TY - JOUR
T1 - Resolving ambiguity
T2 - Broadening the consideration of risky decision making over adolescent development
AU - Blankenstein, Neeltje E.
AU - Huettel, Scott A.
AU - Li, Rosa
N1 - Funding Information:
SAH is supported by NIMH R01-108627. RL is supported by the Winston Family Initiative in Technology and Adolescent Brain Development.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Author(s)
Copyright:
Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2021/12
Y1 - 2021/12
N2 - Popular culture often portrays adolescence as a period of peak risk-taking, but that developmental trend is not consistently found across laboratory studies. Instead, meta-analytic evidence shows that while adolescents take more risks compared to adults, children and adolescents actually take similar levels of risk. Furthermore, developmental trajectories vary across different measures of laboratory decision making and everyday risky behavior. Indeed, the psychological concept of “risk” is multifactorial, such that its different factors exhibit different developmental trajectories. Here, we examine how economic risk preference, or the propensity to gamble on uncertain outcomes with known probabilities, is distinct from economic ambiguity preference, or the propensity to gamble on uncertain outcomes with unknown probabilities – and how economic risk and ambiguity may differentially influence adolescent decision making. Economic ambiguity engages distinct neural mechanisms from economic risk – both in adults and adolescents – and differentially relates to everyday risk-taking. However, to date, it remains elusive how economic ambiguity aversion develops across adolescence, as the relative paucity of such work limits the conclusions that can be drawn. We propose that developmental research into adolescent decision making should consider economic ambiguity as a distinct component within the multifactorial construct of adolescent risk-taking. This will set the stage for future work on economic ambiguity preferences as an explanatory mechanism for behaviors beyond risk taking, such as learning and prosocial behavior.
AB - Popular culture often portrays adolescence as a period of peak risk-taking, but that developmental trend is not consistently found across laboratory studies. Instead, meta-analytic evidence shows that while adolescents take more risks compared to adults, children and adolescents actually take similar levels of risk. Furthermore, developmental trajectories vary across different measures of laboratory decision making and everyday risky behavior. Indeed, the psychological concept of “risk” is multifactorial, such that its different factors exhibit different developmental trajectories. Here, we examine how economic risk preference, or the propensity to gamble on uncertain outcomes with known probabilities, is distinct from economic ambiguity preference, or the propensity to gamble on uncertain outcomes with unknown probabilities – and how economic risk and ambiguity may differentially influence adolescent decision making. Economic ambiguity engages distinct neural mechanisms from economic risk – both in adults and adolescents – and differentially relates to everyday risk-taking. However, to date, it remains elusive how economic ambiguity aversion develops across adolescence, as the relative paucity of such work limits the conclusions that can be drawn. We propose that developmental research into adolescent decision making should consider economic ambiguity as a distinct component within the multifactorial construct of adolescent risk-taking. This will set the stage for future work on economic ambiguity preferences as an explanatory mechanism for behaviors beyond risk taking, such as learning and prosocial behavior.
KW - Adolescence
KW - Ambiguity
KW - Development
KW - Risk taking
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85112520757&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.dr.2021.100987
DO - 10.1016/j.dr.2021.100987
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85112520757
VL - 62
JO - Developmental Review
JF - Developmental Review
SN - 0273-2297
M1 - 100987
ER -