The influences of described and experienced information on adolescent risky decision making

Abstract

Adolescents are known to take more risks than adults, which can be harmful to their health and well-being. However, despite age differences in real-world risk taking, laboratory risk-taking paradigms often do not evince these developmental patterns. Recent findings in the literature suggest that this inconsistency may be due in part to differences between how adolescents process information about risk when it is described (e.g., in a description-based classroom intervention) versus when it is experienced (e.g., when a teenager experiences the outcome of a risky choice). The present review considers areas of research that can inform approaches to intervention by deepening our understanding of risk taking in described or experienced contexts. We examine the literature on the description-experience gap, which has generally been limited to studies of adult samples, but which highlights differential decision making when risk information is described versus experienced. Informed by this work, we then explore the developmental literature comparing adolescent to adult decision making, and consider whether inconsistencies in age-related findings might be explained by distinguishing between studies in which participants learn about decision outcomes through experience versus description. In light of evidence that studies using experience-based tasks more often show age differences in risk taking, we consider the implications of this pattern, and argue that experience-based tasks may be more ecologically valid measures of adolescent risky decision making, in part due to the heightened affective nature of these tasks. Finally, we propose a model to integrate our findings with theories of adolescent risk-taking, and discuss implications for risk-reduction messaging.

Contributions of Reward Sensitivity to Ventral Striatum Activity Across Adolescence and Early Adulthood

“…Future longitudinal studies should further examine (a) how individual differences in NAcc sensitivity to rewards in adolescence relate to real‐life explorative behaviors and future achievements and (b) what motivates older adolescents and adults to obtain rewards and how this relates to NAcc reward responses. Importantly, future longitudinal studies should examine how rewards in different contexts, for example, when participants gain rewards for others or play a more complex reward task, affect neural reward mechanisms and behavior across adolescence and early adulthood (Rosenbaum, Venkatraman, Steinberg, & Chein, ). Together, our findings set the stage for future research into unique contributions of motivational factors for the neural underpinnings of explorative behaviors, which might ultimately help adolescents and young adults to become successful adults.…”

Developmental perspectives on risky and impulsive choice

“…Developmental versions of these tasks typically present decision problems as 'wheels of fortune', where probabilities of each decision outcome are both written and visually depicted to aid younger participants in understanding the task [42]. Developmental patterns in decisions under risk are quite variable [7,8,14]. In studies that are limited to adolescent and adult age groups, over half do not report higher risk taking in adolescents [8].…”

Good + Bad = ? Developmental Differences in Balancing Gains and Losses in Value‐Based Decisions From Memory

“…In contrast, a wealth of research has examined the development of decision making involving trade offs between gains and losses under risk (where the outcomes occur with some clearly specified probability; Boyer, 2006;Defoe, Dubas, Figner, & van Aken, 2015;Reyna, 2012). Moreover, developmental research has examined decisions in which information about probabilities is incomplete or ambiguous (e.g., Tymula et al, 2012), or in which both outcomes and their frequencies are uncertain and must be explored through experience (Rosenbaum, Venkatraman, Steinberg, & Chein, 2018;van den Bos & Hertwig, 2017). Further developmental studies have addressed how punishment and reward influences children's decisions in reinforcement learning (Costantini & Hoving, 1973;H€ ammerer, Li, M€ uller, & Lindenberger, 2010;van Duijvenvoorde, Zanolie, Rombouts, Raijmakers, & Crone, 2008).…”

“…Cauffman et al reported that approach toward potential gains followed a curvilinear pattern across development, with sensitivity to positive feedback (to achieve gains) peaking during the adolescent years. Further research suggests that the attractiveness of gains in adolescence could be particularly prominent when decision problems involve active exploration (sampling of outcomes through experience; Rosenbaum et al, 2018) in heightened affective contexts (Figner, Mackinlay, Wilkening, & Weber, 2009).…”

“…Extant developmental studies involving gain or loss outcomes have focused almost exclusively on choice patterns (for overviews, see Boyer, 2006;Defoe et al, 2015;Reyna & Brainerd, 1994;Rosenbaum et al, 2018;Schlottmann & Wilkening, 2011;van Duijvenvoorde, Jansen, & Huizenga, 2015). Here, we applied diffusion modeling that also takes into account the time dynamics of decisions.…”