Delay Discounting and Probability Discounting, But Not Response Inhibition, Are Associated With Sexual Risk Taking in Adults

Abstract

Sexual risk behavior (SRB) is associated with impulsivity, but it is not clear whether different aspects of impulsivity are uniquely related to SRBs in adults. Unmarried adults ages 18 to 30 (N = 296; 41.0% male) recruited from the community reported their frequency of SRBs over the past six months using the Sexual Risk Survey (SRS; Turchik & Garske, 2009) and completed three behavioral measures of impulsivity: insensitivity to delayed consequences (delay discounting [DD]), insensitivity to probabilistic consequences (probability discounting [PD]) and response inhibition (stop signal task [SST]). SRS total scores were significantly related to both DD and PD but not SST. These findings suggest that insensitivity to delayed and probabilistic consequences, but not response inhibition, are meaningfully associated with SRBs in young adults. This may be important for the development of strategies to prevent or reduce sexual risk behaviors.

Funding

This project was supported by National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant number P20 RR016454 from the Idaho IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence Program of the National Center for Research Resources and by grant number UF11-13F from the Idaho State University Research Committee.

Additional information

Funding

This project was supported by National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant number P20 RR016454 from the Idaho IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence Program of the National Center for Research Resources and by grant number UF11-13F from the Idaho State University Research Committee.