To Risk or Not to Risk? A Look at Children’s Decision Making

Abstract

The propensity to take risks is thought to increase across childhood, peak in mid adolescence, and decline thereafter. Few studies, however, have compared risk taking in childhood and adolescence. In the current study, we compared risk taking in 36 children (Mean age = 5.28 years) and 54 adolescents (Mean age = 18.95 years) on a lab-based decision making task. The task pitted a guaranteed option and a risk option. Specifically, participants were given an initial offering of tokens and were then asked to choose between keeping those tokens or risking them for a potentially larger gain. The risk option was manipulated trial-by-trial by varying the probability of losses and gains. Results showed that children risked more often than adolescent participants and adolescents behaved in a manner similar to that observed in previous decision making studies with adults. At least with respect to lab based decision making tasks, the current findings support a linear improvement in decision making across development rather than a U-shaped function with risk taking peaking in adolescence. With respect to models of development, our findings reflect the predictions of fuzzy-trace theory and not the imbalance model. Future work may look to extend the age range of participants to provide a fuller developmental perspective of decision making.