Background: Childhood traumas can affect various aspects of an adolescent's life, such as executive functions and risk-taking. Therefore, investigating executive functions and risk-taking in individuals based on the extent of childhood traumas is important. The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between childhood traumas and adolescent risk-taking with the mediation of executive functions.
Method: The present research method was descriptive-correlational, utilizing structural equation modeling. The statistical population consisted of all high school students (both first and second periods) in Saveh county during the 2023-2024 academic year. From this population, a sample of 260 individuals was selected through cluster random sampling. Research tools included the Barrett's Balloon Risk Tolerance Test (Lejuez & Aklin, 2003), the Executive Skills Scale-Revised (Dawson & Guare, 2012), and the Childhood Trauma Scale-Short Form (Bernstein et al., 2003). Data analysis was performed using Pearson's correlation test and structural equation modeling.
Results:The results showed that the direct effects of emotional abuse on executive functions (β=-0.24), physical abuse on risk-taking (β=0.16), sexual abuse on risk-taking (β=-0.13), emotional neglect on executive functions (β=-0.21), physical neglect on executive functions(β=-0.16), and executive functions on risk-taking (β=0.67) were significant (P<0.05). Furthermore, the indirect effect of all childhood traumas through executive functions was also significant, and the model had a desirable fit (RMSEA=0.077).
Conclusion: Traumatic experiences such as physical, sexual, emotional, and physical abuse and neglect weaken the brain's executive functions, which are responsible for impulse control and logical decision-making. This impairment, in turn, paves the way for the emergence of risk-taking behaviors.