Investigating the relationship between decision-making processes and cognitive processes, personality traits, and affect via the structural equation model in young adults

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between decision making and set-shifting, working memory, planning, selective attention, personality and affect, and to investigate these relations with the help of the structural equation model (SEM). A total of 100 participants, 59 female and 41 male, participated in the study. The mean age of the participants was 20.42 years (SD = 1.37). Decision making, set-shifting, selective attention, planning, working memory, personality, and affect were measured via the Iowa Gambling Test (IGT), Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, Stroop Test TBAG Version, Tower of London Test, Wechsler Memory Scale-III Letter-Number Sequencing Subtest, Basic Personality Traits Inventory (BPTI), and Positive and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS), respectively, all of which were administered individually. Results of the correlation analyses revealed that various IGT scores were correlated with the four neuropsychological tests as well as the PANAS negative-affect subscale and the BPTI openness to experience factor. Furthermore, the first SEM analysis indicated that the independent latent variables of working memory, set-shifting and planning were significant in predicting the decision making. Finally, the second model of the Block Net Scores revealed the independent latent variables of set-shifting and planning as being significant in decision-making prediction.