A Critical Look at the Relationship Between Impulsivity and Decision-Making in Adolescents: Are They Related or Separate Factors?

Abstract

This study examined the relations between impulsivity and decision-making as assessed by the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT). A total of 73 nonclinical adolescents were administered self-report measures for trait impulsivity and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) to assess cognitive impulsivity. We found significant correlations between trait impulsivity and WCST performance among adolescents exhibiting poor performance on the IGT, and no such correlations for those adolescents performing well on the IGT. We recommend that researchers should assess performance on the IGT at the individual level in terms of learning.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This article is based on a PhD dissertation by Rotem Leshem supervised by Prof. Joseph Glicksohn. We thank Andrew Hill and Whitney Eriksen of the Zaidel lab for comments on a previous draft.