Vortrag: Clarifying the Relationship Between Reward and Sensation Seeking: Sex-Specific and Hormone-Specific Associations

The Center for Adaptive Rationality at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, led by Prof. Dr. Ralph Hertwig, cordially invites all interested to attend the talk on decision-making across the lifespan.

Kathryn Paige Harden, University of Texas at Austin

Clarifying the Relationship Between Reward and Sensation Seeking: Sex-Specific and Hormone-Specific Associations
Many types of risk-taking behaviors peak during adolescence. Developmental scientists have hypothesized that increases in gonadal hormones at puberty affect adolescent reward sensitivity, which in turn facilitates risk-taking behavior. In the first half of this talk, Kathryn Paige Harden presents results from a large, population-representative sample of American adolescents (N = 810, ages 13-20), in which the sex-specific relations between gonadal hormones, reward sensitivity, and sensation seeking were tested.

For adolescent boys, results were largely consistent with predictions from developmental theory: higher reward sensitivity was associated with higher sensation seeking, both were positively associated with pubertal development, and the effects of pubertal development were statistically mediated via higher testosterone. For adolescent girls, however, results were more complex, and sensation seeking was negatively associated with both self-reported pubertal development and estradiol. In the second half of the talk, Kathryn Paige Harden considers these results in light of research on developmental changes in fear and anxiety during adolescence, and proposes new directions for a more integrative understanding of adolescent development, which considers the roles of both approach and avoidance motivations.