Development of Individual Differences in Decision Biases, Phase II: Decision Making Competence in Children

SES-0721103决策偏差中个体差异的发展，第二阶段：爱荷华州欧文大学儿童莱文的决策能力这里提出的研究将建立在目前的研究人员和其他人之前的研究基础上，以帮助我们更好地理解儿童如何做出决策。我们关注风险决策，因为青少年前和青少年的过度冒险行为可能是成瘾、交通安全和无保护性行为等领域的社会问题的原因。我们已经开发了通过受控实验任务来衡量决策能力的技术，并使用这些技术来比较不同年龄的儿童和成年人所做的决策。例如，我们发现，考虑风险选择的可能结果及其可能性的能力随着年龄的增长而增加。这项拟议研究的核心是一项纵向研究，在这项研究中，我们在不同的时间点测量了一组前青少年在决策能力方面的个体差异。我们预计在三年的时间里，能力会稳步提高，但将能够识别“处于危险”的儿童的概况，并跟踪他们的缺陷如何影响他们在日常生活中做出的决定。这里有可能为那些面临适应不良行为风险最高的人确定决策的具体组成部分，例如对风险水平缺乏关注或不愿考虑长期后果。然后，可以将这些因素分离出来进行进一步研究，以确定通过对任何给定儿童的反馈和经验可以在多大程度上改变它们。

SES - 0721103 Development of Individual Differences in Decision Biases , Phase II: Decision Making Competence in ChildrenLevin, Irwin P. University of Iowa The research proposed here will build onto previous research by the present investigators and others to help us gain a better understanding of how children make decisions. We focus on risky decision making because excessive risk-taking behavior by pre-adolescents and adolescents can be a cause of societal problems in areas such as addiction, traffic safety, and unprotected sex. We have developed techniques for measuring decision making competence through controlled experimental tasks and we use these to compare decisions made by children of different ages and adults. For example, we showed that the ability to take into account the possible outcomes of a risky choice and their likelihoods increases with age. At the heart of the proposed research is a longitudinal study in which we measure at various points in time individual differences in decision making competence among a group of pre-adolescents. We expect steady increases in competence over a 3-year period but will be able to identify profiles of "at risk" children and track how their deficits affect decisions made in their everyday lives. There is potential here for identifying specific components of decision making for those most at risk for maladaptive behavior, such as lack of attention to risk levels or unwillingness to factor in long-term consequences. These factors can then be isolated for further study to determine the extent to which they can be changed through feedback and experience for any given child.