The urgency facet of impulsivity, that is, the tendency to act rashly in response to intense emotional
contexts [Cyders, M. A., & Smith, G. T. (2008). Emotion-based dispositions to rash action: positive and
negative urgency. Psychological Bulletin, 134, 807e828], has been related to a wide range of maladaptive
behaviours. The present study further investigates the role of urgency in problematic behaviours by
considering distinct psychological mechanisms that may underlie this component of impulsivity. With
this aim, 95 volunteer participants were screened with self-reported questionnaires assessing urgency
and three problematic behaviours (compulsive buying, excessive mobile phone use, excessive Internet
use). They performed two laboratory tasks: a stop-signal task designed to assess the capacity to inhibit
prepotent responses in response to both neutral and emotional stimuli; and the Iowa Gambling Task
(IGT) measuring the ability to take into account the future consequences of an action. A poor ability to
inhibit prepotent responses in the emotional condition of the stop-signal task was found to predict more
disadvantageous choices in the IGT, which ultimately results in higher urgency and more problematic
behaviours. These findings shed new light on the construct of urgency, its related psychological mechanisms,
and its role in problematic behaviours.