Skip to main content
  • Submit
  • About
    • Editorial Board
    • PNAS Staff
    • FAQ
    • Accessibility Statement
    • Rights and Permissions
    • Site Map
  • Contact
  • Journal Club
  • Subscribe
    • Subscription Rates
    • Subscriptions FAQ
    • Open Access
    • Recommend PNAS to Your Librarian
  • Log in
  • My Cart

Main menu

  • Home
  • Articles
    • Current
    • Special Feature Articles - Most Recent
    • Special Features
    • Colloquia
    • Collected Articles
    • PNAS Classics
    • List of Issues
  • Front Matter
  • News
    • For the Press
    • This Week In PNAS
    • PNAS in the News
  • Podcasts
  • Authors
    • Information for Authors
    • Editorial and Journal Policies
    • Submission Procedures
    • Fees and Licenses
  • Submit
  • About
    • Editorial Board
    • PNAS Staff
    • FAQ
    • Accessibility Statement
    • Rights and Permissions
    • Site Map
  • Contact
  • Journal Club
  • Subscribe
    • Subscription Rates
    • Subscriptions FAQ
    • Open Access
    • Recommend PNAS to Your Librarian

User menu

  • Log in
  • My Cart

Search

  • Advanced search
Home
Home

Advanced Search

  • Home
  • Articles
    • Current
    • Special Feature Articles - Most Recent
    • Special Features
    • Colloquia
    • Collected Articles
    • PNAS Classics
    • List of Issues
  • Front Matter
  • News
    • For the Press
    • This Week In PNAS
    • PNAS in the News
  • Podcasts
  • Authors
    • Information for Authors
    • Editorial and Journal Policies
    • Submission Procedures
    • Fees and Licenses

New Research In

Physical Sciences

Featured Portals

  • Physics
  • Chemistry
  • Sustainability Science

Articles by Topic

  • Applied Mathematics
  • Applied Physical Sciences
  • Astronomy
  • Computer Sciences
  • Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
  • Engineering
  • Environmental Sciences
  • Mathematics
  • Statistics

Social Sciences

Featured Portals

  • Anthropology
  • Sustainability Science

Articles by Topic

  • Economic Sciences
  • Environmental Sciences
  • Political Sciences
  • Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
  • Social Sciences

Biological Sciences

Featured Portals

  • Sustainability Science

Articles by Topic

  • Agricultural Sciences
  • Anthropology
  • Applied Biological Sciences
  • Biochemistry
  • Biophysics and Computational Biology
  • Cell Biology
  • Developmental Biology
  • Ecology
  • Environmental Sciences
  • Evolution
  • Genetics
  • Immunology and Inflammation
  • Medical Sciences
  • Microbiology
  • Neuroscience
  • Pharmacology
  • Physiology
  • Plant Biology
  • Population Biology
  • Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
  • Sustainability Science
  • Systems Biology
Research Article

Adolescents’ risk-taking behavior is driven by tolerance to ambiguity

Agnieszka Tymula, Lior A. Rosenberg Belmaker, Amy K. Roy, Lital Ruderman, Kirk Manson, Paul W. Glimcher, and Ifat Levy
PNAS first published October 1, 2012; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1207144109
Agnieszka Tymula
aCenter for Neural Science, New York University, New York, NY 10003;
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: tymula@nyu.edu ifat.levy@yale.edu
Lior A. Rosenberg Belmaker
bSection of Comparative Medicine and
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Amy K. Roy
cDepartment of Psychology, Fordham University, New York, NY 10458
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Lital Ruderman
bSection of Comparative Medicine and
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Kirk Manson
bSection of Comparative Medicine and
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Paul W. Glimcher
aCenter for Neural Science, New York University, New York, NY 10003;
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Ifat Levy
bSection of Comparative Medicine and
dDepartment of Neurobiology, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510; and
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: tymula@nyu.edu ifat.levy@yale.edu
  1. Edited by Michael S. Gazzaniga, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, and approved August 28, 2012 (received for review May 1, 2012)

  • Article
  • Figures & SI
  • Info & Metrics
  • PDF
Loading

Abstract

Adolescents engage in a wide range of risky behaviors that their older peers shun, and at an enormous cost. Despite being older, stronger, and healthier than children, adolescents face twice the risk of mortality and morbidity faced by their younger peers. Are adolescents really risk-seekers or does some richer underlying preference drive their love of the uncertain? To answer that question, we used standard experimental economic methods to assess the attitudes of 65 individuals ranging in age from 12 to 50 toward risk and ambiguity. Perhaps surprisingly, we found that adolescents were, if anything, more averse to clearly stated risks than their older peers. What distinguished adolescents was their willingness to accept ambiguous conditions—situations in which the likelihood of winning and losing is unknown. Though adults find ambiguous monetary lotteries undesirable, adolescents find them tolerable. This finding suggests that the higher level of risk-taking observed among adolescents may reflect a higher tolerance for the unknown. Biologically, such a tolerance may make sense, because it would allow young organisms to take better advantage of learning opportunities; it also suggests that policies that seek to inform adolescents of the risks, costs, and benefits of unexperienced dangerous behaviors may be effective and, when appropriate, could be used to complement policies that limit their experiences.

  • aging
  • decision making
  • uncertainty
  • lifespan

Footnotes

  • ↵1A.T. and L.A.R.B. contributed equally to this work.

  • ↵2To whom correspondence may be addressed. E-mail: tymula{at}nyu.edu or ifat.levy{at}yale.edu.
  • Author contributions: A.T., L.A.R.B., A.K.R., P.W.G., and I.L. designed research; A.T., L.A.R.B., L.R., and K.M. performed research; A.T., L.A.R.B., and I.L. analyzed data; and A.T., L.A.R.B., P.W.G., and I.L. wrote the paper.

  • The authors declare no conflict of interest.

  • This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.

  • This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1207144109/-/DCSupplemental.

Next
Back to top
Article Alerts
Email Article

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word on PNAS.

NOTE: We only request your email address so that the person you are recommending the page to knows that you wanted them to see it, and that it is not junk mail. We do not capture any email address.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Adolescents’ risk-taking behavior is driven by tolerance to ambiguity
(Your Name) has sent you a message from PNAS
(Your Name) thought you would like to see the PNAS web site.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Citation Tools
Ambiguity tolerance and risk-taking in adolescents
Agnieszka Tymula, Lior A. Rosenberg Belmaker, Amy K. Roy, Lital Ruderman, Kirk Manson, Paul W. Glimcher, Ifat Levy
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Oct 2012, 201207144; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1207144109

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
Request Permissions
Share
Ambiguity tolerance and risk-taking in adolescents
Agnieszka Tymula, Lior A. Rosenberg Belmaker, Amy K. Roy, Lital Ruderman, Kirk Manson, Paul W. Glimcher, Ifat Levy
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Oct 2012, 201207144; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1207144109
Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Mendeley logo Mendeley
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: 118 (3)
Current Issue

Submit

Sign up for Article Alerts

Jump to section

  • Article
  • Figures & SI
  • Info & Metrics
  • PDF

You May Also be Interested in

Abstract depiction of a guitar and musical note
Science & Culture: At the nexus of music and medicine, some see disease treatments
Although the evidence is still limited, a growing body of research suggests music may have beneficial effects for diseases such as Parkinson’s.
Image credit: Shutterstock/agsandrew.
Large piece of gold
News Feature: Tracing gold's cosmic origins
Astronomers thought they’d finally figured out where gold and other heavy elements in the universe came from. In light of recent results, they’re not so sure.
Image credit: Science Source/Tom McHugh.
Dancers in red dresses
Journal Club: Friends appear to share patterns of brain activity
Researchers are still trying to understand what causes this strong correlation between neural and social networks.
Image credit: Shutterstock/Yeongsik Im.
White and blue bird
Hazards of ozone pollution to birds
Amanda Rodewald, Ivan Rudik, and Catherine Kling talk about the hazards of ozone pollution to birds.
Listen
Past PodcastsSubscribe
Goats standing in a pin
Transplantation of sperm-producing stem cells
CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing can improve the effectiveness of spermatogonial stem cell transplantation in mice and livestock, a study finds.
Image credit: Jon M. Oatley.

Similar Articles

Site Logo
Powered by HighWire
  • Submit Manuscript
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • RSS Feeds
  • Email Alerts

Articles

  • Current Issue
  • Special Feature Articles – Most Recent
  • List of Issues

PNAS Portals

  • Anthropology
  • Chemistry
  • Classics
  • Front Matter
  • Physics
  • Sustainability Science
  • Teaching Resources

Information

  • Authors
  • Editorial Board
  • Reviewers
  • Librarians
  • Press
  • Site Map
  • PNAS Updates

Feedback    Privacy/Legal

Copyright © 2021 National Academy of Sciences. Online ISSN 1091-6490