Studies of personality and alcohol use/abuse suggest that there are two personality-related pathways to early onset alcohol abuse; (i) a sensation seeking pathway, where sensation seeking is specifically associated with increased alcohol use and alcohol seeking behaviors, which, in turn, is associated with alcohol problems, and (ii) a social deviance pathway where social deviance proneness is directly associated with more alcohol problems (Finn, Sharkansky et al. 2000; Finn 2002; Mustanski, Viken et al. 2003; Finn and Hall 2004). Sensation seeking and social deviance are typically correlated and both, ultimately, are associated with alcohol problems; however, the evidence suggests that each pathway is associated with a different vulnerability process (Finn, Mazas et al. 2002; Mustanski, Viken et al. 2003). The sensation seeking pathway is associated with a predisposition toward excessive alcohol use that involves, in part, an increased sensitivity of appetitive motivational processes (Finn, Mazas et al. 2002). High sensation seekers show a pattern of heightened heart rate reactivity to alcohol consumption thought to reflect increased appetitive processes, and are more sensitive to the invigorating properties of alcohol, while being less
