Adjustment of Adolescents and Young Adults to the Level of Risk in Ambiguous Risk-Taking Situation

Abstract

Adolescent risk-taking generally occurs in ambiguous situations where decisions must rely on experiential learning. Although adolescence is characterized by heightened exploration in such situations, this does not systematically lead to optimal risk adjustment based on feedback learning. This study examines initial exploration and risk adjustment through feedback in ambiguous situations. The Risk Learning Card Task (RLCT), distinguishing three levels of risk (low, medium, and high probability of loss), was used to assess risk-taking in ambiguous situations by adolescents (N = 285, aged 10–17 years, M = 13.39, SD = 1.63, 45.96% female) and young adults (N = 162, aged 18–25 years, M = 19.10, SD = 1.29, 70.99% female). Generalized additive mixed models (GAMM), considering age as a continuous variable, revealed that (1) the youngest adolescents showed the highest level of exploration, (2) a majority of participants exhibited a correct explicit risk level estimation regardless of age (i.e., they were able to estimate risk levels at the end of the task), (3) the younger the participants were, the less risk they took and the more points they earned in the low-risk condition; the more risk they took, the fewer points they earned in the high-risk situation. Thus, adolescents' adjustment is more optimal in low-risk situations and less optimal in high-risk situations.