Characteristics of the clinical alcoholic personality.

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Abstract
The relative contributions of 4 personality characteristics, stimulus augmenting, field dependence, weak ego and anxiety, in discriminating between alcoholics and nonalcoholics were examined in 2 studies, study 1 comparing 74 alcoholics in treatment (22 women; mean age 43) with a group of 49 nonalcoholics (30 women; mean age 27) and study 2 comparing male alcoholics (mean age 30) and nonalcoholics (mean age 23) in the same prison population. The instruments used were the Reducer-Augmenter Scale (RAS, a 54-item test designed to measure stimulus-intensity modulation), the Group Embedded Figures Test, the Barron Ego Strength Scale, a measure of state anxiety and a measure of trait anxiety from the Endler Stimulus-Response Inventory of General Trait Anxiousness. Of 6 predictions concerning relative scores on personality tests, 4 were supported when age was removed as a covariate: the overall multivariate F comparing alcoholics and nonalcoholics on the 4 characteristics was significant (P < 0.0001 in study 1 and < 0.05 in study 2). Alcoholics scored lower on ego strength than did nonalcoholics (P < 0.0001 in study 1 and < 0.01 in study 2); alcoholics scored higher than nonalcoholics on state anxiety, (P < 0.05 in study 1 and < 0.02 in study 2). Two predictions, one that alcoholics as stimulus augmenters, would score lower than nonalcoholics on the RAS and another that alcoholics would be more field-dependent than nonalcoholics, were not supported when age was removed as a covariate. Linear discriminant analyses showed that ego strength contributed most to discriminating between alcoholics and nonalcoholics (standardized linear discriminant coefficient in studies 1 and 2 = 0.71). Apparently, the other personality variables were closely related to ego strength, leading to the conclusion that there is really no 1 clinical alcoholic personality, except that all alcoholics are likely to be deficient in 1 ego function or another.