The role of internalising symptoms and memory bias in male and female adolescent risk-taking

Background: Heightened maladaptive risk-taking associated with affective disorders has created a double burden for adolescents suffering from depression and anxiety. Yet, how and through what mechanism risk-taking and internalising symptoms covary across development remain poorly understood. This study examines the role of negative self-referential memory bias, which is proposed to modulate mental representations of past risk-taking experiences and so to influence future risk-taking. Methods: Data was drawn from the CogBIAS Longitudinal Study that assessed adolescent development across three waves (N = 504, Mage = 13.4). Risk-taking was measured with the Balloon Analogue Risk Task and self-referential memory bias was indexed as the proportion of endorsed negative relative to positive traits recalled on the Self-Referential Encoding Task. Results: Adolescent risk-taking increased across waves. Multigroup random-intercept cross-lagged panel models showed that greater memory bias at one wave predicted increases in risk-taking at the next wave in girls but decreases in risk-taking in boys. Decreases in male risk-taking in turn reinforced their negative memory bias. In contrast, internalising symptoms did not on their own, or in interaction with memory bias, predict risk-taking over time in this cohort. Conclusion: Changes in memory bias may be a precursor of gender-atypical increases in risk aversion in male adolescents and heightened risk appetite in female adolescents. Risk-taking may serve as both an indicator and a potential intervention target in adolescents.