People aged 50 with bruxism are more likely to be single and have a high level of education. Work-related stress and irregular work shifts may also be involved. Personality traits are also commonly discussed in publications concerning the causes of bruxism, e.g. aggressive, competitive or hyperactive personality types. Some suggest that suppressed anger or frustration can contribute to bruxism. Stressful periods such as examinations, family bereavement, marriage, divorce, or relocation have been suggested to intensify bruxism. Awake bruxism often occurs during periods of concentration such as while working at a computer, driving or reading. Animal studies have also suggested a link between bruxism and psychosocial factors. Rosales et al. electrically shocked lab rats, and then observed high levels of bruxism-like muscular activity in rats that were allowed to watch this treatment compared to rats that did not see it. They proposed that the rats who witnessed the electrical shocking of other rats were under emotional stress which may have caused the bruxism-like behavior. Genetic factors
Some research suggests that there may be a degree of inherited susceptibility to develop sleep bruxism. 21–50% of people with sleep bruxism have a direct family member who had sleep bruxism during childhood, suggesting that there are genetic factors involved, although no genetic markers have yet been identified. Offspring of people who have sleep bruxism are more likely to also have sleep bruxism than children of people who do not have bruxism, or people with awake bruxism rather than sleep bruxism.
Malocclusion is a medical term referring to less than ideal positioning of the upper teeth relative to the lower teeth, which can occur both when the upper jaw is ideally proportioned to the lower jaw, or where there is a discrepancy between the size of the upper jaw relative to the lower jaw. Malocclusion of some sort is so common that the concept of an "ideal occlusion" is called into question, and it can be considered "normal to be abnormal". An occlusal interference may refer to a problem which interferes with the normal path of the bite, and is usually used to describe a localized problem with the position or shape of a single tooth or group of teeth. A premature contact is one part of the bite meeting sooner than other parts, meaning that the rest of the teeth meet later or are held open, e.g., a new dental restoration on a tooth (e.g., a crown) which has a slightly different shape or position to the original tooth may contact too soon in the bite. A deflective contact/interference is an interference with the bite that changes the normal path of the bite. A common example of a deflective interference is an over-erupted upper wisdom tooth, often because the lower wisdom tooth has been removed or is impacted.