Chandra A. Reynolds1, Adrian Raine1, Kjetil Melligen2, Peter H. Venables3, Sarnoff A. Mednick1
While previous research suggests that alcohol consumption may vary by religious affiliation and ethnicity, differences in spouse or family similarity for alcohol consumption and alcohol problems have been rarely examined. The present study investigated spouse and familial similarity in a diverse sample of Mauritians who have been participants in an ongoing longitudinal investigation since 1972 (see Bell, B., Mednick, S.A., Raman, A.C., Schulsinger, F., Sutton-Smith, B., Venables, P.H., 1975, Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology, 17, 320- 324. In the present phase 1212 subjects (694 male, 518 female) participated. Measures included self-reports and parental reports of alcohol consumption and alcohol-related problems. Of these, 69.8% were of Indian decent, 24.6% 'General Population' (the official Mauritian Government designation for members of the population of substantially African origin), 1.4% Chinese, and 0.1% French and the remaining 4.1% were classified as ŇotherÓ. Religious affiliation included 54.5% Hindu, 25.4% Catholic, 18.8% Muslim, and the remaining 1.3% were classified as ŇotherÓ. The average age of participants in this latest wave of data collection was 23.36 years (s.d.=1.17). Despite significant differences in abstinence by religious affiliation, biometrical model fitting results indicates strong familiality for abstinence across religious affiliation. Spouse similarity, modeled as phenotypic assortment, could not be equated across religious affiliation. Results for alcohol-related problems, indicated lower familiality and spouse similarity than for abstinence.
Address: Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-1061., E-mail: reynold@rcf.usc.edu; Phone: (213) 740-0864; FAX: (213) 746-5994.
1Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-1061. 2Mauritius Child Health Unit, Mauritius 3University of York, Department of Psychology, Heslington, England