Prosocial Reward Learning in Children and Adolescents
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-m...
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2016
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| Online Access: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5050220/ |
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pubmed-50502202016-10-19 Prosocial Reward Learning in Children and Adolescents Kwak, Youngbin Huettel, Scott A. Psychology 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. Frontiers Media S.A. 2016-10-05 /pmc/articles/PMC5050220/ /pubmed/27761125 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01539 Text en Copyright © 2016 Kwak and Huettel. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
| repository_type |
Open Access Journal |
| institution_category |
Foreign Institution |
| institution |
US National Center for Biotechnology Information |
| building |
NCBI PubMed |
| collection |
Online Access |
| language |
English |
| format |
Online |
| author |
Kwak, Youngbin Huettel, Scott A. |
| spellingShingle |
Kwak, Youngbin Huettel, Scott A. Prosocial Reward Learning in Children and Adolescents |
| author_facet |
Kwak, Youngbin Huettel, Scott A. |
| author_sort |
Kwak, Youngbin |
| title |
Prosocial Reward Learning in Children and Adolescents |
| title_short |
Prosocial Reward Learning in Children and Adolescents |
| title_full |
Prosocial Reward Learning in Children and Adolescents |
| title_fullStr |
Prosocial Reward Learning in Children and Adolescents |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Prosocial Reward Learning in Children and Adolescents |
| title_sort |
prosocial reward learning in children and adolescents |
| description |
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. |
| publisher |
Frontiers Media S.A. |
| publishDate |
2016 |
| url |
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5050220/ |
| _version_ |
1613672406189080576 |