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Stability of choices in a risky decision‐making task: a 3‐year longitudinal study with children and adults
Author(s) -
Levin Irwin P.,
Hart Stephanie S.,
Weller Joshua A.,
Harshman Lyndsay A.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
journal of behavioral decision making
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.136
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1099-0771
pISSN - 0894-3257
DOI - 10.1002/bdm.552
Subject(s) - task (project management) , psychology , iowa gambling task , outcome (game theory) , developmental psychology , longitudinal study , aggregate (composite) , social psychology , cognition , medicine , economics , psychiatry , materials science , management , mathematical economics , pathology , composite material
In a 3‐year follow‐up to Levin and Hart's (2003) study, we observed the same children, now 9–11 years old, and their parents in the same risky decision‐making task. At the aggregate level the same pattern of means was observed across time periods. At the individual level the key variables were significantly correlated across time periods for both children and adults. Taken together with the results from the original study and earlier studies, these results solidify the following conclusions: children utilize both probability and outcome information in risky decision‐making; the tendency to make more risky choices to avoid a loss than to achieve a gain of equal magnitude, which is a major tenet of the leading theories of risky decision‐making, occurs for children as well as adults; children make more risky choices than adults; temperamental predictors of risky choice are valid for children as well as for adults. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.