@article{ref1,
title="Preference on Cash-Choice Task Predicts Externalizing Outcomes in 17-Year-Olds",
journal="Behavior genetics",
year="2014",
author="Sparks, Jordan C. and Isen, Joshua D. and Iacono, William G.",
volume="44",
number="2",
pages="102-112",
abstract="Delay-discounting, the tendency to prefer a smaller-sooner reward to a larger-later reward, has been associated with a range of externalizing behaviors. Laboratory delay-discounting tasks have emerged as a useful measure to index impulsivity and a proclivity towards externalizing pyschopathology. While many studies demonstrate the existence of a latent externalizing factor that is heritable, there have been few genetic studies of delay-discounting. Further, the increased vulnerability for risky behavior in adolescence makes adolescent samples an attractive target for future research, and expeditious, ecologically-valid delay-discounting measures are helpful in this regard. The primary goal of this study was to help validate the utility of a &quot;cash-choice&quot; measure for use in a sample of older adolescents. We used a sample of 17-year-old twins (n = 791) from the Minnesota Twin Family Enrichment study. Individuals who chose the smaller-sooner reward were more likely to have used a range of addictive substances, engaged in sexual intercourse, and earned lower GPAs. Best fitting biometric models from univariate analyses supported the heritability of cash-choice and externalizing, but bivariate modeling results indicated that the correlation between cash-choice and externalizing was determined largely by shared environmental influences, thus failing to support cash-choice as a possible endophenotype for externalizing in this age group. Our findings lend further support to the utility of cash-choice as a measure of individual differences in decision making and suggest that, by late adolescence, this task indexes shared environmental risk for externalizing behavior.<p /><p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0001-8244",
doi="10.1007/s10519-013-9638-2",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10519-013-9638-2"
}