In total, this resulted in two models that were estimated to examine the influence of marriage/parenthood on the relation between personality and alcohol involvement.5 In these models, marriage/parenthood was modeled as an intervening variable with directional paths from the respective alcohol and personality intercepts to the marriage/parenthood variable and directional paths from the marriage/parenthood variable to alcohol and personality slopes (see Figure 2). The results from these models for impulsivity and neuroticism are presented in Figures 4 and 5, respectively. As indicated in these figures, the statistical significance of the relation between personality and alcohol involvement was unaffected. The magnitude of these correlations ranged from .30 to .35, roughly indicating medium effect sizes (Cohen, 1988). Furthermore, these models indicate that marriage/parenthood had socialization influences on neuroticism and problematic alcohol involvement, such that individuals who married (and stayed married) and/or had children from ages 25 to 35 tended to respectively decline in neuroticism and problematic alcohol involvement at steeper rates (i.e., have more negative slopes) than individuals who remained unmarried (or got divorced) and/or did not have children from ages 25 to 35.
