ADHD and the avoidance of mental effort: the role of response inhibition and avoidance motivation

ABSTRACT

Objective

The tendency of people with ADHD to avoid tasks that require mental effort impacts their academic achievement. Findings in the literature suggest that children with ADHD find cognitive tasks more effortful and uncomfortable than their typically developing peers. However, neuropsychological processes contributing to this remain unclear. The present study investigated whether the relationship between prepotent motor response inhibition and avoiding mental effort is mediated by the ability to resist avoidance motivation and whether this proposed mediation mechanism is contingent on ADHD diagnosis.

Method

40 children with ADHD and 40 gender and age-matched typically developing peers participated in the study. They completed the Cognitive Effort Avoidance Measure, the Go/No-go Task, and the Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory-Personality Questionnaire-Children. Mediation and moderated mediation analyses were employed to test the hypotheses.

Results

Children with ADHD scored lower in response inhibition and resisting avoidance motivation. Poorer scores in these variables were associated with a higher avoidance rate. Moreover, the ability to resist avoidance motivation completely mediated the relationship between response inhibition and avoidance rate only among children with ADHD.

Conclusion

Findings imply that poorer response inhibition led to an increase in avoidance motivation among children with ADHD, which becomes challenging to regulate effectively due to an impairment in the ability to resist avoidance motivation. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• ADHD
• avoiding mental effort
• rRST-BIS
• resisting avoidance motivation
• prepotent motor response inhibition

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics approval

Approval was obtained from the ethics committee of City, University of London and Near East University. The procedures used in this study adhere to the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki.

Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all participants included in the study and their legal guardians.

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/13803395.2023.2284974

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.