Temple study: Taming teen risk-taking

Temple University researchers have already shown that teens make riskier decisions when they're with peers than they do when they're alone.

But they wondered what would happen to decision-making if they added a slightly older person to the mix.

So did the U.S. Army Medical Research and Material Command, which funded a study published in Psychological Science and led by Temple psychologist Laurence Steinberg. The work has implications for the Army, which sends groups of young soldiers into combat in four-member teams. Steinberg added, though, that restaurants, retail stores and volunteer organizations also often have large numbers of young employees.

Indeed, the team found that the addition of a slightly older man — this was an all-male study — resulted in less risky, more future-oriented decisions among adolescent study subjects.

Steinberg's team looked at the behavior of 18- to 22-year-olds who were mostly college students. He calls them late adolescents because most young Americans have not taken on fully adult roles at that age and the brain has not matured until 23 or so. "It doesn't make sense any longer to think of 18 as the end of adolescence," he said.

The study compared decisions they made alone, in four-man groups with other adolescents and in groups that included one 25- to 30-year-old grad student. About 100 people were enrolled in each study arm, but only one member of each team took the tests. The older group members were instructed not to meddle or try to change results.

During the study, the adolescents were given computer-based tests. One involved a series of decisions about money: Would you like $200 now or $1,000 in six months? What about $800 now? The other was a driving game with aggravating rules: drivers were told they'd be evaluated on their speed, but that they also could be hit if they ran a light.

In reality, there was no way to "win" the game, Steinberg said. The researchers were only interested in risky behavior. It rose by about 42 percent when the late-adolescents were with peers and fell to solo levels when the young adult was in the mix.

The authors concluded that adding slightly older adults to teams "may help compensate for adolescents' neurobiological immaturity."

They added, however, that college-age people have desirable qualities such as spontaneity, creativity and enthusiasm that can be beneficial at work. "There are lots of good things that people this age bring to work teams," Steinberg said.

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