@article{bc2536526f30414883005423b7b369a9,
title = "Consequences for peers differentially bias computations about risk across development",
abstract = "Adolescents routinely take risks that impact the well-being of the friends they are with. However, it remains unclear when and how consequences for friends factor into decisions to take risks. Here we used an economic decision-making task to test whether risky choices are guided by the positive and negative consequences they promise for peers. Across a large developmental sample of participants ages 12-25, we show that risky decision computations increasingly assimilate friends' outcomes throughout adolescence into early adulthood in an asymmetric manner that overemphasizes protecting friends from incurring loss. Whereas adults accommodated friend outcomes to a greater degree when the friend was present and witnessing these choices, adolescents did so regardless of whether a friend could witness their decisions, highlighting the fundamentality of adolescent social motivations. By demonstrating that outcomes for another individual can powerfully tune an actor's risk tolerance, these results identify a key factor underlying peer-related motivations for risky behavior, with implications for the law and risk-prevention.",
keywords = "Adolescence, Decision-making, Development, Peer influence, Risk",
author = "Powers, {Katherine E.} and Gideon Yaffe and Hartley, {Catherine A.} and Davidow, {Juliet Y.} and Hedy Kober and Somerville, {Leah H.}",
note = "Funding Information: This work was supported by the Oscar M. Ruebhausen Fund at Yale Law School to Hedy Kober and Gideon Yaffe and a National Science Foundation CAREER award (BCS-1452530) to Leah H. Somerville. We are grateful to Peter Sokol-Hessner for modeling guidance; Erik Kastman for technical assistance; Megan Garrad, Gina Falcone, Nadia Haddara, Hannah Shulman, and Stephanie Sasse for help with participant recruitment and testing; and the Affective Neuroscience and Development Lab at Harvard University for helpful discussion. Portions of these data have been presented at annual meetings of the Social and Affective Neuroscience Society, Flux Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Congress, Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and the Cognitive Neuroscience Society. Study materials and data can be accessed at osf.io/nsyqc. Hedy Kober and Leah H. Somerville share equal authorship. Gideon Yaffe, Hedy Kober, and Leah H. Somerville designed the research; Katherine E. Powers performed the research; Katherine E. Powers, Juliet Y. Davidow, Catherine A. Hartley, and Leah H. Somerville analyzed the data; Katherine E. Powers and Leah H. Somerville wrote the manuscript; and all other authors provided critical comments and revisions. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript for submission.",
year = "2018",
month = may,
doi = "10.1037/xge0000389",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "147",
pages = "671--682",
journal = "Journal of Experimental Psychology: General",
issn = "0096-3445",
publisher = "American Psychological Association Inc.",
number = "5",
}