Crone Eveline A, Bullens L, van der Plas E A A, Kijkuit E J, Zelazo P D
Leiden University Institute for Psychological Research, The Netherlands.
Dev Psychopathol. 2008 Fall;20(4):1213-29. doi: 10.1017/S0954579408000588.
Despite the assumed prevalence of risk-taking behavior in adolescence, the laboratory evidence of risk taking remains scarce, and the individual variation poorly understood. Drawing from neuroscience studies, we tested whether risk and reward orientation are influenced by the perspective that adolescents take when making risky decisions. Perspective taking was manipulated by cuing participants prior to each choice whether the decision was made for "self," or from the perspective of an "other" (the experimenter in Experiment 1; a hypothetical peer in Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, we show a developmental decrease in risk-taking behavior across different stages of adolescence. In addition, all age groups made fewer risky choices for the experimenter, but the difference between self and other was larger in early adolescence. In Experiment 2, we show that high sensation-seeking (SS) adolescents make more risky choices than low SS adolescents, but both groups make a similar differentiation for other individuals (low risk-taking or high risk-taking peers). Together, the results show that younger adolescents and high SS adolescents make more risky choices for themselves, but can appreciate that others may make fewer risky choices. The developmental change toward more rational decisions versus emotional, impulsive decisions may reflect, in part, more efficient integration of others' perspectives into one's decision making. These developmental results are discussed regarding brain systems important for risk taking and perspective taking.
尽管普遍认为冒险行为在青少年时期很常见，但冒险行为的实验室证据仍然很少，而且个体差异也知之甚少。借鉴神经科学研究，我们测试了冒险和奖励取向是否受青少年在做出冒险决策时所采取的视角影响。通过在每次选择前提示参与者该决策是为“自己”做出的，还是从“他人”（实验1中的实验者；实验2中的假设同龄人）的视角做出的，来操纵视角采择。在实验1中，我们发现冒险行为在青少年不同阶段呈发展性下降。此外，所有年龄组为实验者做出的冒险选择都更少，但在青春期早期，为自己和为他人做出的选择之间的差异更大。在实验2中，我们发现高感觉寻求（SS）的青少年比低感觉寻求的青少年做出更多冒险选择，但两组在针对其他个体（低冒险或高冒险同龄人）时做出的区分相似。总之，结果表明，年龄较小的青少年和高感觉寻求的青少年为自己做出更多冒险选择，但能意识到他人可能会做出较少的冒险选择。从情绪化、冲动的决策转向更理性的决策这一发展变化可能部分反映了将他人视角更有效地整合到自己的决策过程中。我们结合对冒险和视角采择至关重要的脑系统来讨论这些发展结果。
