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      The dual systems model: Review, reappraisal, and reaffirmation

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          Highlights

          • Evidence related to the dual systems model of adolescent risk taking is reviewed.

          • The review encompasses both the psychological and neuroimaging literatures.

          • Recent findings (since 2008) generally support the dual systems model.

          • Recommendations are made for future research directions.

          Abstract

          According to the dual systems perspective, risk taking peaks during adolescence because activation of an early-maturing socioemotional-incentive processing system amplifies adolescents’ affinity for exciting, pleasurable, and novel activities at a time when a still immature cognitive control system is not yet strong enough to consistently restrain potentially hazardous impulses. We review evidence from both the psychological and neuroimaging literatures that has emerged since 2008, when this perspective was originally articulated. Although there are occasional exceptions to the general trends, studies show that, as predicted, psychological and neural manifestations of reward sensitivity increase between childhood and adolescence, peak sometime during the late teen years, and decline thereafter, whereas psychological and neural reflections of better cognitive control increase gradually and linearly throughout adolescence and into the early 20s. While some forms of real-world risky behavior peak at a later age than predicted, this likely reflects differential opportunities for risk-taking in late adolescence and young adulthood, rather than neurobiological differences that make this age group more reckless. Although it is admittedly an oversimplification, as a heuristic device, the dual systems model provides a far more accurate account of adolescent risk taking than prior models that have attributed adolescent recklessness to cognitive deficiencies.

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          Most cited references141

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          Peer influence on risk taking, risk preference, and risky decision making in adolescence and adulthood: an experimental study.

          In this study, 306 individuals in 3 age groups--adolescents (13-16), youths (18-22), and adults (24 and older)--completed 2 questionnaire measures assessing risk preference and risky decision making, and 1 behavioral task measuring risk taking. Participants in each age group were randomly assigned to complete the measures either alone or with 2 same-aged peers. Analyses indicated that (a) risk taking and risky decision making decreased with age; (b) participants took more risks, focused more on the benefits than the costs of risky behavior, and made riskier decisions when in peer groups than alone; and (c) peer effects on risk taking and risky decision making were stronger among adolescents and youths than adults. These findings support the idea that adolescents are more inclined toward risky behavior and risky decision making than are adults and that peer influence plays an important role in explaining risky behavior during adolescence.
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            The adolescent brain.

            Adolescence is a developmental period characterized by suboptimal decisions and actions that give rise to an increased incidence of unintentional injuries and violence, alcohol and drug abuse, unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Traditional neurobiological and cognitive explanations for adolescent behavior have failed to account for the nonlinear changes in behavior observed during adolescence, relative to childhood and adulthood. This review provides a biologically plausible conceptualization of the neural mechanisms underlying these nonlinear changes in behavior, as a heightened responsiveness to incentives while impulse control is still relatively immature during this period. Recent human imaging and animal studies provide a biological basis for this view, suggesting differential development of limbic reward systems relative to top-down control systems during adolescence relative to childhood and adulthood. This developmental pattern may be exacerbated in those adolescents with a predisposition toward risk-taking, increasing the risk for poor outcomes.
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              Age differences in sensation seeking and impulsivity as indexed by behavior and self-report: evidence for a dual systems model.

              It has been hypothesized that sensation seeking and impulsivity, which are often conflated, in fact develop along different timetables and have different neural underpinnings, and that the difference in their timetables helps account for heightened risk taking during adolescence. In order to test these propositions, the authors examined age differences in sensation seeking and impulsivity in a socioeconomically and ethnically diverse sample of 935 individuals between the ages of 10 and 30, using self-report and behavioral measures of each construct. Consistent with the authors' predictions, age differences in sensation seeking, which are linked to pubertal maturation, follow a curvilinear pattern, with sensation seeking increasing between 10 and 15 and declining or remaining stable thereafter. In contrast, age differences in impulsivity, which are unrelated to puberty, follow a linear pattern, with impulsivity declining steadily from age 10 on. Heightened vulnerability to risk taking in middle adolescence may be due to the combination of relatively higher inclinations to seek excitement and relatively immature capacities for self-control that are typical of this period of development.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Journal
                Dev Cogn Neurosci
                Dev Cogn Neurosci
                Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience
                Elsevier
                1878-9293
                1878-9307
                29 December 2015
                February 2016
                29 December 2015
                : 17
                : 103-117
                Affiliations
                [a ]Brock University, Psychology Department, 1812 Sir Isaac Brock Way, St. Catharines, ON L2S 3A1, Canada
                [b ]Temple University, Department of Psychology, 1701 N. 13th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19122, USA
                [c ]King Abdulaziz University, Abdullah Sulayman, Jeddah 22254, Saudi Arabia
                Author notes
                [* ]Corresponding author. eshulman@ 123456brocku.ca
                [1]

                These authors made equal contributions to the article and should be considered co-first authors.

                Article
                S1878-9293(15)00129-2
                10.1016/j.dcn.2015.12.010
                6990093
                26774291
                f14b11bb-e88b-4c1c-b338-8ab03e9a1fb9
                © 2016 The Authors

                This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

                History
                : 22 January 2015
                : 17 July 2015
                : 19 December 2015
                Categories
                Special section: The Developmental Neuroscience of Adolescen Revisiting, Refining, and Extending Seminal Model

                Neurosciences
                adolescents,risk taking,dual systems,sensation-seeking,reward sensitivity,cognitive control

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