Comparison of the Executive Function of the Reorganization of Thought in Adolescents with Cannabis Abuse

Authors
Bahram Peymannia
Hamid Poursharifi
Abstract
Executive function is a set of processes which is responsible for the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral and performance conduct of human being at the time of activities and problem solving. The aim of this study was the comparison of the executive function of the reorganization of thought in adolescents with cannabis abuse. This study is a casual comparison, so 50 adolescents with cannabis abuse who lived in Ahwaz’ juvenile institution and were between the age of 15 and 18 were selected and were compared with 50 normal adolescents of a high school in Ahwaz city, as the control group, who were similar to each other in terms of some demographical variables and who were selected through availability sampling. To collect the data, Gestalt test, TOVA test (as a continual performance test) and Vygotsky’s concept formation test were used. The data was analyzed through multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). The results showed that the adolescents with a cannabis abuse disorder had weaker performance in the behavior inhibition and reconstruction of thought than the normal adolescents and there was significant difference between these two groups. Generally speaking, considering the results of the study, i.e. the weaker performance of the adolescents with cannabis abuse disorder in executive functions (behavior inhibition and reorganization of thought) than the normal students, it seems that this weakness would lead to the inappropriate social behaviors, problems in decision making, inappropriate judgment, problems with innovation and change, distractibility and problems in various aspects of memory.
Keywords
Executive Functioning
response inhibition
Reorganization of Thought
Substance Abuse (cannabis)
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