Disinhibited personality, incentives, disincentives, and drinking-related decisions

Disinhibited personality traits, such as impulsivity (IMP), excitement seeking (ES), and low harm avoidance (HA), are thought to reflect a basic vulnerability toward alcohol use disorder (AUD). However, the specific vulnerability mechanisms associated with each trait are not well understood and there are no studies of the association between disinhibited personality and drinking-related decisions. This study investigated individual differences in drinking-related decisions associated with each trait using a task that manipulated the effects of incentives and disincentives on decisions to attend and drink at different hypothetical drinking events in a sample of 430 young adults (237 men, 193 women, mean age 21.3 years), over 60% of whom had an AUD of varying severity. The results revealed each personality domain was differentially associated with different aspects of drinking decisions. Both IMP and low HA were associated with being more likely to decide to attend party events with moderate and high goal-related responsibility disincentives. We suggest that low HA is associated with reduced sensitivity to the negative consequences of not meeting a responsibility, while IMP is associated with increased discounting of future rewards (associated with meeting a responsibility) relative to the immediate reward of attending a party event. ES was associated with being more responsive to alcohol party incentives when making decisions about attending party events and deciding to drink more at events, with the highest reward potential suggesting that ES is related to a reward sensitivity decision bias. IMP appears to be associated with stronger approach that results in decisions to consume more alcohol regardless of context. The results suggest specific mechanisms by which different domains of disinhibited personality affect actual drinking-related decisions.