Development of Cognitive Processes Underlying Adolescent Risky Decision Making: A Hierarchical Bayesian Model-Based Mixture Analysis

Risky decision making changes across adolescence. Although development of the underlying social and emotional processes is well-understood, less is known about the development of underlying cognitive processes. Therefore, these are the focus of the current study. Specifically, we test whether adolescents change in how they integrate and evaluate information on gains, losses, and the corresponding probabilities. This is achieved by leveraging an innovative approach to reveal these processes: a hierarchical Bayesian model-based mixture analysis of risky decisions. A total of 663 Dutch adolescents (ages 12–17) chose between risky and sure options in a gain-loss framing task. There was no conclusive evidence regarding age-related changes in risky decision making. However, there was strong evidence for an age-related increase in the use of a decision strategy in which participants integrated all available information, and an age-related decrease in the use of a strategy in which participants did not. Also observed were age-related effects in the evaluation of information, both in participants who integrated information and in participants who did not. In sum, cognitive processes underlying risky decision making change across adolescence, that is, whether or not the information is integrated and how information is evaluated change during the adolescent period. These changes do not translate to changes in risky choice behavior, though. This suggests that cognitive development alone cannot explain adolescent risky decision-making development.