Nigg and colleagues’ (2004) prospective study investigated high-risk boys prior to the onset of substantive drinking problems. Results revealed that adolescent males from families with high levels of AUD demonstrated significantly lower scores on executive functioning tasks representative of response regulation and suppression than matched controls. In contrast, examination of female adolescents indicates that the relationship between low executive functioning and increased substance use was only supported for girls classified as having a good temperament, whereas this relationship was near-zero for girls with a difficult temperament, exemplified as one standard deviation below the overall mean on the Dimensions of Temperament Survey - Revised (Giancola & Mezzich, 2003). Thus, it appears that not only does level of executive functioning differentially impact male and female adolescents, but temperamental style plays an important mediating role in linking neurobiology to alcohol involvement. While the aforementioned study is limited by its exclusion of male participants, it highlights the importance of considering how personality characteristics, especially those involved in emotional self-regulation and inhibiting inappropriate behaviors, are related to and influenced by executive function processes.
