Decision-making in adolescent females who deliberately self-harm
Decision-making in adolescent females who deliberately self-harm

Summary/Abstract: Self-harming behaviour most commonly begins in adolescence and is more frequent among adolescent females. We explored the hypothesis that adolescent females who deliberately self-harm were more likely to perform worse on a decision-making task. Previous research in adolescents who self-harm reported impaired decision-making. However, research put little emphasis on older adolescents and the emotional learning. In our research, we presented the Iowa Gambling Task to 35 adolescent females who self-harmed and were treated at a psychiatric clinic, and to 35 healthy female controls. Our results show that in comparison to the control group the adolescents who self-harm took more risky decisions and were less concerned about the outcome. In addition, the clinical group also focused more on immediate gains and showed a reduced ability to learn from poor decisions in the past. Further research is suggested to explore the potential neurological correlates of decision-making and self-harming behaviour.

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