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Prosocial Reward Learning in Children and Adolescents.
Abstract
Adolescence is a period of increased sensitivity to social contexts. To evaluate how
social context sensitivity changes over development-and influences reward learning-we
investigated how children and adolescents perceive and integrate rewards for oneself
and others during a dynamic risky decision-making task. Children and adolescents (N
= 75, 8-16 years) performed the Social Gambling Task (SGT, Kwak et al., 2014) and
completed a set of questionnaires measuring other-regarding behavior. In the SGT,
participants choose amongst four card decks that have different payout structures
for oneself and for a charity. We examined patterns of choices, overall decision strategies,
and how reward outcomes led to trial-by-trial adjustments in behavior, as estimated
using a reinforcement-learning model. Performance of children and adolescents was
compared to data from a previously collected sample of adults (N = 102) performing
the identical task. We found that that children/adolescents were not only more sensitive
to rewards directed to the charity than self but also showed greater prosocial tendencies
on independent measures of other-regarding behavior. Children and adolescents also
showed less use of a strategy that prioritizes rewards for self at the expense of
rewards for others. These results support the conclusion that, compared to adults,
children and adolescents show greater sensitivity to outcomes for others when making
decisions and learning about potential rewards.
Type
Journal articlePermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/13704Published Version (Please cite this version)
10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01539Publication Info
Kwak, Y; & Huettel, SA (2016). Prosocial Reward Learning in Children and Adolescents. Front Psychol, 7. pp. 1539. 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01539. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/13704.This is constructed from limited available data and may be imprecise. To cite this
article, please review & use the official citation provided by the journal.
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Scott Huettel
Professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience
Research in my laboratory investigates the brain mechanisms underlying economic and
social decision making; collectively, this research falls into the field of “decision
neuroscience” or "neuroeconomics". My laboratory uses fMRI to probe brain function,
behavioral assays to characterize individual differences, and other physiological
methods (e.g., eye tracking, pharmacological manipulation, genetics) to link brain
and behavior. Concurrent with research on basic processes, my labo

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