Adolescent risk taking under stressed and nonstressed conditions: conservative, calculating, and impulsive types.
OBJECTIVE
Adolescent risk taking may result from heightened susceptibility to environmental cues, particularly emotion and potential rewards. This study evaluated the impact of social stress on adolescent risk taking, accounting for individual differences in risk taking under nonstressed conditions.


METHODS
Eighty-nine older adolescents completed a computerized risk-taking and decision-making battery at baseline. At follow-up, participants were randomized to a control condition, which repeated this battery, or an experimental condition, which included a social and cognitive stressor before the battery. Baseline risk-taking data were cluster-analyzed to create groups of adolescents with similar risk-taking tendencies. The degree to which these risk-taking tendencies predicted risk taking by stress condition was assessed at follow-up.


RESULTS
Participants in the stress condition took more risks than those in the no-stress condition. However, differences in risk taking under stress were related to baseline risk-taking tendencies. We observed three types of risk-takers: conservative, calculated, and impulsive. Impulsives were less accurate and planful under stress; calculated risk takers took fewer risks; and conservatives engaged in low risk taking regardless of stress.


CONCLUSIONS
As a group, adolescents are more likely to take risks in "hot cognitive" than in "cold cognitive" situations. However, there is significant variability in adolescents' behavioral responses to stress related to trait-level risk-taking tendencies.
Division of General Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland 21287, USA. sjohnson@jhsph.edu
Sara B
SB
Johnson
Jacinda K
JK
Dariotis
Constance
C
Wang
D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D000367:Age Factors; D015897:Comorbidity; D003657:Decision Making; D005106:Exploratory Behavior; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D007175:Impulsive Behavior / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D007389:Internal-External Control; D007604:Juvenile Delinquency / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008297:Male; D010379:Peer Group; D012307:Risk Factors; D012309:Risk-Taking; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D014754:Violence / Q000523:psychology