Summary~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 I .6l (95% confidence interval (CI) I. I I-
2.36) for extraversion and I .48 (95%Cl I .Ol-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. Copyright (‘ 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.