Name: Would you eat a ghost pepper for a prize? - Dan Kwartler
Uploaded: 2025-06-03T14:47:09.000Z
Duration: 5 min 20 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Welcome to Risky Business, the game where we find out how far you'll go to win a mystery prize.

I'm your host, Will Bewonkve, and today's contestants are 21-year-old Imani, 16-year-old Johanna, and 12-year-old Rachel.

Two of you have sugar cookies, but one was made with painfully spicy ghost peppers.

As a reminder, our players aren't influenced by seeking audience approval, since Risky Business never gets televised.

Now let's see what PredictoBot9000 thinks our contestants will do.

Like most daily choices, this challenge involves weighing risks against rewards.

But since our grand prize is a mystery, the contestants don't know half of this equation.

People are usually opposed to taking risks for uncertain rewards.

People aged 12 to 18 face a lot of unfamiliar circumstances, and one of the primary ways they learn to navigate new environments is by taking risks.

This means Johanna and Rachel are already primed to risk it all.

But research shows that younger adolescents are less likely to shy away from uncertain rewards.

This could be because the brain regions associated with decision-making are still developing.

Or perhaps they've simply experienced less failure overall, making them less afraid of negative outcomes.

Whatever the answer, this doesn't mean young people take risks impulsively.

In fact, one decision-making study found that while 8-to-12-year-olds gambled on unknown options more than older participants, they still hesitated to do so.

Well, it looks like no one here hesitated to bite their cookie, and Johanna's bit back.

Hopefully our mystery prize will be a lifetime supply of milk.

Speaking of prizes, you'll have a chance to win one in our next challenge.

This swimming pool is full of honey, and you'll have to swim through it to grab your $100 prize box.

While you deliberate, let's see what the PB9000 has to say.

People are generally attracted to new experiences, and it's highly unlikely that our contestants have ever gone swimming in honey.

Some research even suggests new experiences can trigger brain activity similar to getting a reward.

Regardless of how pleasant that experience is, that said, I think Imani has a few disadvantages.

We already know adolescents frequently take risks to learn about the world.

Well, that same drive makes them especially attracted to new experiences.

And at 16 years old, Johan is in peak reward sensitivity range, meaning he's likely to overvalue the prize.

Conversely, Imani's longer life experience means she's able to build a robust internal model to simulate her choice's potential outcomes.

Generally, this helps adults make complex decisions with long-term consequences.

But more experience can also lead to more worries, and some studies have found people struggling with anxiety tend to give extra weight to potential negative outcomes, even if they're unlikely.

As predicted, while Johan and Rachel took the plunge, this situation was too sticky for our oldest competitor.

To see the big prize, our contestants will have to cross this balance beam without falling into the pit of poison ivy.

And to make things even spicier, we've brought their schoolmates to watch.

Younger people often discount the long-term consequences of their choices, so Rachel might not be as worried about the poison ivy.

But Johan is driven by an even stronger influence.

During adolescence, our desire for group acceptance is at an all-time high.

And this can lead people to take surprising risks to secure the respect of their peers.

This is especially true from ages 14 to 16, when the brain region's responsible for emotional control are more developed than those handling cognitive control.

What's more, this cognitive control is weaker when adolescents know their peers are watching.

So with his friends standing by, Johan is very likely to risk it all.

Well, I'm excited to see- oh, uh, I'm being told there's a bear in the honey pool?

While your willingness to take risks can be influenced by age, is your intelligence similarly affected?

Find out at which age you are smartest with this video that digs into how brain development impacts your skills.

Or learn more about the science of adolescence at ed.ted.com slash buildingconnections.

Subtitles ListPlay Video

Would you eat a ghost pepper for a prize? - Dan Kwartler

cognitive

potential

struggle

deliberate