Decision-Making in Young Adolescents and Adults

Learning to Make Good Decisions: A Self‐Regulation Perspective

“…So far, we have shown how the Self-Regulation Model describes ES, LS, DM, and factors that may impede developmental improvements in decision-making. When studies reveal age differences in decisionmaking components such as goals (e.g., Paris, Wasik, & Turner, 1991), compilation strategies (e.g., Byrnes & Torney-Purta, 1995), evaluation strategies (e.g., Byrnes & McClenny, 1994;Davidson, 1991), or selection of options (e.g., Davidson, 1995;Jacobs & Potenza, 1991), they essentially show differences between ES and LS. The Self-Regulation Model would explain these differences by suggesting that some combination of feedback and endogenous factors (e.g., tendencies toward self-regulation, memory limitations, biases, and so forth) produced these age differences over time.…”

“…On each trial, the two decks that contained questions were the focal decks. The third deck with 3 "go back" cards was employed as a check in Byrnes and McClenny (1994) to make sure that the youngest participants understood the task. Although the participants in that study selected this path less than 1% of the time, we retained it in the present study in order to keep the tasks identical in all respects except for the presence of verbal feedback.…”

“…In the second experiment, the task was made more complex by including three types of cards in each deck. Byrnes and McClenny (1994) found that both age groups performed more poorly on this task because they seemed to be unable to accurately assess the likelihood of winning points; that is, they were often overconfident or underconfident. Those who were overconfident tended to choose options that were beyond their ability; those who were underconfident tended to avoid options that could have earned them more points.…”

“…In the first study, we examined learning in the context of a decision-making task that was employed in two experiments by Byrnes and McClenny (1994). To perform well on the task, players had to determine which of three options was most likely to earn them points.…”

“…These studies suggested that adults could progressively learn to make better decisions if they received relatively clear feedback from outcomes (e.g., Busemeyer & Myung, 1992;Hogarth, Gibbs, McKenzie, & Marquis, 1991). Two studies with adolescents revealed that participants tended to shift their choices on an outcome-by-outcome basis (Byrnes & McClenny, 1994;Miller & Byrnes, 1997). Moreover, evidence from other domains suggested that adolescents may be less likely than adults to reflectively integrate their performance over trials and to reason probabilistically (Garner, 1987;Moshman, 1998;Surber & Haines, 1987).…”