Drug Abuse & Addiction
Objectives:
1.
2.
3.
To introduce drug abuse and addiction as topics in
psychological science
To show that drug taking is a behavior shared by people
and nonhuman animals, one that can be studied
rigorously with laboratory animal models
To discuss concepts pertinent to drug taking:
reinforcement, decision making, psychosocial factors,
brain reward circuitry
Cognitive: Psychologists have obtained good evident that
environmental cues play an important role in maintaining an
addictive behavior. They also study the role of executive
functioning in drug addiction (e.g., decision making,
impulsivity, and so on).
Learning: Rewards, or “reinforcers,” increase the
behaviors they follow. Psychologists are interested in
whether drugs function as reinforcers in much the same
way as do other reinforcers (e.g., food, water, money).
Neuroscience: Using diverse methods with people and
laboratory animals, psychologists study which parts of
the brain make up the “reward circuit,” and what
chemical messengers in the brain are associated with
the reward circuitry. Dopamine, for instance, is a
neurochemical that appears to be important to drugtaking behavior.
Sociocultural: Psychologists also are interested in how
social situations and cultural factors influence drug taking.
Question include: How do social interactions influence
drug taking? How does society contribute to the drug
taking culture? What are the perceptions of drug
addiction on the whole: A disease, behavioral dysfunction,
character flaw, or moral failure?
Related Readings
Scientific American articles
– “Sobering Shift,” April 2004
– “The Addicted Brain,” March 2004
– “Beating Abuse,” January 2002
Online resource:
National Institute on Drug Abuse online, at
http://www.nida.nih.gov/