To understand how changes in problematic alcohol involvement correspond to change in personality, it is important to investigate the correlated change of problematic alcohol involvement and personality at the individual level. An analytic procedure utilized to examine correlated change between constructs of interest is that of latent growth models (LGMs). These models examine the development of individuals on one or more outcome variables over time by using random effects conceptualized as continuous latent growth factors (Bollen & Curran, 2006). This approach has a number of advantages, including the use of multiple assessment periods and the models being tolerant of missing data.
