Prior studies on older adults’ risk taking have paid little attention to the healthcare domain or social influences on decision making. This study examined age-related differences in medication risk taking and the effects of a collaborative decision-making experience on individuals’ tendency to take risks. We recruited 24 younger (mean age = 19.50, SD = 1.41) and 24 older adults (mean age = 70....

Many debilitating psychiatric conditions, including drug addiction, are characterized by poor decision making and maladaptive risk-taking. Recent research has begun to probe this relationship to determine how brain mechanisms mediating risk-taking become compromised after chronic drug use. Currently, however, the majority of work in this field has used male subjects. Given the well-established ...

Among psychologists and economists, prospect theory continues to be one of the most popular models of decision making. The theory’s key property is reference dependence; specifically, how an individual’s perception of loss or gain is dependent upon their starting point (i.e., the status quo). Although prospect theory is widely accepted, other authors have sought the inclusion of reference point...

Alcohol dependence is associated with heightened risk tolerance and altered decision-making. This raises the question as to whether alcohol dependent patients (ADP) are incapable of proper risk assessment. We investigated how healthy controls (HC) and ADP engage neural networks to cope with the increased cognitive demands of risky decisions. We collected fMRI data while 34 HC and 16 ADP played ...