Temporal reward discounting in children, adolescents, and emerging adults during an experiential task

Abstract

The goal of this study was to examine age effects on the ability/willingness to wait for large rewards in a real temporal reward discounting task from childhood to adulthood. Therefore, a real temporal discounting (TD) task was administered to children aged 6-12 (n = 39), adolescents aged 13-17 (n = 28), and young adults aged 18-19 (n = 55). Findings indicated that the cross-sectional development of TD followed a quadratic pattern across age groups, with adolescents choosing more often than children and adults to wait for the large delayed reward, resulting in reward-maximization. Various interpretations of this finding were offered, including a focus on reward maximization despite an immature ability to exert self-control, and flexible self-control which was high during this task as a result of strong motivation to maximize financial gains. © 2014 Scheres, Tontsch, Thoeny and Sumiya.