Publication date: Aug 14, 2026
Changes in personality during adolescence may shape future alcohol use, especially in times of societal crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted social norms and stress regulation, making it a natural experiment to examine how early-life personality trajectories predict later substance use. Using longitudinal data from the European IMAGEN cohort (N = 968), we investigated whether intra-individual personality changes during adolescence predicted alcohol use at three timepoints: pre-pandemic, immediately after COVID-19 onset (T1), and several months into the pandemic (T2). Generalized Additive Mixed Models (GAMMs) were used to model non-linear relationships between adolescent personality change (e. g., in anxiety sensitivity and openness) and alcohol use frequency across time. Participants were drawn from the IMAGEN cohort (N = 968; 54. 4% female), assessed longitudinally from early adolescence (BL: M = 13. 93, SD = 0. 41) through middle (FU1: M = 16. 04, SD = 0. 60) and late adolescence (FU2: M = 18. 41, SD = 0. 65) to early adulthood (FU3: M = 22. 00, SD = 0. 66), with additional follow-ups during the COVID-19 pandemic (COVID-T1: M = 25. 00, SD = 0. 81; COVID-T2: M = 25. 56, SD = 0. 75). Assessments were conducted at approximately 2-year intervals during adolescence and at shorter intervals (several months) during the COVID-19 period. Analyses controlled for sex and country-level lockdown stringency. Intra-individual fluctuations in anxiety sensitivity significantly predicted increased alcohol use several months into the pandemic (T2; EDF = 1. 86, p
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Semantics
| Type | Source | Name |
|---|---|---|
| disease | MESH | COVID-19 pandemic |
| disease | MESH | substance use |
| disease | MESH | anxiety |
| drug | DRUGBANK | Ethanol |
| disease | MESH | Alcohol abuse |