A tomada de decisão em jovens institucionalizados

Abstract

The Neuroscience knowledge provides insight about the cerebral development that occurs in adolescence. It is noted that adolescents present a decision-making process that favors reaching rewards, instead of avoiding punishments. Thus, they are more likely to develop risk behaviors that can lead to illicit actions. The main purpose of this study was to assess the capacity of decision making in ambiguous and risk contexts in institutionalized adolescents (n=17) with the Gambling Task and compare their performance with a control group (n=17). The results of the study indicate that the group of institutionalized adolescents reveals better performance than control group in ambiguous decision-making. In risk decision-making, the results analysis might suggest greater sensitivity to rewards than for punishment in institutionalized adolescents group. Additionally, the investigation searched for a correlation between the performance in the task with the IQ level, through Raven's Progressive Matrices, and the gravity of the illicit acts committed by the group of institutionalized adolescents. However, it was not possible to find any relation between the variables. This study gave a contribute to enhance the knowledge about the decision making process during adolescence and, particularly, in institutionalized population.

Date of Award	19 Dec 2018
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	José Leonel Góis Horácio (Supervisor)