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Addictive Behaviours

Individual differences explanations: Lang's addictive personality traits

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Recall questions on Individual differences explanations: Lang's addictive personality traits.

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Key term

Why does the cognitive-bias explanation suit gambling better than heroin dependence?

Key term

Name four of the traits Lang identified as common among people with addictions.

Key term

Which of Lang's traits best explains the difficulty of staying abstinent, and why?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What conclusion did Lang (1983) actually reach about the addictive personality?

    Model answer

    That there is no single addictive personality type that leads inevitably to addiction, although a recognisable cluster of traits recurs among addicted people.

  2. 2

    Name four of the traits Lang identified as common among people with addictions.

    Model answer

    Impulsivity and difficulty delaying gratification, sensation seeking, nonconformity with a weak commitment to conventionally valued achievement goals, and social alienation combined with a tolerance of deviance.

  3. 3

    Besides those traits, what did Lang say about how addicted people handle stress?

    Model answer

    That they tend to be more sensitive to stress and to have poorer coping resources, so substances or activities are used as a way of managing distress.

  4. 4

    Why does Lang treat these traits as risk factors rather than as a personality type?

    Model answer

    Because they are common in the general population, occur in many combinations, and none of them is either necessary or sufficient for an addiction to develop.

  5. 5

    How does Lang's account explain why only one of a group of heavy drinkers becomes dependent?

    Model answer

    The traits raise vulnerability, so under the same exposure the more impulsive, more sensation-seeking and less well-coping member of the group is the one who crosses into dependence.

  6. 6

    Which of Lang's traits best explains the difficulty of staying abstinent, and why?

    Model answer

    Impulsivity, because it leads the person to act on immediate craving without weighing the longer-term cost of relapsing.

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