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The rational adolescent: Strategic information processing during decision making revealed by eye tracking

Publication ,  Journal Article
Kwak, Y; Payne, JW; Cohen, AL; Huettel, SA
Published in: Cognitive Development
October 2015

Abstract Adolescence is often viewed as a time of irrational, risky decision-making—despite adolescents’ competence in other cognitive domains. In this study, we examined the strategies used by adolescents (N = 30) and young adults (N = 47) to resolve complex, multi-outcome economic gambles. Compared to adults, adolescents were more likely to make conservative, loss-minimizing choices consistent with economic models. Eye-tracking data showed that prior to decisions, adolescents acquired more information in a more thorough manner; that is, they engaged in a more analytic processing strategy indicative of trade-offs between decision variables. In contrast, young adults’ decisions were more consistent with heuristics that simplified the decision problem, at the expense of analytic precision. Collectively, these results demonstrate a counter-intuitive developmental transition in economic decision making: adolescents’ decisions are more consistent with rational-choice models, while young adults more readily engage task-appropriate heuristics.

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Published In

Cognitive Development

DOI

ISSN

0885-2014

Publication Date

October 2015

Volume

36

Start / End Page

20 / 30

Related Subject Headings

  • Developmental & Child Psychology
  • 5205 Social and personality psychology
  • 5204 Cognitive and computational psychology
  • 5201 Applied and developmental psychology
  • 1702 Cognitive Sciences
  • 1701 Psychology
  • 0801 Artificial Intelligence and Image Processing
 

Citation

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Kwak, Y., Payne, J. W., Cohen, A. L., & Huettel, S. A. (2015). The rational adolescent: Strategic information processing during decision making revealed by eye tracking. Cognitive Development, 36, 20–30. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2015.08.001
Kwak, Y., J. W. Payne, A. L. Cohen, and S. A. Huettel. “The rational adolescent: Strategic information processing during decision making revealed by eye tracking.” Cognitive Development 36 (October 2015): 20–30. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2015.08.001.
Kwak Y, Payne JW, Cohen AL, Huettel SA. The rational adolescent: Strategic information processing during decision making revealed by eye tracking. Cognitive Development. 2015 Oct;36:20–30.
Kwak, Y., et al. “The rational adolescent: Strategic information processing during decision making revealed by eye tracking.” Cognitive Development, vol. 36, Oct. 2015, pp. 20–30. Manual, doi:10.1016/j.cogdev.2015.08.001.
Kwak Y, Payne JW, Cohen AL, Huettel SA. The rational adolescent: Strategic information processing during decision making revealed by eye tracking. Cognitive Development. 2015 Oct;36:20–30.
Journal cover image

Published In

Cognitive Development

DOI

ISSN

0885-2014

Publication Date

October 2015

Volume

36

Start / End Page

20 / 30

Related Subject Headings

  • Developmental & Child Psychology
  • 5205 Social and personality psychology
  • 5204 Cognitive and computational psychology
  • 5201 Applied and developmental psychology
  • 1702 Cognitive Sciences
  • 1701 Psychology
  • 0801 Artificial Intelligence and Image Processing