Temporal reward discounting in children, adolescents, and emerging adults during an experiential task
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The goal of this study was to examine age effects on the ability/willingness to wait for large rewards in a real temporal reward discounting task from childhood to adulthood. Therefore, a real temporal discounting (TD) task was administered to children aged 6-12 (n = 39), adolescents aged 13-17 (n = 28), and young adults aged 18-19 (n = 55). Findings indicated that the cross-sectional development of TD followed a quadratic pattern across age groups, with adolescents choosing more often than children and adults to wait for the large delayed reward, resulting in reward-maximization. Various interpretations of this finding were offered, including a focus on reward maximization despite an immature ability to exert self-control, and flexible self-control which was high during this task as a result of strong motivation to maximize financial gains.
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One study found that 13-17 year olds were more willing to wait for a delayed reward compared to children aged 6-12 and young adults aged 18-19.
“However, one study found that 13–17 year olds were more willing to wait for the delayed reward compared to children (aged 6–12) and young adults (aged 18–19; Scheres et al., 2014).”
From Does puberty mark a transition in sensitive periods for plasticity in the associative neocortex? (2017) · cites this paper as Scheres et al., 2014
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Does puberty mark a transition in sensitive periods for plasticity in the associative neocortex?
Piekarski, D. J., Johnson, C. M., Boivin, J. R., Thomas, A. W., Lin, W. C., Delevich, K., M. Galarce, E., & Wilbrecht, L. (2017) · Brain Research · doi:10.1016/j.brainres.2016.08.042 · Cited by 175 · see citing works
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Self-citation
- Authors
- Scheres, A., Tontsch, C., Thoeny, A. L., & Sumiya, M.
- Affiliations
- University of Arizona (US)
- Corresponding author
- Scheres, Anouk
- Venue
- Frontiers in Psychology
- Publisher
- Frontiers Media SA
- Published
- 2014-07-08
- Volume
- 5
- Pages
- 711-711
- ISSN
- 1664-1078 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4085649
- OpenAlex
- W2098135801
- Cited by
- 62
- References
- 60
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 6 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 2 · 2014: 2
- FWCI
- 3.65
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Frontiers in Psychology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Radboud Repository (Radboud University) (submittedVersion)
- Radboud Repository (Radboud University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Keywords
- delay discounting, delayed rewards, age differences, children, adolescents, emerging adults, self-control, reward maximization, economic motivation
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