[Addictions and action systems]

Generalizing from some previous analyses of addiction, and introducing the concept of an action system which governs all actions which are focussed on what Brown (1988) calls "hedonic management", we argue that addictions of every kind involve an action system that displays high salience, low variety and low vicariance. Addictions also involve what Apter (1982) calls the "paratelic state". A study was carried out comparing 31 drug addicts with 29 control subjects in terms of action system variables. To measure these variables, we constructed a new instrument, the Activity-System Drawing Test, and also used the Telic Dominance Scale to measure frequency of paratelic states. Dysphoria was measured by means of the BATE (anxiety), IDA-13 (depression), SEI (self-esteem), and TAS-20 (alexithymia) instruments. Strongly significant differences were found between groups for both action system variables and dysphoria, and there were also strong correlations between both groups of variables. This supports the idea that addictions emerge from systemic properties of the action system.