Adolescent decision-making: The influence of mood

Previous research on adolescent decision-making has primarily utilized cognitive models of the decision process. However, studies with adults indicate that mood impacts decision-making in several ways. For example, in positive moods adults make decisions more efficiently (i.e. faster and with less information); they consider objective as opposed to social information more thoroughly; and they are more optimistic in estimating probabilities of certain outcomes. Because the affective experience of teens differs somewhat from that of adults, mood may or may not have the same effects in this population. In order to investigate mood effects on adolescents\u27 decision processes, 161 subjects (7th-8th-graders, 9th-10th-graders, 11th-12th-graders and adults) completed a computer-administered decision task of selecting one of four part-time jobs. Each of the jobs varied on four categories of social information and four categories of objective information, but all had equal expected utility. After positive, neutral and negative moods were induced by short videotapes, subjects viewed information about the jobs; they were also able to discard data they perceived as irrelevant to their choice. As they did so, the computer tracked the sequence and times of information search. MANOVA revealed that two of three measures of decision efficiency were impacted by mood, but only for females. Females in negative moods discarded more information and took longer to decide than females in positive or neutral moods. The decision processes of males were unaffected by mood condition. Age (grade), but not mood, affected the type of information considered, decision strategy, and subjects\u27 estimates of the probability of obtaining their desired job: Adults spent significantly less time considering social as opposed to objective information; adults used more sophisticated decision strategies than did adolescents; and junior high females were significantly more pessimistic about their chances of obtaining their preferred job. Findings are contrasted to previous research, which found no gender differences in mood effects