Interaction of Current and Childhood Environment on Risky Decision-Making: An Experimental and Longitudinal Life-History Theory Approach

Project Abstract

This research investigates how an individual's childhood environment combines with his or her current young-adult environment to influence his/her risk-taking in adulthood. Are risky decisions made by young adults influenced by specific events that are salient in that person's current environment, such as whether someone nearby has recently died prematurely? Do they depend on the person's childhood environment, such as whether she or he was economically deprived? This research provides answers to these questions by integrating knowledge about the effects of specific environmental cues derived from life history theory (LHT) with new, interdisciplinary models of risky decision-making. This research will test the idea that it is the combination of early risk factors (e.g., childhood poverty) and young adult environment (e.g., exposure to violence or economic uncertainty) that best explain risky behavior in young adults.

The research involves two types of studies. The first is a series of laboratory experiments on risky decision-making. The experiments carefully manipulate cues for mortality and/or feelings of economic uncertainty to see if the same cues have different consequences for risky decision making (e.g., taking riskier gambles) among people who come from different risk backgrounds. The second type of study is a complementary longitudinal study. Specifically, the PIs will analyze data from the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation. This ongoing study contains: (a) data from parents on their children's (i.e., the target participants') childhood environment, (b) data on the adult targets' current environment (at age 23), and (c) data on the adult targets' tendency to engage in real-life risk behaviors (e.g., financial spending records, health and drug-related behavior, criminal records). This longitudinal study, in combination with the experiments, will allow the PIs to determine whether and how current and childhood environments work together to influence the enactment of different kinds of risky behaviors in adulthood.

At a theoretical level, this research will: (1) integrate theory and research on environmental influences on risky decision-making and behavior from developmental, social, economic, and personality psychology, (2) link psychological work to theory and research in anthropology and evolutionary biology, and (3) provide rigorous tests of the proposed ideas using both lab experiments and longitudinal data.

In addition to promoting graduate training among a diverse group of graduate research assistants, this research has the potential to yield important insights about important everyday decisions -- decisions with direct implications for financial and mental well-being, health, and public policy. For example, if this research supports the idea that it is the combination of early exposure to risk and current economic uncertainty that promotes risky decision making (and clarifies better exactly which risky decisions are most likely to fit this pattern), scientists and policy makers will be in a better position to design and target more effective interventions for risky behaviors, ranging from unsafe sex or drug use to susceptibility to gambling or other economically risky behaviors.