Open AccessMulti-Round Trust Game Quantifies Inter-Individual Differences in Social Exchange from Adolescence to Adulthood
Author(s) -
Andreas Hula,
Michael Moutoussis,
GeertJan Will,
Danae Kokorikou,
Andrea M.F. Reiter,
Gabriel Ziegler,
Edward T. Bullmore,
Peter B. Jones,
Ian M. Goodyer,
Peter Fonagy,
P. Read Montague,
Raymond J. Dolan
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
computational psychiatry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2379-6227
DOI - 10.5334/cpsy.65
Subject(s) - risk aversion (psychology) , psychology , inequity aversion , investment (military) , early adulthood , developmental psychology , young adult , task (project management) , inequality , social psychology , demographic economics , economics , financial economics , expected utility hypothesis , political science , mathematical analysis , mathematics , management , politics , law
Investing in strangers in a socio-economic exchange is risky, as we may be uncertain whether they will reciprocate. Nevertheless, the potential rewards for cooperating can be great. Here, we used a cross sectional sample (n = 784) to study how the challenges of cooperation versus defection are negotiated across an important period of the lifespan: from adolescence to young adulthood (ages 14 to 25). We quantified social behaviour using a multi round investor-trustee task, phenotyping individuals using a validated model whose parameters characterise patterns of real exchange and constitute latent social characteristics. We found highly significant differences in investment behaviour according to age, sex, socio-economic status and IQ. Consistent with the literature, we showed an overall trend towards higher trust from adolescence to young adulthood but, in a novel finding, we characterized key cognitive mechanisms explaining this, especially regarding socio-economic risk aversion. Males showed lower risk-aversion, associated with greater investments. We also found that inequality aversion was higher in females and, in a novel relation, that socio-economic deprivation was associated with more risk averse play.