Age Differences in Future Orientation and Delay Discounting
Correction(s) for this article
-
Errata
- Volume 81Issue 3Child Development
- pages: 1024-1024
- First Published online: May 13, 2010
Laurence Steinberg,
Sandra Graham,
Lia O’Brien,
Jennifer Woolard,
Elizabeth Cauffman,
Marie Banich,
Corresponding Author
Laurence Steinberg
Temple University
concerning this article should be addressed to Laurence Steinberg, Department of Psychology, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 19122. Electronic mail may be sent to [email protected].Search for more papers by this author
Laurence Steinberg,
Sandra Graham,
Lia O’Brien,
Jennifer Woolard,
Elizabeth Cauffman,
Marie Banich,
Corresponding Author
Laurence Steinberg
Temple University
concerning this article should be addressed to Laurence Steinberg, Department of Psychology, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 19122. Electronic mail may be sent to [email protected].Search for more papers by this authorThis research was supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice.
Abstract
Age differences in future orientation are examined in a sample of 935 individuals between 10 and 30 years using a delay discounting task as well as a new self-report measure. Younger adolescents consistently demonstrate a weaker orientation to the future than do individuals aged 16 and older, as reflected in their greater willingness to accept a smaller reward delivered sooner than a larger one that is delayed, and in their characterizations of themselves as less concerned about the future and less likely to anticipate the consequences of their decisions. Planning ahead, in contrast, continues to develop into young adulthood. Future studies should distinguish between future orientation and impulse control, which may have different neural underpinnings and follow different developmental timetables.
References
- American Psychological Association. (1989). Amicus Curiae brief in Hodgson v. Minnesota, 497 U.S. 417 (1990).
- Benthin, A., Slovic, P., & Severson, H. (1993). A psychometric study of adolescent risk perception. Journal of Adolescence, 16, 153–168.
- Bickel, W., Odum, A., & Madden, G. (1999). Impulsivity and cigarette smoking: Delay discounting in current, never, and ex-smokers. Psychopharmacology, 146, 447–454.
- Casey, B. J., Getz, S., & Galvan, A. (2008). The adolescent brain. Developmental Review, 28, 62–77.
- Casey, B. J., Tottenham, N., Liston, C., & Durston, S. (2005). Imaging the developing brain: What have we learned about cognitive development? Trends in Cognitive Science, 9, 104–110.
- Cauffman, E., & Steinberg, L. (2000). (Im)maturity of judgment in adolescence: Why adolescents may be less culpable than adults. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 18, 741–760.
- Cauffman, E., Steinberg, L., & Piquero, A. (2005). Psychological, neuropsychological, and psychophysiological correlates of serious antisocial behavior in adolescence: The role of self-control. Criminology, 43, 133–176.
- De Wit, H., Flory, J., Acheson, A., McCloskey, M., & Manuck, S. (2007). IQ and nonplanning impulsivity are independently associated with delay discounting in middle-aged adults. Personality and Individual Differences, 42, 111–121.
- Fellows, L., & Farah, M. (2005). Dissociable elements of human foresight: A role for the ventromedial frontal lobes in framing the future, but not in discounting future rewards. Neuropsychologia, 43, 1214–1221.
- Funder, D., & Block, J. (1989). The role of ego-control, ego-resiliency, and IQ in delay of gratification in adolescence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 1041–1050.
- Furby, M., & Beyth-Marom, R. (1992). Risk-taking in adolescence: A decision making perspective. Developmental Review, 12, 1–44.
- Galvan, A., Hare, T., Voss, H., Glover, G., & Casey, B. J. (2007). Risk-taking and the adolescent brain: Who is at risk? Developmental Science, 10, F8–F14.
- Gardner, M., & Steinberg, L. (2005). Peer influence on risk taking, risk preference, and risky decision making in adolescence and adulthood: An experimental study. Developmental Psychology, 41, 625–635.
- Gardner, W. (1993). A life-span rational choice theory of risk taking. In N. Bell & R. Bell (Eds.), Adolescent risk taking (pp. 66–83). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
- Giedd, J. 1, Blumenthal, J., Jeffries, N., Castellanos, F., Liu, H., Zijdenbos, A., et al. (1999). Brain development during childhood and adolescence: A longitudinal MRI study. Nature Neuroscience, 2, 861–863.
- Green, L., Fry, A., & Myerson, J. (1994). Discounting of delayed rewards: A life-span comparison. Psychological Science, 5, 33–36.
- Green, L., Myerson, J., Lichtman, D., Rosen, S., & Fry, A. (1996). Temporal discounting in choice between delayed rewards: The role of age and income. Psychology and Aging, 11, 79–84.
- Green, L., Myerson, J., & Macaux, E. (2005). Temporal discounting when the choice is between two delayed rewards. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 31, 1121–1133.
- Green, L., Myerson, J., & Ostaszewski, P. (1999). Discounting of delayed rewards across the life span: Age differences in individual discounting functions. Behavioural Processes, 46, 89–96.
- Greene, A. (1986). Future time perspective in adolescence: The present of things future revisited. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 15, 99–113.
- Grisso, T., Steinberg, L., Woolard, J., Cauffman, E., Scott, E., Graham, S., et al. (2003). Juveniles’ competence to stand trial: A comparison of adolescents’ and adults’ capacities as trial defendants. Law and Human Behavior, 27, 333–363.
- Harter, S. (1982). The Perceived Competence Scale for Children. Child Development, 53, 87–97.
- Johnson, M., & Bickel, W. (2002). Within-subject comparison of real and hypothetical money rewards in delay discounting. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 77, 129–146.
- Lagorio, C., & Madden, G. (2005). Delay discounting of real and hypothetical rewards III: Steady-state assessments, forced-choice trials, and all real rewards. Behavioural Processes, 69, 173–187.
- Leshem, R., & Glicksohn, J. (2007). The construct of impulsivity revisited. Personality and Individual Differences, 43, 681–691.
- Lessing, E. (1972). Extension of personal future time perspective, age and life satisfaction of children and adolescents. Developmental Psychology, 6, 457–468.
- Lewis, C. (1980). A comparison of minors and adults pregnancy decisions. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 50, 446–452.
- MacKinnon, D., Lockwood, C., Hoffman, J., West, S., & Sheets, V. (2002). A comparison of methods to test mediation and other intervening variable effects. Psychological Methods, 7, 83–104.
- Madden, G. J., Begotka, A. M., Raiff, B. R., & Kastern, L. L. (2003). Delay discounting of real and hypothetical rewards. Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology, 11, 139–145.
- Madden, G., Petry, N., Badger, G., & Bickel, W. (1997). Impulsive and self-control choices in opioid-dependent patients and non-drug-using control participants: Drug and monetary rewards. Experimental Clinical Psychopharmacology, 5, 256–262.
- McCabe, K., & Barnett, D. (2000). The relation between familial factors and the future orientation of urban, African American sixth graders. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 9, 491–508.
10.1023/A:1009474926880 Google Scholar
- McClure, S., Laibson, D., Loewenstein, G., & Cohen, J. (2004). Separate neural systems value immediate and delayed monetary rewards. Science, 306, 503–507.
- Mischel, W., & Ebbesen, E. (1970). Attention in delay of gratification. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 16, 329–337.
- Nurmi, J. (1987). Age, sex, social class, and quality of family interaction as determinants of adolescents’ future orientation: A developmental task interpretation. Adolescence, 22, 977–991.
- Nurmi, J. (1989a). Development of orientation to the future during early adolescence: A four-year longitudinal study and two cross-sectional comparisons. International Journal of Psychology, 24, 195–214.
- Nurmi, J. (1989b). Planning, motivation, and evaluation in orientation to the future: A latent structure analysis. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 30, 64–71.
- Nurmi, J. (1991). How do adolescents see their future? A review of the development of future orientation and planning. Developmental Review, 11, 1–59.
- Nurmi, J. (1992). Age differences in adult life goals, concerns, and their temporal extension: A life course approach to future-oriented motivation. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 15, 487–508.
- Nurmi, J., Poole, M., & Kalakoski, V. (1994). Age differences in adolescent future-oriented goals, concerns, and related temporal extension in different sociocultural contexts. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 23, 471–487.
- Nuttin, J. (1985). Future time perspective and motivation. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
- Ohmura, Y., Takahashi, T., Kitamura, N., & Wehr, P. (2006). Three-month stability of delay and probability discounting measures. Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology, 14, 318–328.
- Patton, J., Stanford, M., & Barratt, E. (1995). Factor structure of the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 51, 768–774.
10.1002/1097-4679(199511)51:6<768::AID-JCLP2270510607>3.0.CO;2-1 CASPubMedWeb of Science®Google Scholar
- Petry, N. (2002). Discounting of delayed rewards in substance abusers: Relationship to antisocial personality disorder. Psychopharmacology, 162, 1432–2072.
- Poole, M., & Cooney, G. (1987). Orientations to the future: A comparison of adolescents in Australia and Singapore. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 16, 129–151.
- Roper v. Simmons, 541 U.S. 1040 (2005).
- Scheres, A., Dijkstra, M., Ainslie, E., Balkan, J., Reynolds, B., Sonuga-Barke, E., et al. (2006). Temporal and probabilistic discounting of rewards in children and adolescents: Effects of age and ADHD symptoms. Neuropsychologia, 44, 2092–2103.
- Scott, E., & Woolard, J. (2004). The legal regulation of adolescence. In R. Lerner & L. Steinberg (Eds.), Handbook of adolescent psychology ( 2nd ed., pp. 523–550). New York: Wiley.
- Somers, C., & Gizzi, T. (2001). Predicting adolescents’ risky behaviors: The influence of future orientation, school involvement, and school attachment. Adolescent and Family Health, 2, 3–11.
- Steinberg, L. (2007). Risk-taking in adolescence: New perspectives from brain and behavioral science. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 16, 55–59.
- Steinberg, L. (2008). A social neuroscience perspective on adolescent risk-taking. Developmental Review, 28, 78–106.
- Steinberg, L., Cauffman, E., Woolard, J., Graham, S., & Banich, M. (in press) Are adolescents less mature than adults? Minors’ access to abortion, the juvenile death penalty, and the alleged APA “flip-flop”. American Psychologist.
- Steinberg, L., & Scott, E. (2003). Less guilty by reason of adolescence: Developmental immaturity, diminished responsibility, and the juvenile death penalty. American Psychologist, 58, 1009–1018.
- Trommsdorff, G., & Lamm, H. (1980). Future orientation of institutionalized and noninstitutionalized delinquents and nondelinquents. European Journal of Social Psychology, 10, 247–278.
- Trommsdorff, G., Lamm, H., & Schmidt, R. (1979). A longitudinal study of adolescents’ future orientation (time perspective). Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 8, 131–147.
- Vuchinich, R., & Simpson, C. (1998). Hyperbolic temporal discounting in social drinkers and problem drinkers. Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology, 6, 292–305.
- Wechsler, D. (1999). Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence. San Antonio, TX: Psychological Corporation.
