A person's compulsive nature could be the reason why such individuals indulge in self-destructive behaviour, making harmful choices despite knowing the obvious negative outcomes, according to a new study.

The study, published in the journal Nature Communications Psychology, also found that making compulsive decisions did not appear to be random mistakes or people having "bad days".

"They're stable traits — almost like personality types. This is not to say they're fixed, just that they may require (an) intervention to break," said lead researcher Philip Jean-Richard Dit Bressel, a behavioural neuroscientist and experimental psychologist at The University of New South Wales.