Can adolescents predict significant life events?
We examine whether adolescents' probability judgments for significant life events are predictive and accurate. We find significant correlations with actual experiences, reported on successive waves of a national survey. Mean probability judgments approximated observed outcome rates, or were optimistic, except that adolescents greatly overestimated their probability of dying prematurely.
de Bruin
Wändi Bruine
WB
Department of Social and Decision Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213-3890, USA. wandi@cmu.edu
Parker
Andrew M
AM
Fischhoff
Baruch
B
D000293:Adolescent; D005260:Female; D005544:Forecasting; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D008297:Male; D011336:Probability; D000297:Psychology, Adolescent; D012306:Risk; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States