2-030 - Domain-Specific and Domain-General Determinants of Adolescent Risk-Taking

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Behavioral studies on adolescent risk-taking use a wide range of tasks, and the results can be varied. One important factor affecting risky choices might be the domain in which choices are made (e.g., financial or health). The aim of our symposium is to explore the question: to what extent adolescent risk-taking depends on domain-general vs. domain-specific factors. Talk 1 presents questionnaire data from an age-adjusted version of the DOSPERT, and explores developmental changes in risk-taking, risk-perception, and benefit-perception across five domains between adolescence and young adulthood. This talk presents evidence for dissociations between different domains. Talk 2 explores developmental changes between mid-and late adolescence on three well-established measures of risky choice. Although the tasks differed in the domain of risk, the availability of explicit information about choice options, and whether feedback was provided, the results consistently showed that whereas adolescents were sensitive to both the probability of loss and the size of potential rewards, they did not display sensitivity to large, but improbable losses. These results indicate that some factors underlying risky choice might be consistent across domains. Finally, Talk 3 explores the determinants of problem gambling in adolescence. Although problem gambling was directly related to gambling-related cognitive distortions (a domain-specific predictor), these cognitive distortions, in turn, were related to domain-general predictors (e.g., probabilistic reasoning ability). In fact, these domain-general predictors also directly impacted on problem gambling behaviour. This suggests that domain-general and domain-specific influences can interact in shaping risky decisions. The talks will be followed by an expert discussion.

Sub Unit

• Cognitive Processes

Chair

• Kinga Morsanyi, Queen's University, Belfast

Discussant

• Antonius H. N. Cillessen, Radboud University Nijmegen

Individual Presentations

• Risk-Taking Across Adolescence: A Domain-Specific Approach - Presenting Author: Anna van Duijvenvoorde, Leiden University; Neeltje Blankenstein, Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition; Elke Weber, Columbia University; Bernd Figner, Columbia University

• Developmental Changes in Risky Decisions: Evidence from the Columbia Card Task, Delay Discounting and the Hungry Donkey Task - Presenting Author: Kinga Morsanyi, Queen's University, Belfast

• How much Gambling-Related Cognitive Distortions Matter in Explaining Problem Gambling Behavior in Adolescents? - Presenting Author: Caterina Primi, No Institutional Affiliation; Francesca Chiesi, University of Florence; MARIA ANNA DONATI, Università degli Studi di Firenze