores on anxiety, dysthymia, and somatoform symptom scales characterized female moderate drinkers.

Published 21 September 2006 in Scand J Psychol, 47(5): 387-98.
Full-text of this article is available online (may require subscription).

© 2004-2008 Hangover Research Today. All Rights Reserved.