The majority of studies examining the link between personality and AUDs use broadband measures of personality rather than lower-order structures or facets of personality. However, recent research suggests specific facets of personality may differentially relate to alcohol use and misuse. Whiteside and Lynam (2001) employed factor analyses to identify four distinct personality facets related with impulsive-like behavior: sensation seeking, lack of planning, lack of persistence, and urgency (acting rashly when distressed). More recent evidence suggests that urgency can be broken up into positive and negative components (Cyders et al., 2007). These facets appear to account for different aspects of drinking related behaviors (e.g., urgency traits predict drinking problems, sensation seeking predicts drinking frequency; see Dick et al., 2010; Smith et al., 2007). Additionally, recent research using an updated measure of drinking motives that distinguishes between drinking to cope with depression (coping-depression) and drinking to cope with anxiety (coping-anxiety) suggests that coping-depression and coping-anxiety motives are differentially related to alcohol use and alcohol problems (see Grant, Stewart, O'Connor, Blackwell, & Conrod, 2007). However, it has yet to be documented how these
