Affective and Deliberative 1 Running Head: AFFECTIVE AND DELIBERATIVE RISKY DECISION MAKING Affective and deliberative processes in risky choice: Age differences in risk taking in the Columbia Card Task

Four experiments investigated risk taking and underlying information use in 13–16 and 17-19 year-old adolescents and in adults, using a novel dynamic risk-taking task, the Columbia Card Task (CCT). We investigated risk taking under differential involvement of affective versus deliberative processes with two versions of the CCT, constituting the most direct test of a dualsystem explanation of adolescent risk taking in the literature so far. The hot CCT was designed to trigger more affective decision making, while the cold CCT was designed to trigger more deliberative decision making. Differential involvement of affective versus deliberative processes in the two CCT versions was established by self-reports and assessment of electrodermal activity. Increased adolescent risk taking, coupled with simplified information use, was found in the hot, but not cold condition. Need-for-arousal predicted risk taking only in the hot condition, whereas executive functions predicted information use in the cold condition. Results are consistent with recent dual-system explanations of risk taking as the result of competition between affective processes and deliberative cognitive-control processes, with adolescents' affective system tending to override the deliberative system in states of heightened emotional arousal. 186 words