Dorien Bangma

SUMMARY | 269 (except with the affective component of impulsive buying). More (or more severe) symptoms of depression were related to the use of an intuitive decision style. Furthermore, an older age was found to be positively related to the use of an avoidant decision style when making financial decisions. Being female and a younger age were found to be negatively related to impulsive buying. With regard to the personal financial situation, the ADHD group less often saved for their retirement compared to the No ADHD group. In contrast to previous research, no group differences were found on all other aspects of the personal financial situation of participants, including income, debts and the use of a savings account. The use of a community sample also enabled the evaluation of two other ADHD groups: An Adult-only ADHD group (n = 57) meeting the self-reported symptom criteria of adult ADHD but not for childhood ADHD and a Subthreshold ADHD group (n = 162) reporting a subthreshold number of current symptoms of ADHD (i.e., 3 or 4 symptoms of either inattention or hyperactivity/impulsivity). No differences were found between the Subthreshold ADHD group and the No ADHD group with regard to impulsive buying and the use of financial decision styles. However, the Adult-only ADHD group reported a stronger tendency to buy on impulse on both the cognitive and affective component of impulsive buying and used more often an avoidant decision style when making financial decisions compared to the No ADHD group. Despite several described limitations, the results of this study indicate more impulsive buying and a more frequent use of disadvantageous financial decisions styles (i.e., avoidant and spontaneous styles) in individuals fulfilling self-reported current ADHD criteria (i.e., adults with ADHD and adults with adult- only or late-onset ADHD) compared to individuals without symptoms of ADHD. Contextual factors, i.e., personality and demographic variables, might (at least partly) be of influence on the association between impulsive buying, the use of financial decision styles and ADHD. However, no direct causal conclusions can be drawn and prospective longitudinal research is suggested to further investigate causality between these variables. Part IV: Discussion This thesis concludes with a critical discussion of the presented studies and a general conclusion (chapter 9) . In summary, evidence has been found that patients with NDDs and adults with ADHD are more likely to show FDM capability problems than healthy individuals. The severity of cognitive impairment seems to be related to the degree of problems with FDM capability in these patients. Numeracy was most consistently found as significant predictor of aspects of FDM capability in healthy controls, patients with NDDs as well as in adults with ADHD. Furthermore, evidence has been found that processing speed, working memory and verbal memory are positively related to the ability to make (adequate) financial decisions. For other cognitive functions, results were inconclusive. Besides cognitive impairment, several contextual factors, such as age, level of education or personality, seem to play a role and relate to aspects of the FDM capability of an individual in a negative (or positive) way. To make (clinical) decisions about the autonomy of an individual to make his or her own financial decisions, a careful and comprehensive examination is required which respects the ethical principles autonomy, beneficence, justice and non-maleficence. For this purpose, it is suggested to aggregate different sources of information, including both indirect and direct