Risk Taking and Self-Regulation in Children: Cross-sectional and repeated assessments using a computer-based gambling game

Abstract

Risk-taking, when unregulated by good executive function, may predispose youth to potentially dangerous behaviors such as substance abuse, unsafe sex practices, and criminal activity. The computer-based Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) has been widely used to study risk-taking propensity and predict real-world risky behaviors. We administered the youth version BART-Y to 6,929 children between grades K-8 and hypothesize that executive function, a cognitive skillset for self-regulation controlled by the frontal lobe, improves risk tolerance. Our preliminary results show that BART Total Points increased across grades and also significantly improved (p < 0.001) over repeated trials, supporting our proposition that risk tolerance is strengthened in parallel with cognitive development.