![]() ![]() (C) Reward belief was predicted by the intercept, previous reward magnitude, failure to exceed the threshold on the previous trial, and participant’s own belief about previous reward magnitude. Children (8-9 year-olds) had a higher optimism bias compared to the adolescent groups (12-13 year-olds and 16-17 year-olds), revealing the emergence of more realistic expectations during adolescence. Importantly, this bias weakened during development. (B) An optimism bias (as measured by the average reward belief compared to the average reward in the task) was present in all groups. The line plots indicate the reward belief on every trial averaged across participants ± 1 SEM. Children had higher reward belief (yellow) throughout the task. (A) Reward belief trajectories split between the age groups over trials. The line plots indicate the mean of beliefs and effort exerted ± 1 SEM. ![]() (C) Trajectories of effort belief (yellow), effort exerted (blue) and the effort threshold (black) over trials. (B) Reward belief trajectory across trials (grey), compared to the actual reward received (black). If a participant exerted too little effort (i.e., did not exceed the necessary effort threshold), a cross was superimposed over the number of (potential) coins, indicating they will receive no reward on that trial, but still allowing them to learn about the potential reward. If successful, participants received coins that were revealed during outcome (here, 5 coins). The duration of button presses was kept constant across all trials to remove temporal discounting that may confound effort execution (Floresco et al., 2008). They then exerted the effort they believed was needed to obtain the rewards using button presses. In the beginning of each trial, participants were asked to report their effort and reward belief. (A) An effortful reward attainment learning task was used to assess learning and optimism bias. ![]() (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved). Our findings thus show that insensitivity to bad outcomes in childhood helps to prevent taking on an overly realistic perspective and maintain motivation. Using computational modeling, we show that this was driven by a reduced learning from worse-than-expected outcomes, and this reduced learning explains why children are hyperoptimistic. However, children were particularly hyperoptimistic, with the optimism bias decreasing with age. Investigating children (8 to 9 year-olds), early (12 to 13 year-olds), and late adolescents (16 to 17 year-olds), we find a consistent optimism bias across age groups. In a learning task, we have thus studied the mechanisms underlying the development of optimism bias. This optimism bias, the overestimation of positive outcomes, may be particularly important during childhood when motivation must be maintained in the face of negative outcomes. Believing that good things will happen in life is essential to maintain motivation and achieve highly ambitious goals. ![]()
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