Age differences in sensation seeking and impulsivity as indexed by behavior and self-report: Evidence for a dual systems model.

TLDR

Sensation seeking and impulsivity are hypothesized to develop on distinct timelines with different neural bases, explaining heightened adolescent risk taking. The study aimed to test whether sensation seeking and impulsivity follow separate developmental trajectories by examining age differences in a diverse sample of 935 participants aged 10–30. The authors assessed these age differences using both self‑report and behavioral measures of sensation seeking and impulsivity. Sensation seeking peaks between ages 10 and 15 and then plateaus or declines, whereas impulsivity steadily decreases from age 10 onward, indicating that middle‑adolescent risk taking arises from high excitement seeking combined with immature self‑control.

Abstract

It has been hypothesized that sensation seeking and impulsivity, which are often conflated, in fact develop along different timetables and have different neural underpinnings, and that the difference in their timetables helps account for heightened risk taking during adolescence. In order to test these propositions, the authors examined age differences in sensation seeking and impulsivity in a socioeconomically and ethnically diverse sample of 935 individuals between the ages of 10 and 30, using self-report and behavioral measures of each construct. Consistent with the authors' predictions, age differences in sensation seeking, which are linked to pubertal maturation, follow a curvilinear pattern, with sensation seeking increasing between 10 and 15 and declining or remaining stable thereafter. In contrast, age differences in impulsivity, which are unrelated to puberty, follow a linear pattern, with impulsivity declining steadily from age 10 on. Heightened vulnerability to risk taking in middle adolescence may be due to the combination of relatively higher inclinations to seek excitement and relatively immature capacities for self-control that are typical of this period of development.