title: Temporal reward discounting in children, adolescents, and emerging adults during an experiential task.
abstract: The goal of this study was to examine age effects on the ability/willingness to wait for large rewards in a real temporal reward discounting task from childhood to adulthood. Therefore, a real temporal discounting (TD) task was administered to children aged 6-12 (n = 39), adolescents aged 13-17 (n = 28), and young adults aged 18-19 (n = 55). Findings indicated that the cross-sectional development of TD followed a quadratic pattern across age groups, with adolescents choosing more often than children and adults to wait for the large delayed reward, resulting in reward-maximization. Various interpretations of this finding were offered, including a focus on reward maximization despite an immature ability to exert self-control, and flexible self-control which was high during this task as a result of strong motivation to maximize financial gains.
authors: Department of Psychology, University of Arizona Tucson, AZ, USA ; Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University Nijmegen, Netherlands.
authors: Anouk
authors: A
authors: Scheres
authors: Department of Psychology, University of Arizona Tucson, AZ, USA.
authors: Chandra
authors: C
authors: Tontsch
authors: Department of Psychology, University of Arizona Tucson, AZ, USA.
authors: Allison L
authors: AL
authors: Thoeny
authors: Department of Psychology, University of Arizona Tucson, AZ, USA ; Division of Cerebral Integration, National Institute for Physiological Sciences Okazaki, Japan.
authors: Motofumi
authors: M
authors: Sumiya
keywords: adolescence; delay discounting; impulsivity; reward; self-control; temporal reward discounting