Risk Flashcards
Define risk-taking.
Engaging in real-world behaviours with high subjective desirability and potential for harm.
What is a positive of risk-taking?
Enables species to find new resources and lowers chance of inbreeding.
What are the 5 potential cognitive causes of risk-taking?
- True preferences as defined in economics
- Tolerance for ambiguity
- Hot vs Cold Cognition
- Sensation seeking
- Reward sensitivity
What does Expected Utility Theory predict?
That people make decisions to maximise utility
What are the 4 personalities of risk?
- Risk averter
- Risk taker
- Risk neutral
- Both: risk taker when poor, averter when rich.
Describe Burnett-Heyes et al., 2010.
- 20 9-11y, 26 12-15y, 17 25-35y.
- Probabilistic gambling task which evokes relief and regret.
- Ability to maximise expected value increased with age.
Inverted U shaped pattern for risk-seeking. - Highest risk taking at 14 y.
- Continuing development of emotional responses to outcomes contributes to risky behaviour.
- tend to choose option with higher Expected value and outcome variable.
Describe Wolf et al., 2013.
- 64 11-16y females.
- Decision making influenced by risk and violence.
- Impact of valence decreased with age.
- Risky gain options chosen over loss options.
- NO association of age and risk-taking found.
What are some reasons that Burnett-Heyes and Wolf’s findings contradicted each other?
- male vs female participants
- different Analysis
- ages: 9-35y vs 11-16y.
- Hot vs cold task
Describe Figner et al., 2009.
- 13-16y adolescent, 17-19y adult.
- Columbia Card Task and hot vs cold conditions
- Affective vs deliberative involvement
- Self-report and electrodermal activity
- Increased risk for adolescent and simplified information use for Hot condition only.
- Need for arousal predicted risk-takingin hot condition.
- Adolescent affective system overrides deliberative system
What area of risk-taking did Tymula et al. (2012) investigate?
- Ambiguity Tolerance
- Experimental economic methods
- 33 12-17y, 32 30-50y
- Measured attitudes to risk and ambiguity
- Adolescents more averse to clearly stated risks than peers.
- Adolescents more willing to accept ambiguous conditions
- Lotteries tolerable to adolescents
Who used the car driving game and what were their findings?
- Gardner and Steinberg, 2005
- 106 13-16y, 105 18-22y, 95 25+y
- Played alone or with 2 peers present
- Main effects of age and cognition
- Participants all more likely to continue with peers present
- Mirrors real world data
What are the two processes possibly behind hot vs cold cognition?
- Increased emotional response -> sensation seeking -> increased reward sensitivity
- Not yet mature cognitive control
Describe Steinberg et al.’s (2008) study on sensation seeking.
- 935 10-30y participants
- Self-report 6 items of sensation seeking scale.
- Sensation seeking increases from 10-15y, then declines and stabilises
- Impulsivity has alinear pattern and declines from 10y onwards
- Middle adolescence leads to higher risk taking
- Combination of high excitement seeking and immature capacities for self-control
Inverted U shaped trajectory for self-report sensation seeking
What do Galvan et al.’s (2013) results tell us about reward sensitivity?
- Mesolimbic regions implicated in adolescent risk-taking
- Exaggerated striatum activity in adolescence vs children and adults during reward processing
- Given appetitive and averive liquids during fMRI: adolescent had increased behaviour and striatal sensitivity to both stimuli, but exaggerated in inaversive
Why can subcortical responses override PFC?
Due to increased reward sensitivity and immature cognitive control.
What was the conclusion of Chein et al.’s (2011) fMRI and driving task study?
Presence of peers led to increased adolescent risk-taking by increased sensitivity to potential reward value of risky decisions.
Why are Mills et al.’s (2014) results controversial?
- They found no mismatch in pattern of development between subcortical structures and the PFC.
- 33 participants 7-30y, 152 longitudinal MRI scans
