This week Jiska Peper from Leiden University gives a talk in the Social, Economic, and Decision Psychology Colloquium (Thursday, Dec 14).

Multifaceted risk-taking across adolescence: age versus gonadal hormones

Adolescence (marked by the onset of puberty) is an important time of change occurring between childhood and adulthood. Among others, adolescent increases in risk-taking behaviour have been observed, but due to its multifaceted nature, it is currently unclear which aspects of risk-taking tendencies change the most. Moreover, there is increasing evidence that changes in adolescent risk-taking are driven by the increased production of gonadal hormones, such as testosterone and estradiol, as both hormones are able to exert powerful and long-lasting effects on the brain. In my talk, I will present behavioural (tasks and questionnaires on risk-taking tendencies and impulsivity) and endocrinological data, obtained from a three-wave longitudinal study ‘Braintime’. In this study, we were able to acquire 670 observations (each time-point separated by two years) from participants aged 8-29 years.