Capturing Real-World Risk-Taking with ESM: Links with Executive Function Among Low-SES Youth

• In Event: 2-091 - Ambulatory Assessment of Adolescents’ Externalizing, Capturing Teen Risks In-Situ

Integrative Statement

Executive Function (EF) skills have captured the attention of developmental scholars, in part because of their demonstrated developmental change during adolescence (Blakemore & Choudhury, 2006). EF, broadly conceptualized as the capacity that facilitates adolescents’ ability to control and coordinate their thoughts and behaviors, is tied to prefrontal network function and generally shows linear maturation during the teen-age years (Luciana, 2013). Importantly, deficits in EF have long been shown among individuals who engage in more severe types of externalizing, including adolescents diagnosed with CD (Morgan, & Lilienfeld, 2000). Notwithstanding links between neural physiological deficits and more serious offending, given that EF is invoked in novel settings (e.g. where automatic processing is not deployed) and in situations wherein present and future conflict need be handled, EF has also been implicated in adolescents’ propensity for risk taking (Pharo et al., 2011). That is, given adolescents’ experience of enhanced emotional inputs and stressful and novel contexts, EF is considered pivotal for tamping down on risky “acting out” in response to an over-burdened executive load (Luciana, 2013). Yet research has not yet assessed links between stress response and risk behaviors in daily life, nor how this might link to individual differences in adolescent EF.

The current study provides a novel test of this hypothesis, assessing trait executive function and momentary stress and risk behavior 97 low-SES youth in Western Australia. Youth provided EMA reports 5 times daily for 7 days. Ratings of executive function were taken from the BRIEF behavioral regulation composite, which consisted of Inhibit, Shift, and Emotional Control scales measured on a 3-point scale from (1) never a problem to (3) often a problem. At each time point, youth were asked “Since the last message, has anything bad happened to you?” and “Since the last message, have you done anything risky or dangerous?” both with (1) yes (0) no responses. We lagged stressors in our models so that previous bad event (T-1) predicted subsequent risk taking (T).

Analyses used Hierarchical Linear Modelling in Mplus V8 with FIML. Analyses controlled for grades, pubertal timing, gender and ethnicity. Models were run separately for each EF scale. There were main effects such that Low Inhibition (1.94 (.89) p = .03), and Low Shifting (1.65(.71), p = .02) were associated with increased likelihood of momentary risk taking, as was early pubertal timing across the models. For emotional control, there was no main effect, however a cross-level interaction between emotional control and stressor on subsequent risk taking likelihood (b = 2.98(1.38) p = .031) emerged. Probing and plotting of the effect (Figure a) indicated that youth with lower EC were more likely to engage in risk taking after a stressor relative to higher EC youth.

Results highlight the challenges that low-SES youth face in “coping with inputs,” and associations with in-vivo risk taking. Discussions will highlight the need for continued inquiry into daily life “in the wild” in relation to adolescents’ problem behaviors, particularly for at-risk youth.

Authors

• Kathryn Modecki, Griffith University
  Presenting Author

• Bep Uink, Murdoch University
  Non-Presenting Author

• B. L. Barber, Griffith University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Helen Correia, Murdoch University
  Non-Presenting Author