Avoidance in Adolescence: The Balloon Risk Avoidance Task (BRAT)

A large body of work documents the utility of behavioral risk tasks for making inferences about adolescent risk-taking proclivities and related emotional and motivational correlates. Much less attention has been paid to risk-avoidance during adolescence. We provide validity data for a behavioral measure designed to assess avoidance, the Balloon Risk-Avoidance Task (BRAT). We examined avoidance in 127 youth, ages 10–17 (51% female, 68% Caucasian). Correlation analyses indicated significant positive associations between anxiety, fear, and BRAT avoidance behavior. Providing discriminant validity, avoidance on the BRAT was unrelated to depressive symptoms, depressed mood, or trait surgency (approach motivation). The BRAT was negatively associated with risk-taking behavior on the Balloon Analog Risk Task (BART). IQ and age were not associated with avoidance on the BRAT. We found that females showed significantly more avoidance behavior than males, but sex did not moderate the association between anxiety and avoidance. Cluster-based analyses revealed a subset of youth in mid-to-late adolescence showing significantly greater levels of avoidance behavior on the BRAT. These adolescents had higher levels of reported anxiety symptoms compared to individuals in mid-to-late who show lower levels of avoidance. Findings are discussed in terms of the clinical implications and the potential role that avoidance serves as both protective and risk factors in youth.