No association of adverse life experiences with decision-making impairments in patients with schizophrenia - Evidence from two empirical studies

Patients with schizophrenia (SZ) report higher rates of adverse childhood experiences (ACE) and traumatic life events, which are presumed to contribute to their well-documented cognitive deficits. Yet, empirical evidence of the impact of adverse life experiences on specific cognitive functions, and decision-making in particular, is scarce. We address this research gap by relating the experience of traumatic events to performance in different decision-making tasks and explored whether the association is mediated by general cognitive indices or psychopathology in SZ and healthy controls (HC).In study 1 (https://osf.io/dw2ps/), we examined the beads task for assessing a jumping to conclusion bias and hasty decision-making, the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, and a verbal IQ estimate in 97 SZ and 39 HC. In study 2 (https://osf.io/n7z6y), 40 SZ and 36 HC completed the Game of Dice Task (decision-making under risk), the Iowa Gambling Task (decision-making under ambiguity), the n-back task (working memory), a verbal IQ estimate, and the Trauma History Questionnaire.In study 1, we neither found a direct association between ACE and hasty decision-making, nor mediated effects by IQ or psychopathology. Also in study 2, we neither found an association between trauma history and decision-making under risk or under ambiguity, nor any mediated effects by IQ, working memory, or psychopathology.Taken together, we find no evidence for an association of ACE/lifetime traumatic experiences and decision-making impairments, independent of the applied measure. This suggests that the assumed impact of adverse life experiences on cognitive functioning in SZ might not extend to decision-making.