The relationship between sensation seeking, impulsivity and risk taking behaviours in adolescence and early adulthood: stronger predictive power of subscales

Masters Research - Masters of Clinical Psychology (MClinPsych)Risk taking describes behaviours such as drug and alcohol use, risky sexual behaviour and aggression, and tends to peak during adolescence and early adulthood. It has been proposed that brain structures and networks associated with reward sensitivity and sensation seeking are mature by mid-adolescence, leading to a peak in risk taking prior to maturation of structures and pathways in the prefrontal cortex associated with decline in impulsivity and coinciding decrease in risk taking behaviour (Steinberg, 2008). The aim of the current study is to provide comprehensive behavioural data to determine whether increased sensation seeking and impulsivity account for increased risk taking and explore whether specific dimensions of these traits are more effective to predict variance in risk taking behaviours when controlling for age, gender, intelligence and psychological distress. Participants (N = 238, 58% female) were recruited through fliers in the local university, schools, community clubs and the internet; of these, 175 participants completed the Wechsler Scale of Abbreviated Intelligence II (WASI-II), Depression Anxiety Stress Scale 21 (DASS21), Sensation Seeking Scale V (SSS-V), Barratt Impulsivity Scale II (BIS-II) and Cognitive Appraisal for Risky Events (CARE) Past Frequency subscale. Exploratory Stepwise regression analyses revealed subscales repeatedly emerged as better predictors than overall scores. The SSS-V Disinhibition, BIS-II Motor Impulsiveness and DASS21 Depression subscales predicted 20% of variance in overall risk taking behaviour, largely accounted for by variance in drug and alcohol use. Future research should include subscale-level analysis, and explore alternative instruments or models to predict engagement in risky sexual and aggressive behaviours