decision-making
Definition
Decision-making refers to the cognitive process by which individuals select among options under conditions of risk, a capacity that develops across childhood and adolescence and is measurable through neuropsychological instruments. The Cambridge Gambling Task operationalises this capacity by assessing risk-taking behaviour outside a learning context, and its risk adjustment measure specifically captures flexibility in updating decisions in response to new information, as distinct from impulsive risk-taking. Social cognitive development in childhood predicts this flexibility: children who demonstrated superior Theory of Mind abilities at ages 5 and 7 scored significantly higher on risk adjustment at age 14, with an effect size comparable to vocabulary knowledge, even after controlling for sex, family income, parental education, and mental health. This association supports a theoretical account in which adolescent decision-making is shaped by social-affective maturation and the ability to adjust goals in response to changing environmental feedback, rather than by inhibitory control alone.
Sources: Tsomokos & Flouri (2023)
Related Terms
- theory of mind (1 shared article)
- social cognition (1 shared article)
- risk-taking (1 shared article)
- adolescence (1 shared article)
Applications
Decision-making and Theory of Mind
Theory of Mind, specifically the attribution of false beliefs to other agents, is positively associated with risk adjustment in adolescent decision-making. Children who passed all three questions of the Sally-Anne Task at both ages 5 and 7 later demonstrated significantly greater ability to update decisions under risk at age 14, with the association holding after adjustment for a range of individual and family covariates.
Sources: Tsomokos & Flouri (2023)
Decision-making and Risk Adjustment
Risk adjustment, measured via the Cambridge Gambling Task, indexes a person's capacity to modify decisions under risk when confronted with new information, and is treated as conceptually separable from overall impulsive risk-taking. In a sample of 9,575 adolescents, superior childhood social cognition significantly predicted higher risk adjustment scores at age 14 (b = 10.46, p < .014), while the same social cognitive measure did not significantly predict the broader risk-taking score (p > .05).
Sources: Tsomokos & Flouri (2023)
