The development of judgment and decision making during childhood and adolescence

Research on adult judgement and decision making has focused on deviations from normative models, demonstrating biases and reliance on heuristic shortcuts, thus presenting a very different picture than developmental theories that describe a unidirectional progression toward greater logic and efficiency. Recent research related to this apparent contradiction indicates that children develop competencies to reason effectively and make normative decisions, but also develop biased judgement strategies that are used inappropriately in some situations. We suggest potential explanations for the findings, highlighting the need to consider models that incorporate development in both experimental and analytic information processing systems.