The Psychological Basis of Addiction

Abstract

This paper treats addiction as a problem of motivation, and reviews three main approaches to understanding motivation as applied to addiction: decision-theory, drive theory and behaviourism. Decision theory considers addicts to be individuals who work out the costs and benefits of their behaviour and, rightly or wrongly, make decisions which lead to the continuation of their addiction. Factors which weigh in the ‘balance sheet’ may include the functions provided by the addiction and withdrawal symptoms which occur during abstinence. The decision-theory approach ties in with other cognitive theories about how beliefs and feelings relevant to decision making are generated; such theories include attribution theory and dissonance theory. Drive theory asserts that addicts are subject to powerful forces which energise and direct behaviour. These forces may result from the addiction tapping into existing drive mechanisms, creating disturbances in these drive mechanisms, or resulting from the acquisition of new drives which may operate at a physiological, psychological or social level. The behaviourist approach eschews the use of hypothetical constructs and focuses instead on directly observable contingencies between behaviour and environmental events. Mechanisms underlying these contingencies are sought at the level of neural pathways. All three approaches have something to offer and many researchers in the field of addiction borrow freely from each.