15:00 - 16:30
Mon-P3-Poster I-1
Mon-Poster I-1
Room: P3
Feeling left out: How ostracism and social rank influence adolescents' risky decision-making
Mon-P3-Poster I-104
Presented by: Corinna Lorenz
Corinna Lorenz, Nicola Kristina Ferdinand
University of Wuppertal, Department of Psychology
It is assumed that adolescents engage in risky behaviors due to the fear of being excluded or disvalued by peers. In this study, we examined how ostracism and social rank jointly influence the assessment of risky situations in adolescence. To examine how ostracism influences risky decision-making, we had adolescents aged 11 to 19 years experience both social inclusion and exclusion from a fictitious peer group in a virtual ball-tossing game. Adolescents then respectively completed a card game in which information about wins, losses, and probabilities of loss was presented for each trial. Participants were also assigned to two groups that received either individual feedback on their performance or a disclosed social ranking. Preliminary results from the mid- (n = 21; 14-16 years) and late adolescent groups (n = 23; 17-19 years) suggest that adolescents were generally sensitive to contextual information, making less risky decisions when losses were likely and high and when gains were low. Mid- and late adolescents, however, responded with opposite behaviors when influenced by peers. Late adolescents took more risks after social exclusion than inclusion and more risks in the group with social rank feedback than with individual feedback, whereas the opposite was true for mid-adolescents. Interestingly, most of these effects were observed only when potential losses were small. The findings suggest not only developmental differences in how interpersonal behavior influences risk-taking across adolescence, but also that framing risks as costly may be an appropriate approach to prevent negative health outcomes in adolescents.
Keywords: adolescence, peers, decision-making, risk-taking, ostracism, social rank