Abstract
Recent developmental models assume a higher tendency to take risks in mid-adolescence, while the empirical evidence for this assumption is rather mixed. Most of the studies applied quite different tasks to measure risk-taking behavior and used a narrow age range. The main goal of the present study was to examine risk-taking behavior in four task settings, the Treasure Hunting Task (THT) in a gain and a loss domain, the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART), and the STOPLIGHT task. These task settings differ in affective task moderators, like descriptive vs. experienced outcomes, anticipation of gains vs. losses, static vs. dynamic risk presentation, and time pressure vs. no time pressure and were applied in a sample of 187 participants from age 9–18. Beneath age trends, we were interested in their association with individual differences in approach behavior, venturesomeness, impulsivity, and empathy above age, gender, and fluid intelligence. Our findings revealed that risk-taking behavior is only low to moderately correlated between the four task contexts, suggesting that they capture different aspects of risk-taking behavior. Accordingly, a mid-adolescent peak in risk propensity was only found under time pressure in the STOPLIGHT that was associated with higher impulsivity and empathy. In contrast, risky decisions decreased with increasing age in task settings, in which losses were anticipated (THT Loss), and this was associated with higher cognitive abilities. We found no age differences when gains were anticipated, neither in a static (THT Gain) nor in a dynamic task setting (BART). These findings clearly suggest the need to consider affective task moderators, as well as individual differences in temperament and cognitive abilities, in actual models about adolescent development.
Highlights
There is an immense increase in studying developmental changes in cognitive, emotional, and social functioning throughout adolescence
The present study examined the influence of age and individual differences in temperament components on four types of decision-making contexts
We examined whether individual differences in temperament can explain individual differences in risky decisions above and beyond age, gender, and fluid intelligence, and whether these influences differed depending on the task context
Summary
There is an immense increase in studying developmental changes in cognitive, emotional, and social functioning throughout adolescence (for reviews, see Spear, 2000; Steinberg, 2008; Blakemore, 2012; Crone and Dahl, 2012; Shulman et al, 2016). While the socioemotional system strengthens motivation to pursue rewards in adolescence, the cognitive control system is not yet matured enough to restrain impulses to achieve rewards and to seek for sensations (cf Dual Systems Model, Steinberg, 2008; Maturational Imbalance Model, Casey et al, 2008; Driven Dual Systems Model, Luna and Wright, 2016; and Triadic Model, Ernst, 2014) These neuroscientific insights into brain development over the course of adolescence (Giedd et al, 1999; Sowell et al, 2002; Paus, 2005; Casey et al, 2008) might explain the adolescent-specific tendency for exploration and higher risk-taking, as well as the rise in mortality rates during mid-adolescence (see Dick and Ferguson, 2015). There is a strong need to better understand under which situations higher risk-taking is induced in mid-adolescents, so that in the last decade, a number of quite different laboratory tasks have been created to measure different aspects of risk-taking behavior (for a review, see Defoe et al, 2015)
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