Learning to make good decisions: A self-regulation perspective

Two studies were conducted to determine the extent to which feedback could improve the decision-making of adolescents and adults. In Experiment 1, 96 eighth graders and adults engaged in a task that required a choice between easy and hard questions. Two types of feedback (i.e., verbal and outcome) were used to help participants identify the type of question that would be most likely to earn them points. Results showed that (1) neither group benefited from verbal feedback, and (2) adults benefited more from outcome feedback than eighth graders. In Experiment 2, two types of feedback were once again employed in the context of a medical decision-making task. Fifty-five adults and adolescents participated. As was found in Experiment 1, adults seemed to benefit more from feedback than adolescents. In addition, intelligence was unrelated to performance. The results are interpreted within the perspective of a self-regulation model of decision-making.