Personality and drugs of choice

Although drug preference has been studied from the perspectives of individual differences and comorbid psychopathology, research incorporating both of these levels of analysis has been limited. In the current study, inpatients in a substance abuse treatment facility who reported preferences for alcohol, marijuana, methamphetamines, cocaine, heroin, or crack cocaine were compared in terms of their scores on measures of higher-order personality variables and psychopathology constructs representing lower-order elements of these factors. Results suggested that a broad externalizing dimension differentiated heroin users from alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine users. With the single exception that crack users remained more paranoid than alcohol users, psychopathology variables did not provide more specific discriminatory ability after broad personality factors were controlled. Implications for substance use research are discussed, with a focus on the utility of integrating individual differences and psychopathology constructs.