Instead, age-related changes in decision-making strategy from adolescence to adulthood arise because of changes in the value assigned to immediate reward versus future utility of information. These results suggest that decision-making in adolescence is not constrained by an inability to consider decision horizon, as the number of future decision choices available influenced exploration behavior.
#Adolesence make impulsive decisions because it free#
However, in games where participants would ultimately make six free choices, increasing age was related to an increased tendency to explore, reflected in a tendency to choose the lower value, higher information option. When there was only one free choice in the game, all participants generally exploited the high reward option. fewer previous payouts displayed during fixed choices). The dependent variable was the choice participants made on their first free choice.Īlthough overall levels of exploration did not vary with age, the strategic use of exploration differed from adolescence to adulthood, particularly in cases where one bandit had a higher reward value, and the other contained higher information value (i.e. In other games, the fixed choices were unevenly distributed (one choice selected once, the other selected three times).
In some games, the fixed choices were evenly distributed between the two choices, so participants had the same amount of information about each choice. Each game began with four fixed choices (made by the computer). Somerville and colleagues (2017, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General) (PDF, 315KB) had participants aged 12–28 play one-armed bandit games in which two choices that differed in average reward magnitude were presented.
As teen dramas routinely remind us, sexual development is often coupled with decision dilemmas that entail an assessment of risk. examine the contribution of the amygdala to the development of typical social behavior as animals reach sexual maturity. This could be due to either an influence of amygdala damage on hormonal function, which would influence mating-relevant social behaviors, or to the fact that amygdala damage influenced dominance status (all but one of the amygdala-damaged females had the lowest social ranking), which would give these animals less access to the male. Observations during the first month of group formation revealed that while control and hippocampus-lesioned females interacted with the male in predicted ways, amygdala-lesioned females spent less time interacting with the male, and displayed fewer behaviors that signal sexual or reproductive interest (e.g., contact, proximity, reciprocal grooming). In this study, social groups consisting of one adult male, one amygdala-lesioned female, one hippocampus-lesioned female, and one control female were formed when females reached the beginning of sexual maturity (approximately 4 years old).
This is a continuation of their longitudinal analysis of affective and social behavior in rhesus macaques who received lesions at two weeks of age and were then socially housed (see Article Spotlight: Early Damage to the Amygdala or Hippocampus Has Subtle Effects on Adult Social Behavior). Moadab and colleagues (2017, Behavioral Neuroscience) (PDF, 307KB) examine how early amygdala and hippocampus damage influence social behavior in adolescent female rhesus macaques. These behaviors are studied in two recent papers.
The strongest stereotypes of adolescence are portrayed in countless television shows and movies: the emergence of sexual interest and behavior, and decision-making dilemmas. Adolescence is an important developmental stage, characterized by marked biological and physiological changes.īehaviorally, adolescence is associated with volatile emotions and boundary-testing behavior as individuals explore and assert personal identity, learn to navigate peer relationships, and transition to independence.
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