title: Developmental changes in decision making under risk: The role of executive functions and reasoning abilities in 8- to 19-year-old decision makers.
abstract: Previous studies have shown that children and adolescents often tend toward risky decisions despite explicit knowledge about the potential negative consequences. This phenomenon has been suggested to be associated with the immaturity of brain areas involved in cognitive control functions. Particularly, "frontal lobe functions," such as executive functions and reasoning, mature until young adulthood and are thought to be involved in age-related changes in decision making under explicit risk conditions. We investigated 112 participants, aged 8-19 years, with a frequently used task assessing decisions under risk, the Game of Dice Task (GDT). Additionally, we administered the Modified Card Sorting Test assessing executive functioning (categorization, cognitive flexibility, and strategy maintenance) as well as the Ravens Progressive Matrices assessing reasoning. The results showed that risk taking in the GDT decreased with increasing age and this effect was not moderated by reasoning but by executive functions: Particularly, young persons with weak executive functioning showed very risky decision making. Thus, the individual maturation of executive functions, associated with areas in the prefrontal cortex, seems to be an important factor in young peoples' behavior in risky decision-making situations.
authors.affiliation: a Department of General Psychology: Cognition , University of Duisburg-Essen , Duisburg , Germany.
authors.forename: Johannes
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Schiebener
authors.affiliation: b LAGUNA Hospital Care Center , Madrid , Spain.
authors.forename: María
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: García-Arias
authors.affiliation: c Department of Personality and Clinical Psychology, Faculty of Psychology , University of Madrid , Spain.
authors.forename: Domingo
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: García-Villamisar
authors.affiliation: c Department of Personality and Clinical Psychology, Faculty of Psychology , University of Madrid , Spain.|d Department of Neurology , University Clinic of Navarra , Madrid , Spain.
authors.forename: Javier
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cabanyes-Truffino
authors.affiliation: a Department of General Psychology: Cognition , University of Duisburg-Essen , Duisburg , Germany.|e Erwin L. Hahn Institute for Magnetic Resonance Imaging , Essen , Germany.
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Brand
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D002648:Child; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology*; D056344:Executive Function / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005717:Games, Experimental; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D012309:Risk-Taking; D013850:Thinking; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Adolescence; Childhood; Decision making; Executive functions; Game of Dice Task; Impulsiveness; Personality; Risk