Exposure to traumatic stressors and subsequent trauma-related mental changes may alter a person's risk-taking behavior. It is unclear whether this relationship depends on the specific types of traumatic experiences. Moreover, the association has never been tested in displaced individuals with substantial levels of traumatic experiences. The present study assessed risk-taking behavior in 56 displaced individuals by means of the balloon analogue risk task (BART). Exposure to traumatic events, symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder and depression were assessed by means of semi-structured interviews. Using a novel statistical approach (stochastic gradient boosting machines), we analyzed predictors of risk-taking behavior. Exposure to organized violence was associated with less risk-taking, as indicated by fewer adjusted pumps in the BART, as was the reported experience of physical abuse and neglect, emotional abuse, and peer violence in childhood. However, civil traumatic stressors, as well as other events during childhood were associated with lower risk taking. This suggests that the association between global risk-taking behavior and exposure to traumatic stress depends on the particular type of the stressors that have been experienced. © 2017 Augsburger, Elbert. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

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clinical outcome depression Germany refugee child neglect complication human Life Change Events Refugees middle aged life event violence controlled study emotional abuse machine learning physical abuse Young Adult Humans psychology geography male stochastic model female traumatology Article high risk behavior Risk-Taking adult posttraumatic stress disorder Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic exposure to violence