All bets are off
Dana Haynie, Brian Soller & Kristi Williams
Journal of Youth and Adolescence, February 2014, Pages 175-192
Abstract:
Past research indicates that anticipating adverse outcomes, such as early death (fatalism), is associated positively with adolescents' likelihood of engaging in risky behaviors. Health researchers and criminologists have argued that fatalism influences present risk taking in part by informing individuals' motivation for delaying gratification for the promise of future benefits. While past findings highlight the association between the anticipation of early death and a number of developmental outcomes, no known research has assessed the impact of location in a context characterized by high perceptions of fatality. Using data from Add Health and a sample of 9,584 adolescents (51 % female and 71 % white) nested in 113 schools, our study builds upon prior research by examining the association between friends', school mates', and individual perceptions of early fatality and adolescent risk behaviors. We test whether friends' anticipation of being killed prior to age 21 or location in a school where a high proportion of the student body subscribes to attitudes of high fatality, is associated with risky behaviors. Results indicate that friends' fatalism is positively associated with engaging in violent delinquency, non-violent delinquency, and drug use after controlling for individual covariates and prior individual risk-taking. Although friends' delinquency accounts for much of the effect of friends' fatalism on violence, none of the potential intervening variables fully explain the effect of friends' fatalism on youth involvement in non-violent delinquency and drug use. Our results underscore the importance of friendship contextual effects in shaping adolescent risk-taking behavior and the very serious consequences perceptions of fatality have for adolescents' involvement in delinquency and drug use.
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Peers Increase Adolescent Risk Taking Even When the Probabilities of Negative Outcomes Are Known
Ashley Smith, Jason Chein & Laurence Steinberg
Developmental Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
The majority of adolescent risk taking occurs in the presence of peers, and recent research suggests that the presence of peers may alter how the potential rewards and costs of a decision are valuated or perceived. The current study further explores this notion by investigating how peer observation affects adolescent risk taking when the information necessary to make an informed decision is explicitly provided. We used a novel probabilistic gambling task in which participants decided whether to play or pass on a series of offers for which the reward and loss outcome probabilities were made explicit. Adolescent participants completed the task either alone or under the belief that they were being observed by an unknown peer in a neighboring room. Participants who believed a peer was observing them chose to gamble more often than participants who completed the task alone, and this effect was most evident for decisions with a greater probability of loss. These results suggest that the presence of peers can increase risk taking among adolescents even when specific information regarding the likelihood of positive and negative outcomes is provided. The findings expand our understanding of how peers influence adolescent decision making and have important implications regarding the value of educational programs aimed at reducing risky behaviors during adolescence.
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Carry on winning: The gamblers' fallacy creates hot hand effects in online gambling
Juemin Xu & Nigel Harvey
Cognition, May 2014, Pages 173-180
Abstract:
People suffering from the hot-hand fallacy unreasonably expect winning streaks to continue whereas those suffering from the gamblers' fallacy unreasonably expect losing streaks to reverse. We took 565,915 sports bets made by 776 online gamblers in 2010 and analyzed all winning and losing streaks up to a maximum length of six. People who won were more likely to win again (apparently because they chose safer odds than before) whereas those who lost were more likely to lose again (apparently because they chose riskier odds than before). However, selection of safer odds after winning and riskier ones after losing indicates that online sports gamblers expected their luck to reverse: they suffered from the gamblers' fallacy. By believing in the gamblers' fallacy, they created their own hot hands.
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Playing 'Tetris' reduces the strength, frequency and vividness of naturally occurring cravings
Jessica Skorka-Brown, Jackie Andrade & Jon May
Appetite, forthcoming
Abstract:
Elaborated Intrusion Theory (EI) postulates that imagery is central to craving, therefore a visually based task should decrease craving and craving imagery. This study provides the first laboratory test of this hypothesis in naturally occurring, rather than artificially induced, cravings. Participants reported if they were experiencing a craving and rated the strength, vividness and intrusiveness of their craving. They then either played 'Tetris' or they waited for a computer program to load (they were told it would load, but it was designed not to). Before task completion, craving scores between conditions did not differ; after, however, participants who had played 'Tetris' had significantly lower craving and less vivid craving imagery. The findings support EI theory, showing that a visuospatial working memory load reduces naturally occurring cravings, and that Tetris might be a useful task for tackling cravings outside the laboratory. Methodologically, the findings show that craving can be studied in the laboratory without using craving induction procedures.
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In-School Neurofeedback Training for ADHD: Sustained Improvements From a Randomized Control Trial
Naomi Steiner et al.
Pediatrics, forthcoming
Objective: To evaluate sustained improvements 6 months after a 40-session, in-school computer attention training intervention using neurofeedback or cognitive training (CT) administered to 7- to 11-year-olds with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Methods: One hundred four children were randomly assigned to receive neurofeedback, CT, or a control condition and were evaluated 6 months postintervention. A 3-point growth model assessed change over time across the conditions on the Conners 3-Parent Assessment Report (Conners 3-P), the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function Parent Form (BRIEF), and a systematic double-blinded classroom observation (Behavioral Observation of Students in Schools). Analysis of variance assessed community-initiated changes in stimulant medication.
Results: Parent response rates were 90% at the 6-month follow-up. Six months postintervention, neurofeedback participants maintained significant gains on Conners 3-P (Inattention effect size [ES] = 0.34, Executive Functioning ES = 0.25, Hyperactivity/Impulsivity ES = 0.23) and BRIEF subscales including the Global Executive Composite (ES = 0.31), which remained significantly greater than gains found among children in CT and control conditions. Children in the CT condition showed delayed improvement over immediate postintervention ratings only on Conners 3-P Executive Functioning (ES = 0.18) and 2 BRIEF subscales. At the 6-month follow-up, neurofeedback participants maintained the same stimulant medication dosage, whereas participants in both CT and control conditions showed statistically and clinically significant increases (9 mg [P = .002] and 13 mg [P < .001], respectively).
Conclusions: Neurofeedback participants made more prompt and greater improvements in ADHD symptoms, which were sustained at the 6-month follow-up, than did CT participants or those in the control group. This finding suggests that neurofeedback is a promising attention training treatment for children with ADHD.
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Cortisol shifts financial risk preferences
Narayanan Kandasamy et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, forthcoming
Abstract:
Risk taking is central to human activity. Consequently, it lies at the focal point of behavioral sciences such as neuroscience, economics, and finance. Many influential models from these sciences assume that financial risk preferences form a stable trait. Is this assumption justified and, if not, what causes the appetite for risk to fluctuate? We have previously found that traders experience a sustained increase in the stress hormone cortisol when the amount of uncertainty, in the form of market volatility, increases. Here we ask whether these elevated cortisol levels shift risk preferences. Using a double-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over protocol we raised cortisol levels in volunteers over 8 d to the same extent previously observed in traders. We then tested for the utility and probability weighting functions underlying their risk taking and found that participants became more risk-averse. We also observed that the weighting of probabilities became more distorted among men relative to women. These results suggest that risk preferences are highly dynamic. Specifically, the stress response calibrates risk taking to our circumstances, reducing it in times of prolonged uncertainty, such as a financial crisis. Physiology-induced shifts in risk preferences may thus be an underappreciated cause of market instability.
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Sweet delusion. Glucose drinks fail to counteract ego depletion
Florian Lange & Frank Eggert
Appetite, April 2014, Pages 54-63
Abstract:
Initial acts of self-control have repeatedly been shown to reduce individuals' performance on a consecutive self-control task. In addition, sugar containing drinks have been demonstrated to counteract this so-called ego-depletion effect, both when being ingested and when merely being sensed in the oral cavity. However, since the underlying evidence is less compelling than suggested, replications are crucially required. In Experiment 1, 70 participants consumed a drink containing either sugar or a non-caloric sweetener between two administrations of delay-discounting tasks. Experiment 2 (N = 115) was designed to unravel the psychological function of oral glucose sensing by manipulating the temporal delay between a glucose mouth rinse and the administration of the consecutive self-control task. Despite applying powerful research designs, no effect of sugar sensing or ingestion on ego depletion could be detected. These findings add to previous challenges of the glucose model of self-control and highlight the need for independent replications.
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Anahi Collado et al.
Addictive Behaviors, forthcoming
Abstract:
Adolescent substance use and abuse show associations with increases in disinhibitory constructs, including sensation seeking, risk taking propensity, and impulsivity. However, the longitudinal trajectories of these constructs from early to middle adolescence remain largely unknown. Thus, the current study examined these developmental trajectories in 277 adolescents (Mage = 11.00 at Wave 1), over five consecutive yearly waves. Controlling for age, Hierarchical Linear Modeling analyses showed that sensation seeking increased linearly, whereas risk taking propensity and impulsivity demonstrated curvilinear changes. Specifically, risk taking propensity increased in the first four waves of assessment but did not evidence changes at the last assessment wave. Impulsivity, on the other hand peaked at wave four before subsequently declining. A comparison between females and males and Black and White adolescents suggested that these groups' trajectories were similar. Black adolescents' sensation seeking trajectory differed from adolescents who belonged to the "Other" racial group (i.e., adolescents who neither self-identified as Black or White). Generally, the study findings replicate and extend earlier work indicating that these risk factors increase across early adolescence and begin to level-off during middle adolescence. The importance of understanding the natural course of these core constructs is of great importance for directing future relevant prevention and intervention work.
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Exciting Fear in Adolescence: Does Pubertal Development Alter Threat Processing?
Jeffrey Spielberg et al.
Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, forthcoming
Abstract:
Adolescent development encompasses an ostensible paradox in threat processing. Risk taking increases dramatically after the onset of puberty, contributing to a 200% increase in mortality. Yet, pubertal maturation is associated with increased reactivity in threat-avoidance systems. In the first part of this paper we propose a heuristic model of adolescent affective development that may help to reconcile aspects of this paradox, which focuses on hypothesized pubertal increases in the capacity to experience (some) fear-evoking experiences as an exciting thrill. In the second part of this paper, we test key features of this model by examining brain activation to threat cues in a longitudinal study that disentangled pubertal and age effects. Pubertal increases in testosterone predicted increased activation to threat cues, not only in regions associated with threat avoidance (i.e., amygdala), but also regions associated with reward pursuit (i.e., nucleus accumbens). These findings are consistent with our hypothesis that puberty is associated with a maturational shift toward more complex processing of threat cues - which may contribute to adolescent tendencies to explore and enjoy some types of risky experiences.
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J.E. Cohen-Gilbert et al.
Developmental Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Social cognition matures dramatically during adolescence and into early adulthood, supported by continued improvements in inhibitory control. During this time, developmental changes in interpreting and responding to social signals such as facial expressions also occur. In the present study, subjects performed a Go No-Go task that required them to respond or inhibit responding based on threat or safety cues present in facial expressions. Subjects (N = 112) were divided into three age groups: adolescent (12-15 years), emerging adult (18-25 years) and adult (26-44 years). Analyses revealed a significant improvement in accuracy on No-Go trials, but not Go trials, during both safe and threat face conditions, with changes evident through early adulthood. In order to better identify the decision-making processes responsible for these changes in inhibitory control, a drift diffusion model (DDM) was fit to the accuracy and reaction time data, generating measures of caution, response bias, nondecision time (encoding + motor response), and drift rate (face processing efficiency). Caution and nondecision time both increased significantly with age while bias towards the Go response decreased. Drift rate analyses revealed significant age-related improvements in the ability to map threat faces to a No-Go response while drift rates on all other trial types were equivalent across age groups. These results suggest that both stimulus-independent and stimulus-dependent processes contribute to improvements in inhibitory control in adolescence with processing of negative social cues being specifically impaired by self-regulatory demands. Findings from this novel investigation of emotional responsiveness integrated with inhibitory control may provide useful insights about healthy development that can be applied to better understand adolescent risk-taking behavior and the elevated incidence of related forms of psychopathology during this period of life.