ABSTRACT—Human risk taking is characterized by a large amount of individual heterogeneity. In this study, we applied resting-state electroencephalography, which captures stable individual differences in neural activity, before subjects performed a risk-taking task. Using a sourcelocalization technique, we found that the baseline cortical activity in the right prefrontal cortex predicts individual risk-taking behavior. Individuals with higher baseline cortical activity in this brain area display more risk aversion than do other individuals. This finding demonstrates that neural characteristics that are stable over time can predict a highly complex behavior such as risk-taking behavior and furthermore suggests that hypoactivity in the right prefrontal cortex might serve as a dispositional indicator of lower regulatory abilities, which is expressed in greater risk-taking behavior. Some individuals are more likely to take risks than others are (Weber, Shafir, & Blais, 2004), resulting in important social and health consequences such as crime and substance use. There has been much work focusing on psychological characteristics that underlie individual differences in risk taking (for a review, see Reyna & Farley, 2006). However, no study has yet investigated whether neural dispositional determinants might explain Lorena R.R. Gianotti and Daria Knoch contributed equally to this

member of the National

The present research compared Canadian and Spanish youths ’ perceptions of the potential benefits and drawbacks of drinking under the influence of alcohol (DUI) and riding with a drunk driver (RDD). Eighty (41 female) Canadian and 87 (71 female) Spanish undergraduates completed a survey asking about their past and forecasted engagement in DUI and RDD, and their perceptions of the benefits and drawbacks of DUI and RDD. A sizeable proportion of both samples reported DUI and RDD in the past year. Past risk takers forecasted significantly greater chances of engaging in these behaviors in the following year compared to those who had not engaged in DUI and RDD. Both samples provided significantly more drawbacks than benefits of DUI and RDD. Whereas the benefits of both behaviors tended to refer to personal effects (e.g., save money, arrive faster) that occurred before, during or after driving, the drawbacks referred to a range of outcomes (e.g., accident, kill/injure, penal sanction) that mostly occurred during driving. Although Canada and Spain differ in important respects (e.g., potential penalty for DUI), there were similarities in the two samples ’ perceptions of DUI and RDD. Young people are aware of the costs of these risky

%U/#7+'$#(1%.L%[&?0'#-J+5%[&?0'#-J+5%UV%

Explaining the effects of a 1-year intervention promoting a low fat