The level of risk-taking behavior among adolescents is higher than among younger children. Moreover, they are also more open to risk and ambiguity than older people. That means that every time adolescents face facing a situation that has unknown or even dangerous outcomes, they are more likely to make a risky decision than those belonging to other age groups.
Such openness to risky decision making has psychological as well as a biological background. From the perspective of psychology, it is the result of tolerance towards risk and ambiguity that, from the biological point of view, is the instinct aimed at gaining more knowledge about the surrounding world. Risk-related behavior constitutes four elements that are crucial to decision making: attitude to risk, attitude to ambiguity, attitude to gains and losses, and patience.
What is important from the psychological perspective is the stance on risk and ambiguity that are different phenomena when it comes to decision making. Under risk, one understands readiness to embrace the possible negative outcomes of the choice that are evident, while ambiguity is a willingness to make a decision without knowing what it will lead to, i.e., accepting the unknown and desire to find out what it will lead to (Tymula et al., 2012, p. 17135).
So, what is true about adolescents is that they are open to ambiguity rather than risk. That means that they are more likely to make a decision that will have unknown results rather than undertake risk as such. It can be explained by the lack of life experience and a high level of tolerance for the unknown, together with the desire to find out more about the surrounding world.
References
Tymula, A., Belmaker, L. A. R., Roy, A. K., Ruderman, L., Manson, K., Glimcher, P. W., & Levy, I. (2012). Adolescents’ risk-taking behavior is driven by tolerance to ambiguity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 109(42), 17135-17140.