Adolescents are prone to take risks that result in elevated levels of traffic accidents, infections from sexually transmitted diseases, or substance abuse. The proposed research investigates neural mechanisms that give rise to such risk-taking behavior, which are currently not well understood. Recent research has proposed that affective/emotional processes might be crucial to better understanding risk taking in adolescents and other individuals known to seek risks, such as substance abusers or pathological gamblers. Behavioral and brain activation (BOLD in fMRI) data to investigate how different forms of dynamic versus static decision-making situations influence the involvement of affective versus deliberative modes of processing and the levels of risk taking in children, adolescents, and adults. One primary hypothesis to be tested is that dynamic choice situations trigger affective processing more than static choice situations, which trigger predominantly deliberative processing. A second hypothesis is that adolescents are prone to take greater risks than children and adults because of differences in the maturation rates of their deliberative and affective systems, differences that result in teens relying more on affective processing to make decisions. In addition, a large internet-based study will extend the age range of our investigation to middle-aged and older-aged adults in order to investigate later developmental changes in dynamic risk taking, studying it effectively across the life span.
A better understanding of the behavioral and neural mechanisms underlying risk taking and risky decision making will help with the development of better prevention and intervention strategies. These strategies can be targeted at adolescent at-risk populations and other populations with deficits in risky decision making, including substance abusers and pathological gamblers. A better understanding of both the triggering situational characteristics and the differential role and interplay of affective and deliberative decision processes can lead to policies and interventions that help people make better decisions in everyday life. For example, at-risk individuals can be helped to learn what situational characteristics lead them to take dangerous risks. On a broader level, people can be trained to better integrate affective and deliberative reactions in their decisions. Policy makers can learn how to communicate risks and describe decisions in a way that triggers an optimal balance of the two types of decision processes.
