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.
