Risky decision making in a laboratory driving task is associated with health risk behaviors during late adolescence but not adulthood

Abstract

Adolescence is characterized by increasing incidence of health risk behaviors, including experimentation with drugs and alcohol. To fill the gap in our understanding of the associations between risky decision-making and health risk behaviors, we investigated associations between laboratory-based risky decision-making using the Stoplight task and self-reported health risk behaviors. Given that there has been no examination of potential age differences in the associations between risky decision-making and health risk behaviors, we also examined whether the association of risky decision-making with health risk behaviors is consistent across adolescence and adulthood using two-group structural equation modeling (SEM). The results indicated significant differences across the two age groups: adolescents (17–20 year olds) who took more risks on the Stoplight task reported greater frequency and earlier onset of substance use, whereas stoplight performance was not associated with substance use frequency or onset among adults (31–61 year olds). Our findings suggest that a laboratory-based measure of risky decision-making is significantly related to health risk behaviors among adolescents but not among adults.