Risk taking under the influence: A fuzzy-trace theory of emotion in adolescence

Abstract

Fuzzy-trace theory explains risky decision making in children, adolescents, and adults, incorporating social and cultural factors as well as differences in impulsivity. Here, we provide an overview of the theory, including support for counterintuitive predictions (e.g., when adolescents “rationally” weigh costs and benefits, risk taking increases, but it decreases when the core gist of a decision is processed). Then, we delineate how emotion shapes adolescent risk taking—from encoding of representations of options, to retrieval of values/principles, to application of those values/principles to representations of options. Our review indicates that: (i) gist representations often incorporate emotion including valence, arousal, feeling states, and discrete emotions; and (ii) emotion determines whether gist or verbatim representations are processed. We recommend interventions to reduce unhealthy risk taking that inculcate stable gist representations, enabling adolescents to identify quickly and automatically danger even when experiencing emotion, which differs sharply from traditional approaches emphasizing deliberation and precise analysis.