Selection into the restaurant business based on personality characteristics and the risk of heavy drinking

Selection into the restaurant business based on personality characteristics and its possible impact on the risk of heavy drinking was investigated in a sample of 3283 male and female waiters and cooks. Neuroticism and extraversion were assessed by an abbreviated version of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. Restaurant employees scored significantly higher on extraversion compared with a population sample. On neuroticism, there was no difference between the male employees and male population, while the female employees scored significantly lower than the female comparison group. Adjusted for sociodemographic factors, the odds ratio (OR) for heavy drinking among those scoring in the upper third of the personality distributions, as compared with the lower, was 1.61 (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.11–2.36) for extraversion and 1.48 (95%CI 1.01–2.15) for neuroticism. The group simultaneously scoring in the upper third of the distributions on extraversion and neuroticism showed an especially high risk of heavy drinking compared with those within the lower third.