Despite evident heightened adolescent risk-taking in real-life situations, not all experimental studies demonstrate that adolescents take more risks than children and adults on risky decision-making tasks. In the current 4 independent meta-analyses, neurodevelopmental imbalance models and fuzzy trace theory were used as conceptual frameworks to examine whether adolescents engage in more risk-taking than children and adults and whether early adolescents take more risks than children and mid-late adolescents on behavioral risk-taking tasks. Studies with at least 1 of the aforementioned age comparisons met the inclusion criteria. Consistent with imbalance models and fuzzy trace theory, results from a random-effects model showed that adolescents take more risks (g = .37) than adults, and early adolescents take more risks (g = .15) than mid-late adolescents. However, inconsistent with both perspectives, adolescents and children take equal levels of risk (g = -.00), and early adolescents and children also take equal levels of risk (g = .04). Meta-regression analyses revealed that, consistent with imbalance models, (a) adolescents take more risks than adults on hot tasks with immediate outcome feedback on rewards and losses; however, contrary to imbalance models but consistent with fuzzy trace theory, (b) adolescents take fewer risks than children on tasks with a sure/safe option. Shortcomings related to studies using behavioral risk-taking tasks are discussed. We suggest a hybrid developmental neuroecological model of risk-taking that includes a risk opportunity component to explain why adolescents take more risks than children in the real world but equal levels of risks as children in the laboratory.

Background: It is well documented that friends’ externalizing problems and negative parent–child interactions predict externalizing problems in adolescence, but relatively little is known about the role of siblings. This four-wave, multi-informant study investigated linkages of siblings’ externalizing problems and sibling–adolescent negative interactions on adolescents’ externalizing problems, while examining and controlling for similar linkages with friends and parents.Methods: Questionnaire data on externalizing problems and negative interactions were annually collected from 497 Dutch adolescents (M = 13.03 years, SD = 0.52, at baseline), as well as their siblings, mothers, fathers, and friends.Results: Cross-lagged panel analyses revealed modest unique longitudinal paths from sibling externalizing problems to adolescent externalizing problems, for male and female adolescents, and for same-sex and mixed-sex sibling dyads, but only from older to younger siblings. Moreover, these paths were above and beyond significant paths from mother–adolescent negative interaction and friend externalizing problems to adolescent externalizing problems, 1 year later. No cross-lagged paths existed between sibling–adolescent negative interaction and adolescent externalizing problems.Conclusions: Taken together, it appears that especially older sibling externalizing problems may be a unique social risk factor for adolescent externalizing problems, equal in strength to significant parents’ and friends’ risk factors.

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Aims To determine whether cannabis use during adolescence can increase risk not only for cannabis use disorder (CUD) but also for conduct problems, potentially mediated by exposure to peers who use cannabis. Design, Setting, Participants Longitudinal study analyzing four waves of longitudinal data from 364 racially and socio‐economically diverse, urban, US community youth (at baseline: Mage = 13.51 (0.95); 49.1% female). Measurements Self‐reports of cannabis use, conduct problems, proportion of peers using cannabis and CUD criteria at the final wave were analyzed using a method sensitive to changes over development, the random‐intercept cross‐lagged panel model. Findings Change in cannabis use did not predict changes in conduct problems or peer cannabis use over time, controlling for gender, race–ethnicity and socio‐economic status. Instead, increases in conduct problems predicted increases in cannabis use and ultimately CUD, with some of the effect mediated by increases in the prevalence of peer cannabis use [β = 0.12, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.07, 0.20]. Additionally, affiliation with peers who used cannabis predicted subsequent CUD via increased personal cannabis use (β = 0.08, 95% CI = 0.04, 0.14). Significant within‐person betas for the cross‐lagged effects ranged between 0.20 and 0.27. Conclusions Cannabis use in adolescence does not appear to lead to greater conduct problems or association with cannabis‐using peers apart from pre‐existing conduct problems. Instead, adolescents who (1) increasingly affiliate with cannabis‐using peers or (2) have increasing levels of conduct problems are more likely to use cannabis, and this cascading chain of events appears to predict cannabis use disorder in emerging adulthood.

An up-to-date review extends meta-analytic findings on age differences in risky decision-making in the lab: Overall, teens and children take equal risks-which has implications for policy. Key Points • • These results could be relevant for policy makers involved in the juvenile justice system, particularly when deciding developmentally appropriate categorization of adolescents, for example, establishing at what age youth should be treated as adults.

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Adolescence is a vulnerable period for the initiation and peak of many harmful risk-taking behaviors such as smoking, which is among the most addictive and deadliest behaviors. Generic metatheories like the theory of triadic influence (TTI) suggest that interrelated risk factors across multiple domains (i.e., intrapersonal and social/environmental) jointly contribute to adolescent smoking behavior. Yet, studies are lacking that investigate risk factors across different domains in the same study, which obscures whether each makes a unique contribution to the increase in smoking throughout adolescence or whether there is overlap across the domains. Hence, to fill this gap using a latent growth approach, the current accelerated longitudinal study investigated the collective contribution of multiple intrapersonal and social risk factors in the development of smoking behavior from ages 12 to 17 in 574 ethnically diverse Dutch adolescents. Results from the latent growth model showed that whereas the contribution of motivational-intrapersonal factors like sensation-seeking was no longer significant in the stringent multivariate model, higher levels of impulsivity (cognitive-intrapersonal) and overt peer pressure (social) at age 12 proved to be robust and unique predictors of linear increases in adolescent smoking up until age 17. Consistent with the TTI, adolescent smoking progression does not occur in isolation and the determinants are wide-ranging as they stem from both intrapersonal and social domains. Thus focusing on such confluence of intrapersonal and social risk factors via prevention programs from as young as age 12 might halt the deadly increase in smoking behavior throughout adolescence. (PsycINFO Database Record

Social neurodevelopmental imbalance models posit that peer presence causes heightened adolescent risk-taking particularly during early adolescence. Evolutionary theory suggests that these effects would be most pronounced in males. However, the small but growing number of experimental studies on peer presence effects in adolescent risky decision-making showed mixed findings, and the vast majority of such studies did not test for the above-described gender and adolescent phase moderation effects. Moreover, most of those studies did not assess the criterion validity of the employed risky decision-making tasks. The current study was designed to investigate the abovementioned hypotheses among a sample of 327 ethnically-diverse Dutch early and mid-adolescents (49.80% female; Mage = 13.61). No main effect of peer presence on the employed risky-decision making task (i.e., the stoplight game) was found. However, the results showed a gender by peer presence moderation effect. Namely, whereas boys and girls engaged in equal levels of risks when they completed the stoplight game alone, boys engaged in more risk-taking than girls when they completed this task together with two same-sex peers. In contrast, adolescent phase did not moderate peer presence effects on risk-taking. Finally, the results showed that performance on the stoplight game predicted self-reported real-world risky traffic behavior, alcohol use and delinquency. Taken together, using a validated task, the present findings demonstrate that individual differences (i.e., gender) can determine whether the social environment (i.e., peer presence) affect risk-taking in early- and mid-adolescents. The finding that performance on a laboratory risky decision-making task can perhaps help identify adolescents that are vulnerable to diverse types of heightened risk behaviors is an important finding for science as well as prevention and intervention efforts.