An examination of the relevance of the individual differences (A-trait) formulation of the tension-reduction theory to the etiology of alcohol abuse in young males.

An 11-item factor labeled Emotional Tension was recently located within a pool of 24 items which had been found to differentiate both adult male alcoholics and nonsubstance-abusing adult male psychiatric outpatients from putatively normal male adults and college students in a highly significant fashion. The item-unit-weighted scores on this factor of the following five male samples were compared: young alcohol offenders, adult outpatient alcoholics young and adult nonsubstance-abusing psychiatric outpatients, and an unselected run of college students. While the scores of the young nonsubstance-abusing psychiatric outpatients were found to be indistinguishable from those of both adult patient groups, the scores of the young alcohol offenders were indistinguishable from those of college students. Scores on a similarly located, 11-item factor of Depression yielded identical results.