Ursache Alexandra, Raver C Cybele
Department of Applied Psychology, 246 Greene St, Kimball Hall, 8 floor, New York University, New York, NY 10003.
Pers Individ Dif. 2015 Jun 1;79:1-6. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2015.01.010.
This study examines preadolescents' reports of risk-taking as predicted by two different, but related inhibitory control systems involving sensitivity to reward and loss on the one hand, and higher order processing in the context of cognitive conflict, known as executive functioning (EF), on the other. Importantly, this study examines these processes with a sample of inner-city, low-income preadolescents and as such examines the ways in which these processes may be related to risky behaviors as a function of children's levels of both concurrent and chronic exposure to household poverty. As part of a larger longitudinal study, 382 children (ages 9 -11) provided a self-report of risky behaviors and participated in the Iowa Gambling task, assessing bias for infrequent loss (preference for infrequent, high magnitude versus frequent, low magnitude loss) and the Hearts and Flowers task assessing executive functioning. Results demonstrated that a higher bias for infrequent loss was associated with higher risky behaviors for children who demonstrated lower EF. Furthermore, bias for infrequent loss was most strongly associated with higher risk-taking for children facing highest levels of poverty. Implications for early identification and prevention of risk-taking in inner-city preadolescents are discussed.
本研究考察了青春期前儿童的冒险行为报告，这些报告由两种不同但相关的抑制控制系统预测，一方面涉及对奖励和损失的敏感度，另一方面涉及认知冲突背景下的高阶加工，即执行功能（EF）。重要的是，本研究以城市中心低收入青春期前儿童为样本考察了这些过程，从而考察了这些过程可能与冒险行为相关的方式，这些冒险行为是儿童同时期和长期处于家庭贫困水平的函数。作为一项更大规模纵向研究的一部分，382名儿童（9至11岁）提供了冒险行为的自我报告，并参与了爱荷华赌博任务（评估对罕见损失的偏好，即偏好罕见的高幅度损失而非频繁的低幅度损失）以及评估执行功能的“心与花”任务。结果表明，对于执行功能较低的儿童，对罕见损失的较高偏好与较高的冒险行为相关。此外，对于面临最高贫困水平的儿童，对罕见损失的偏好与较高的冒险行为关联最为强烈。文中讨论了对城市中心青春期前儿童冒险行为进行早期识别和预防的意义。
