The role of social and cognitive variables in adolescent risk-taking

Participants were 491 high schools students in the Midwest USA. Questionnaires included risk behaviors, risk judgments, feelings of invulnerability, consideration of consequences, and perceptions of their best friend’s risk behaviors and consideration of consequences. Perceived best friends’ and personal consideration of negative consequences positively correlated with risk-behaviors for one subgroup. Cognitive variables partially mediated the relations between best friends’ risk taking/consideration of consequences and personal risk-taking for a subgroup. Consideration of personal consequences contributed the greatest amount of variance, with risk judgments and feelings of invulnerability accounting for less variance. Both social and cognitive factors played a role in risk-taking.