Associations between Reward and Future-related Orientations and General and Specific Mental Health Issues in Adolescence

Background: Adolescence is characterised by a peak in sensation seeking accompanied by gradually developing self-control skills. Adolescents typically show steeper delay discounting performance than other age groups; a feature that is transdiagnostically related to a variety of mental health disorders. However, delay discounting performance is not a singular mental process but involves the competition between reward seeking and future orientation, which are usually operationalised as probability and time discounting tasks, respectively. Methods: To clarify the specific relations between the reward seeking and future orientation components of delay discounting and different types of mental health problems, two bi-factor models and a series of structural equation models (SEMs) were fitted to multi-informant (parent and adolescent self-report) mental health data from a large longitudinal study. Results: Results suggested support for: 1) a general mental health p-factor and a transdiagnostic relation of time discounting to this factor based on parent reports; 2) time discounting (future orientation/time-waiting) as a protective factor for conduct and ADHD problems, but a risk factor for emotional problems; and 3) risk discounting preference (impulsive sensation seeking/risk-taking) as a protective factor for emotional and peer problems. Conclusions: The findings highlight that time and risk aspects of delay discounting play partly distinct roles in different mental health problems and illuminate which aspects of delay discounting should be targeted for different mental health concerns.