Evolutionary Background of Risk-Taking Behavior

Currently, there are no single variable that can be used to predict the probability of one to engage in risky behaviour although, risk taking behaviour and onset of depression and other mental illnesses peaks up during adolescence and in the early adulthood years. This study investigated the association between depression and risk-taking behaviour to determine whether BDI scores and level of depression can be used to determine the probability of one to engage in risk-taking behaviour. An experimental approach was adopted using a balloon game and battery self-evaluation tests where young adults (n=230) with a median age of 19.0 years were evaluated. An overall increase or decrease in risk-taking behaviour was observed among the participants based on their response to depressing factors related to a reward. The study confirmed that depression influences risk-taking behaviour among young adults. The experimental results did not show substantial correlations between age and the risk-taking behaviour. The study further confirmed the findings in the recent studies on the influence of depression that suggest responses to rewards among young adults is a motivator to engage in risky behaviour.

The basic skeleton of the paper is now completed (of which I will attach a copy below for your assistance, alongside other summaries of the dissertation & experiment that was run, eg my formative report), but what I require completing is appropriate statistical analyses of all of the RAW data/results obtained from each participant that was tested. I can send this data to you through the UKW email account as it won’t attach on here, as it needs to be opened & analysed via SPSS software. I then need appropriate statistical analyses to be run on the data & written up both via text & with statistical models/tables.