Fuzzy Trace Theory and Medical Decisions by Minors: Differences in Reasoning between Adolescents and Adults

Standard models of adolescent risk taking posit that the cognitive abilities of adolescents and adults are equivalent, and that increases in risk taking that occur during adolescence are the result of socio emotional differences in impulsivity, sensation seeking, and lack of selfcontrol. Fuzzytrace theory incorporates these socio emotional differences. However, it predicts that there are also cognitive dif ferences between adolescents and adults, specifically that there are developmental increases in gistbased intuition that reflects under standing. Gist understanding, as opposed to verbatimbased anal ysis, generally has been hypothesized to have a protective effect on risk taking in adolescence. Gist understanding is also an essential element of informed consent regarding risks in medical decision making. Evidence thus supports the argument that adolescents ’ status as mature minors should be treated as an exception rather than a pre sumption, because accuracy in verbatim analysis is not mature gist understanding. Use of the exception should be accompanied by medi cal experts ’ input on the bottomline gist of risks involved in treatment