Age differences in affective decision making as indexed by performance on the Iowa Gambling Task.

“…Averaged over the last three days of training, adolescents made significantly more risky choices ( p < 0.001) and significantly fewer optimal choices ( p = 0.004), as well as slightly fewer safe choices ( p = 0.04), compared with adults. This is consistent with many studies demonstrating that adolescents have a tendency toward high-risk, high-reward choices, compared with adults, across species ( Cauffman et al, 2010 ; Doremus-Fitzwater et al, 2010 ; Westbrook et al, 2018 ).…”

“…The post-hoc analysis examining the interaction of age with feedback condition shows that in our sample, younger individuals benefited more from EF, which included both reward and explicit skill content, compared to feedback that simply indicated that their answer was correct (PF). This is consistent with previous research showing that adolescents may be more sensitive than adults to positive social feedback (Cauffman et al, 2010; Jones et al, 2014) and less able to learn from negative feedback (Cauffman et al, 2010). Although in those two studies, adolescents up to age 17 were compared to adults aged 18–25, recent research demonstrates that during emerging adulthood, 18 to 25, cognitive and affective patterns may resemble those of adolescence (Arnett & Jensen, 2000).…”

“…In sum, these results suggest that on average, mother-reported punishment sensitivity and motivated behaviour to pursue rewarding goals did not change substantially over 2 years in this study sample with participants between 5.5 and 13 years using the PR BIS/BAS scale. The findings are in line with results of previously mentioned personality research (Caspi & Silva, 1995) and of findings by Braams et al (2015), but in contrast with the recently emerging hypothesis of age-related absolute changes in BIS and BAS reactivity during development (e.g., Cauffman et al, 2010; Urosevic et al, 2012). One explanation for the contrasting finding might be the use of different measures to assess BIS and BAS reactivity, that is, PR BIS/BAS scale in the present study versus original adult self-report BIS/BAS scale in the study of Urosevic et al (2012) versus behavioural measures in the study of Cauffman et al (2010).…”

“…The findings are in line with results of previously mentioned personality research (Caspi & Silva, 1995) and of findings by Braams et al (2015), but in contrast with the recently emerging hypothesis of age-related absolute changes in BIS and BAS reactivity during development (e.g., Cauffman et al, 2010; Urosevic et al, 2012). One explanation for the contrasting finding might be the use of different measures to assess BIS and BAS reactivity, that is, PR BIS/BAS scale in the present study versus original adult self-report BIS/BAS scale in the study of Urosevic et al (2012) versus behavioural measures in the study of Cauffman et al (2010). The BAS subscales might be individual difference measures that are not related to age because the respondent answers the questionnaire age adequately, that is, compared to the level of general reward motivation to other children of the same age.…”