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Updated: Jun 23, 2025
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Measuring the Subjective Value of Risky and Ambiguous Options using Experimental Economics and Functional MRI Methods
Published on: September 19, 2012
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Sensitivity to the Instrumental Value of Choice Increases Across Development
Kate Nussenbaum1,2, Perri L Katzman1, Hanxiao Lu1
1Department of Psychology, New York University.
Psychological Science
|June 20, 2024
Summary
Children and adults prefer making choices, but their decision-making adapts. Sensitivity to the value of choices grows from childhood to adulthood, influencing agency decisions.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Development
- Decision-Making Science
- Neuroscience
Background:
- Humans exhibit a developmental preference for contexts allowing personal choice.
- The calibration of this preference based on the costs and benefits of agentic choice remains unclear across development.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how children, adolescents, and adults learn to calibrate their preference for agentic choice.
- To examine the developmental trajectory of sensitivity to the instrumental value of choice.
Main Methods:
- A reinforcement-learning experiment with 92 participants (ages 10-25).
- A preregistered online replication study with 150 participants (ages 8-25).
- Computational modeling and regression analyses of participant choices.
Main Results:
- Participants consistently overvalued agentic choice across all ages.
- Agency decisions were calibrated to the environment's reward structure, with increased choice selection when instrumental value was higher.
- A bias toward agentic choice, reflecting intrinsic value, was constant with age.
- Sensitivity to the instrumental value of agentic choice increased developmentally from childhood to early adulthood.
Conclusions:
- While the intrinsic value of choice remains stable, the ability to leverage choice for rewards develops throughout adolescence.
- Understanding this developmental calibration is crucial for fields like education and behavioral economics.
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