Financial Fraud Victimization Among Young Adults in Taiwan: Roles of Executive Functioning, Personality Traits, and the Self‐Reported Attention‐Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Diagnosis
Yi‐Chun Yeh, Pai‐Cheng Lin, Chung‐Ying Lin, Yu‐Ping Chang, Peng‐Wei Wang, Cheng‐Fang YenABSTRACT
Background
Financial fraud victimization can lead to financial devastation and is associated with mental health problems. The current study examined differences in executive function, personality traits, and the rate of a self‐reported attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) diagnosis across varying experiences of financial fraud victimization among young adults in Taiwan.
Methods
A total of 1764 young adults participated in this study. The participants reported their experiences with 11 types of financial fraud over the past 5 years. The participants were categorized into the following three groups on the basis of their exposure to financial fraud and whether they lost money: no exposure to fraud, exposure without monetary loss, and exposure with monetary loss. The executive function, personality traits, and the rate of a self‐reported ADHD diagnosis were compared among the three groups using multivariate analysis of covariance.
Results
Of the participants, 47.6% had been scammed out of money, 26.9% had experienced fraud without monetary loss, and 25.5% had had no exposure to financial fraud. The participants who had been scammed were more likely to self‐report having an ADHD diagnosis and reported worse working memory and inhibition than did the participants in the other groups (all p < 0.001). The participants exposed to fraud without monetary loss reported worse working memory than did those with no exposure ( p < 0.001). The participants who had no exposure to fraud scored higher in terms of extraversion ( p = 0.010), agreeableness ( p < 0.001), conscientiousness ( p < 0.001), and openness ( p = 0.023) than did those who had been scammed, whereas the participants who had been scammed scored higher in terms of neuroticism than did those with no exposure ( p = 0.009).
Conclusion
Differences in executive functioning, personality traits, and the rate of a self‐reported ADHD diagnosis were observed among the young adults with varying experiences of financial fraud victimization.