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Willignes to drive when drunk and personality: A twin study

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Abstract

In a laboratory study of psychomotor sensitivity to alcohol, twins were asked “Would you drive a car now?” at 1, 2, and 3 h after drinking a standard dose of ethanol (0.75 g/kg). Correlations among these binary items, the Eysenck personality scales, and age were investigated using PRELIS and LISREL. Willingness to drive and Extraversion correlate at all three times in both males and females. In males, willingness to drive also correlates with Psychoticism, and in females it correlates negatively with the Lie (or Social Desirability) scale. Most correlations between cotwins in willingness to drive were significant in both monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) male twins but correlations were lower in female twins. Factor and Markovian models were fitted. In males there seem to be both genetic and cultural influences on willingness to drive when drunk. About half the genetic variance seems to be the pleiotropic effects of genes influencing Extraversion. The correlationswith Psychoticism, on the other hand, seem to be largely environmental in origin. The small sample size and lack of proper significance tests mean that these results must be interpreted with caution.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Queensland Institute of Medical Research, 4006, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

    N. G. Martin

  2. Department of Experimental Psychology, Free University, De Boelelaan 1115, 1081 HV, Amsterdam, Netherlands

    D. I. Boomsma

Authors
  1. N. G. Martin
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  2. D. I. Boomsma
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Additional information

Data collection was supported by a grant from the Australian Associated Brewers to N.G.M. and Drs. J. G. Oakeshott, J. B. Gibson, and G. A. Starmer and received further support from the Australian NH&MRC Twin Registry. Data analysis was stimulated by the Twin Data Analysis Workshop in Leuven, August 24–29, 1988, organized by Drs. R. Derom and R. Vlietinck and aided by NATO Grant 86/0823 and grants from the Belgian National Research Fund, the State University of Gent, and the Catholic University of Leuven. We thank Ulrich Kehren for preparing the figures.

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Martin, N.G., Boomsma, D.I. Willignes to drive when drunk and personality: A twin study. Behav Genet 19, 97–111 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01065886

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