Mechanisms underlying heightened risk taking in adolescents as compared with adults

Self-report surveys and behavioral tasks indicate greater risk-taking behavior in adolescents as compared with adults. However, the underlying causes of these behavioral differences remain unclear. The present study examined the possibility that adolescents may be more susceptible to immediate positive and negative outcomes than adults. We compared the behavior of adolescents and adults on a modified version of the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (Lejuez et al., 2002). The task required that participants press a button to "inflate" a series of balloons on a computer screen. Balloons inflated until either the participant released the button ("saved" balloons) or the balloon "burst." Accumulated points increased as the duration of the buttonpress increased; however, simultaneously, the likelihood that the balloon would burst also increased. Adolescents inflated balloons to a larger size prior to saving them than adults did, suggesting relatively higher levels of risk taking, although the adolescents' behavior was not uniformly risk prone. Further, in comparison with adults, behavior in adolescents was more influenced by whether a balloon was saved or had burst on the preceding trial, suggesting that sensitivity to immediate consequences is one mechanism that underlies the observed difference in risk taking.     

Consumer Choices of Women in Residential Drug Treatment: An Analysis of Risk and Impulsivity1

The relationship between risk taking, impulsivity, temporal discounting, and shopping choices in an onsite token‐economy store was investigated with 10 women in a long‐term residential drug‐treatment center. Participants completed the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART), Eysenck Impulsivity Scale, and a delay discounting task, which were then correlated with the mean amount spent on slow‐ and fast‐moving consumer items for self, child, and household (cash‐and‐carry store items and catalog items). Of particular importance, purchases of slow‐ and fast‐moving items for the child seemed to mirror one another, suggesting that these women are valuing their children's well‐being (in terms of consumer goods) more highly than their own.     

Differential effects of trait anger on optimism and risk behaviour

It has been proposed that angry people exhibit optimistic risk estimates about future events and, consequently, are biased towards making risk-seeking choices. The goal of this study was to directly test the hypothesised effect of trait anger on optimism and risk-taking behaviour. One hundred healthy volunteers completed questionnaires about personality traits, optimism and risk behaviour. In addition their risk tendency was assessed with the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART), which provides an online measure of risk behaviour. Our results partly confirmed the relation between trait anger and outcome expectations of future life events, but suggest that this optimism does not necessarily translate into actual risk-seeking behaviour.     

Uncommitted men match their risk taking to female preferences,while committed men do the opposite

Previous research shows that men are more risk prone than women; single men take more risks than men involved in a romantic relationship; and men increase their level of risk taking in the presence of observers. We extend the existing literature with two studies. Our first study demonstrates that romantically involved men take less risk in the presence of women to the extent that they are more committed to their current partner. No such effect occurs in the presence of males. Our second study is an experiment revealing that men's beliefs about women's attitudes about risk taking causally influence men's level of risk taking. We developed a new measure of risk-taking—the Marble Risk Task, reminiscent of the computerized Balloon Analogue Risk Task (Lejuez et al., 2002), but designed to measure risk-taking outside of the laboratory and with real financial stakes—to show that single men adjust their level of risk taking to match what they believe women find attractive. Men involved in a relationship did the opposite: they adjust their behavior to not match what they believe women consider attractive—possibly with the goal of relationship maintenance.     

How Does Explicit Versus Implicit Risk Information Influence Adolescent Risk‐Taking Engagement?

Adolescents have been shown to be more likely to engage in risky behaviors in daily life. Many studies have indicated that adolescents could make advantageous choices when they receive explicit information but could fail to choose advantageously when they are not informed about risks. The current study aimed to examine the influence of explicit risk information (i.e., when risk information is directly available) versus implicit risk information (i.e., when risk information has to be learned from feedback) on risk‐taking engagement, in order to clarify whether the enhanced risk‐taking observed in decision making under ambiguity in adolescents results from either a greater exploration of ambiguous situations (i.e., a higher ambiguity tolerance) or a specific difficulty associated with learning based on previous choices' outcomes. Adolescents and young adults completed a new adaptation of the Balloon Analogue Risk Task. They were required to accumulate as many points as possible by inflating balloons associated with variable break points and avoiding explosions. This adaptation involved a manipulation of the information level with two conditions, an “informed” condition and a “noninformed” condition, in which the participants had to learn the matching of colors with balloons' resistances based on feedback. The results demonstrated that providing explicit risk information allows adolescents to be as efficient as adults at the end of the game. In contrast, adolescents failed to adjust risk‐taking to the balloon resistance in the noninformed condition. These findings critically suggest that this failure reflects a specific impairment of feedback‐based learning ability but not a global excess of risk‐taking during adolescence. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Framing alters risk-taking behavior on a modified Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) in a sex-specific manner

Framing uncertain scenarios to emphasize potential positive or negative elements influences decision making and behavior. The current experiment investigated sex differences in framing effects on risk-taking propensity in a modified version of the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART). Male and female undergraduates completed questionnaires on sensation seeking, impulsiveness, and risk and benefit perception prior to viewing one of three framing conditions for the BART: (1) positively-framed instructions emphasizing the ability to earn money if balloons were inflated to large size; (2) negatively framed instructions emphasizing the possibility that money could be lost if balloons were inflated to bursting; and (3) completely framed instructions noting both possible outcomes. Results revealed correlations between BART performance and impulsiveness for both sexes. Compared to positive and complete framing, negatively framed instructions decreased balloon inflation time in women but not men, indicating sex differences in response to treatments designed to alter risk-taking behavior.     

Parental rearing behavior prospectively predicts adolescents’ risky decision‐making and feedback‐related electrical brain activity

The present study examined the role of parental rearing behavior in adolescents’ risky decision‐making and the brain's feedback processing mechanisms. Healthy adolescent participants (n = 110) completed the EMBU‐C, a self‐report questionnaire on perceived parental rearing behaviors between 2006 and 2008 (T1). Subsequently, after an average of 3.5 years, we assessed (a) risky decision‐making during performance of the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART); (b) event‐related brain potentials (ERPs) elicited by positive (gain) and negative feedback (loss) during the BART; and (c) self‐reported substance use behavior (T2). Age‐corrected regression analyses showed that parental rejection at T1 accounted for a unique and significant proportion of the variance in risk‐taking during the BART; the more adolescents perceived their parents as rejecting, the more risky decisions were made. Higher levels of perceived emotional warmth predicted increased P300 amplitudes in response to positive feedback at T2. Moreover, these larger P300 amplitudes (gain) significantly predicted risky decision‐making during the BART. Parental rearing behaviors during childhood thus seem to be significant predictors of both behavioral and electrophysiological indices of risky decision‐making in adolescence several years later. This is in keeping with the notion that environmental factors such as parental rearing are important in explaining adolescents’ risk‐taking propensities.     

Narcissism and Performance on Behavioral Decision‐making Tasks

Three studies examined narcissism and behavioral decision making. Decision‐making tasks included the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT; Studies 1–3), Balloon Analogue Risk Task (Studies 1–3), Columbia Card Task (CCT; Studies 2 and 3), and Game of Dice Task (Study 3). To tease apart the contributions of grandiose narcissism (i.e., narcissism found in the general population), pathological narcissism, and narcissistic traits (i.e., grandiosity, entitlement, and exploitativeness) in decision making, we assessed grandiose narcissism in Studies 1 (n = 380) and 2 (n = 244), pathological narcissism in Study 2, and the narcissistic traits in Study 3 (n = 312). Grandiose and pathological narcissism failed to predict decision making regardless of whether or not decision making included immediate feedback. In Study 3, the narcissistic trait of grandiosity (i.e., having an inflated sense of self‐importance) was associated with greater risk taking on the CCT‐hot (i.e., provided immediate feedback), and entitlement was associated with greater risk taking on the IGT. Measurement and applied implications are discussed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Risk‐Taking Tendencies in Prisoners and Nonprisoners: Does Gender Matter?

Several investigations have found that prisoners are more likely than nonprisoners to engage in risky behavior, which may contribute to their propensity to commit criminal offenses. However, this research has been limited by an almost exclusive focus on male samples. Given the established link between risk taking and gender, it is thus unclear how findings on the risk‐taking propensities of prisoners also hold in women. The present study uses both a self‐report questionnaire (Domain‐Specific Risk Taking scale, DOSPERT) and a behavioral task (Balloon Analogue Risk Task, BART) to investigate risk‐taking tendencies in a Chinese prisoner group and a nonprisoner control group with balanced gender proportions. Across both genders, prisoners both indicated a higher risk‐taking tendency on the DOSPERT and showed more risk‐taking behavior on the BART than did nonprisoners. Importantly, the differences were considerably more pronounced in women than in men. Relative to nonprisoners, gender differences in risk taking were substantially smaller, or even reversed, in prisoners. Computational modeling of respondents' behavior in the BART revealed that the prisoners had higher reward sensitivity and lower response consistency than the nonprisoners; these differences were again more pronounced among women. Our results suggest that previous studies based primarily on male prisoners may have underestimated differences in risk taking between prisoners and nonprisoners, and that female prisoners may represent an even more extreme subpopulation than male prisoners. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mind the gap: bridging economic and naturalistic risk-taking with cognitive neuroscience

Economists define risk in terms of the variability of possible outcomes, whereas clinicians and laypeople generally view risk as exposure to possible loss or harm. Neuroeconomic studies using relatively simple behavioral tasks have identified a network of brain regions that respond to economic risk, but these studies have had limited success predicting naturalistic risk-taking. By contrast, more complex behavioral tasks developed by clinicians (e.g. Balloon Analogue Risk Task and Iowa Gambling Task) correlate with naturalistic risk-taking but resist decomposition into distinct cognitive constructs. We propose here that to bridge this gap and better understand neural substrates of naturalistic risk-taking, new tasks are needed that: are decomposable into basic cognitive and/or economic constructs; predict naturalistic risk-taking; and engender dynamic, affective engagement.     

“Hit Me, Maybe, One More Time”: Brief measures of impulsivity and sensation seeking and their prediction of blackjack bets and sexual promiscuity

We sought to construct an efficient, reliable, and valid self-report measure of impulsivity and sensation-seeking. We used item response theory to identify the 8 best items (ImpSS-8) from the 19-item Impulsivity and Sensation-Seeking Scale (Zuckerman, Kuhlman, Joireman, Teta, & Kraft, 1993; Study 1). The ImpSS-8 interacted with a manipulated ego threat to predict blackjack bets: in a weak situation (no ego threat), individual differences were strong (a positive ImpSS-8-bets relationship); in a strong situation (ego threat), individual differences were weak (no relationship; Study 2). The ImpSS-8’s 4-item impulsivity and sensation-seeking subscales related differentially to the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (Study 2) as well as trait measures of openness and conscientiousness, hostility and physical aggression, and sexually promiscuous attitudes and timing (Study 3).     

The effect of construal level on risk‐taking

In a series of studies, we examined the influence of people's mind‐set (construal level (CL): abstract versus concrete) on their risk‐taking behavior. We measured differences in CL (study 1, CL as trait) and manipulated CL (studies 1–5, CL as state) with different priming methods, which were unrelated to the dependent variable of risk‐taking behavior (studies 1, 3, 4, and 5: Balloon Analog Risk Task; study 2: Angling Risk Task). In all studies, abstract CL resulted in greater risk‐taking compared with concrete CL, which led to lower risk‐taking. Risky and safe game strategies mediated the CL effect on risk‐taking. A concrete mind‐set increased the safe game strategy, whereas an abstract mind‐set increased the risky game strategy. Furthermore, different potential mediators were explored (i.e., focus on payoffs and probabilities, prevention versus promotion focus, attention to pros versus cons, and mood). A concrete mind‐set increased prevention strategies and a negative mood when compared with an abstract mind‐set. In turn, an abstract mind‐set increased attention to pros (of an action). Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Evaluation of a behavioral measure of risk taking: the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART)

The present study (N = 86) sought to evaluate a laboratory-based behavioral measure of risk taking (the Balloon Analogue Risk Task; BART) and to test associations between this measure and self-report measures of risk-related constructs as well as self-reported real-world risk behaviors. The BART evidenced sound experimental properties, and riskiness on the BART was correlated with scores on measures of sensation seeking, impulsivity, and deficiencies in behavioral constraint. Also, riskiness on the BART was correlated with the self-reported occurrence of addictive, health, and safety risk behaviors, with the task accounting for variance in these behaviors beyond that accounted for by demographics and self-report measures of risk-related constructs. These results indicate that the BART may be a useful tool in the assessment of risk taking.     

Cognitive model decomposition of the BART: Assessment and application

The Balloon Analogue Risk Task, or BART, aims to measure risk taking behavior in a controlled setting. In order to quantify the processes that underlie performance on the BART, Wallsten, Pleskac, and Lejuez (2005) proposed a series of mathematical models whose parameters have a clear psychological interpretation. Here we examine a 2-parameter simplification of Wallsten et al.’s preferred 4-parameter model. A parameter recovery study shows that — with plausible restrictions on the number of participants and trials — both parameters (i.e., risk taking γ⁺ and response consistency β) can be estimated accurately. To demonstrate how the 2-parameter model can be used in practice, we implemented a Bayesian hierarchical version and applied it to an empirical data set in which participants performed the BART following various amounts of alcohol intake.     

Predicting risk decisions in a modified Balloon Analogue Risk Task: Conventional and single-trial ERP analyses

Event-related potential (ERP) has the potential to reveal the temporal neurophysiological dynamics of risk decision-making, but this potential has not been fully explored in previous studies. When predicting risk decision with ERPs, most studies focus on between-trial analysis that reflects feedback learning, while within-trial analysis that could directly link option assessment with behavioral output has been largely ignored. Suitable task design is crucial for applying within-trial prediction. In this study, we used a modified version of the classic Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART). In each trial of the task, participants made multiple rounds of decisions between a risky option (pump up the balloon) and a safe option (cash out). Behavioral results show that as the level of economic risk increased, participants were less willing to make a risky decision and also needed a longer response time to do so. In general, the ERP results showed distinct characteristics compared with previous findings based on between-trial prediction, particularly about the role of the P1 component. Specifically, both the P1 (amplitude and latency) and P3 (amplitude) components evoked by current outcomes predicted subsequent decisions. We suggest that these findings indicate the importance of selective attention (indexed by the P1) and motivational functions (indexed by the P3), which may help clarify the cognitive mechanism of risk decision-making. The theoretical significance of these findings is discussed.     

Decision making in the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART): Anterior cingulate cortex signals loss aversion but not the infrequency of risky choices

The inferior frontal gyrus/anterior insula (IFG/AI) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) are key regions involved in risk appraisal during decision making, but accounts of how these regions contribute to decision making under risk remain contested. To help clarify the roles of these and other related regions, we used a modified version of the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (Lejuez et al., Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 8, 75-84, 2002) to distinguish between decision-making and feedback-related processes when participants decided to pursue a gain as the probability of loss increased parametrically. Specifically, we set out to test whether the ACC and IFG/AI regions correspond to loss aversion at the time of decision making in a way that is not confounded with either reward-seeking or infrequency effects. When participants chose to discontinue inflating the balloon (win option), we observed greater ACC and mainly bilateral IFG/AI activity at the time of decision as the probability of explosion increased, consistent with increased loss aversion but inconsistent with an infrequency effect. In contrast, we found robust vmPFC activity when participants chose to continue inflating the balloon (risky option), consistent with reward seeking. However, in the cingulate and in mainly bilateral IFG regions, blood-oxygenation-level-dependent activation decreased when participants chose to inflate the balloon as the probability of explosion increased, findings that are consistent with a reduced loss aversion signal. Our results highlight the existence of distinct reward-seeking and loss-averse signals during decision making, as well as the importance of distinguishing between decision and feedback signals.     

Personality and performance-based measures in the prediction of alcohol use

Research has demonstrated a variable relationship between alcohol consumption and self-report personality measures of novelty seeking and harm avoidance. Research has also demonstrated a relationship between performance-based measures of risk taking and substance use. The current study compared the utility of personality measures and performance-based measures in the prediction of alcohol use. The authors hypothesized that the domains would contribute uniquely and would also interact in the prediction of alcohol consumption. Data on alcohol consumption were collected on a daily basis for 2 weeks. Performance-based measures included the Bechara Gambling Task and the Balloon Analogue Risk Task. The Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire was the primary personality measure. Results partially supported hypotheses, in that personality measures showed strong relationships with alcohol use and interacted with performance-based measures in predicting alcohol consumption. Thus, both behavioral and personality measures contributed to prediction of alcohol consumption, and performance-based measures played a moderating role. Results suggest that a combination of behavioral and self-report personality measures may be useful for those screening groups for risk factors for excessive alcohol consumption.     

When Does Construction Enhance Product Value? Investigating the Combined Effects of Object Assembly and Ownership on Valuation

Recent findings have shown that even without the ability to customize a product, individuals pay more for goods that they assembled. In this paper we examine which components of this creation process account for the increase in valuation, and whether it operates equally for owners and non‐owners of the self‐assembled object. Based on the self‐extension theory of ownership, we propose a psychological mechanism by which the assembly process strengthens the self–object association. In three experiments, we find that—although witnessing the assembly process or assembling a similar product can increase participants' evaluation of, and attachment to, a product that they own—a greater and more consistent increase in valuation and attachment arises when owners assemble their product themselves. Seemingly, merely learning about the assembly process plays only a small role in enhancing value; for substantial increases in value, one must actually assemble the product oneself. Contrary to the previous findings on the effects of labour on willingness to pay, we find little effect of product assembly among non‐owners of the product. We suggest that self‐assembly encourages objects to be incorporated into the self, but that this occurs most effectively when one owns the product. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Risk Taking for Sexual Versus Monetary Outcomes using the Balloon Analogue Risk Task

The present study examined risk-taking behavior in relation to sexual and monetary outcomes using the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART). Adult men (n = 61) completed two modified BART tasks (one with monetary outcomes and one with sexual outcomes) and a battery of self-report measures concerning sexual and nonsexual constructs. Several findings are reported. First, risk-taking behavior concerning sexual outcomes can be evoked and quantified using the modified BART task reported here. Second, risk-taking for money was associated with latent factors associated with criminal behavior, drug use, and gambling. Third, risk taking for sexual outcomes was associated with the latent factors of sexual excitability and criminal behavior. Results suggest that stimulus-specific measures of risk taking are better associated with some outcomes. Study findings are discussed in terms of their relevance to laboratory research on the behavioral processes that underlie risky decision making.