Risk, Ambiguity and Prudence During Adolescence

Given adolescents' propensity to engage in risky activities, experimentally elicited risk has received much attention in adolescence. Very few studies have looked at other dimensions of decision-making under uncertainty in this special population. In this study, we attempted to close this gap by conducting a “lab in the field” experiment with adolescents. Our goals were twofold. Firstly, this study provides an initial investigation of the higher order concept of prudence during adolescence and its relationship with risk and ambiguity. Secondly, we examined the influence of demographic characteristics of the decision-maker on preferences for risk, ambiguity and prudence. Specifically, we focused on gender, age, cognitive and non-cognitive abilities as potential demographic moderators. Our results showed that adolescents are ambiguity averse and display prudent behavior, despite being risk neutral on average. Secondly, we found that various demographic factors influenced adolescents' attitudes towards risk, ambiguity and prudence. These demographic characterizations aid in targeting policy to specific groups of adolescents and we suggested several possibilities for application throughout the discussion