Adolescence is an exciting period filled with changes, challenges, and choices. Teenagers navigate decisions every day, from picking what to wear, to managing friendships and school stress. They experiment with new experiences, which can lead to positive outcomes, like discovering a new favourite band, while others might have less favourable results, such as trying a new style that doesn’t suit them. This constant balancing act between sticking with the familiar or trying something new is known as the ‘explore/exploit trade-off’.
In our new project, we will examine how decision-making patterns may provide insights into the mental health of adolescents. Specifically, we are focused on understanding how adolescents aged 13 to 17 navigate the explore-exploit dilemma and how this might relate to their mental health.
What is the Explore-Exploit Paradigm?
In cognitive science, the explore-exploit paradigm refers to a trade-off in decision-making. Should you continue doing what you know works (exploiting known options), or should you try something new in the hopes of finding something better (exploring something unfamiliar)? This concept is not just theoretical; it manifests in everyday life, from choosing between a favourite lunch spot or trying the new Deli that recently opened, to taking a chance on a new social group or sticking with the people you already know.
Understanding how people make these decisions can provide valuable insights into how adolescents balance risk and reward, manage uncertainty, and respond to feedback. These are core processes related to our decision-making that are still developing during this stage of life and are closely linked to emotional regulation, impulsivity, and mental health outcomes.
The Study Design
To examine the explore/exploit trade-off, we use two simple but informative games that assess how adolescents decide between sticking with a known option or trying something new. These games tap into different types of exploratory behaviour, including what we call ‘random’ and ‘directed’ exploration.
Patch Foraging Task: In this game, participants pick apples from a series of trees. Each tree provides a variable number of apples, but the exact number is unknown at first. On each turn, participants can stay with their current tree if they feel that this tree is bringing them high rewards, or switch to a new one, hoping for better rewards.
Maggie’s Farm: In this version, participants must try to harvest the biggest apples each turn (each day in the game) to produce the most juice. They are shown three trees, each producing apples of different sizes. On some days, participants have to select one apple; on other days, they have to pick five apples. They are usually given examples from two trees to help them decide if they want to stick with one of the known trees or explore the third tree, which might give them bigger apples.
This setup allows us to observe random exploration when they only have one apple to pick. Random exploration does not offer insights about future decision-making. When participants only have one apple to pick, deciding to stick to a known tree (exploit) or try the unknown tree (explore) in the hopes of a bigger apple does not inform future choices and could be viewed as a “gamble”.
It also allows us to measure directed exploration when they have to pick five apples. Directed exploration informs future decision-making. In this case, trying out the unknown tree is useful to know the size of the apples of all trees, and be able to make an informed decision as to which tree to pick for the next 4 runs.
Both games present the same core dilemma: should you exploit what seems to work, or explore for potentially better options? However, Maggie’s Farm is helpful in relating information about their explore/exploit choices to the type of exploration. We can better understand the nuances of how adolescents navigate uncertainty in decision-making.
This task gives us insight into each participant’s decision-making style and the flexibility of their cognitive strategies. Do they explore strategically, switch randomly, or tend to stick with familiar choices? And how might those patterns relate to their mental health?
Linking Decision-Making to Mental Health
Alongside the games, we’re collecting mental health data using well-established self-report tools to capture emotional and behavioural wellbeing.
We are using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) and the Me and My Feelings (M&MF) measure. The SDQ helps us assess emotional symptoms, conduct problems, hyperactivity/inattention, peer relationship problems, and prosocial behaviour. It offers a more comprehensive view of both challenges and strengths in young people’s behavioural profiles.
The Me and My Feelings questionnaire is specifically designed for children and adolescents and focuses on emotional and behavioural difficulties, including worries, sadness, and concentration issues. Its child-friendly format allows us to better understand the participant’s subjective experience in a way that feels accessible and relevant to them.
By combining data from these measures with behaviour in the explore-exploit games, we aim to identify patterns in how different styles of decision-making relate to a young person’s emotional and psychological profile. For example, we might ask:
Do adolescents with more emotional symptoms (as captured by M&MF or SDQ) show a reduced tendency to explore?
Are higher levels of inattention or impulsivity linked with more random (rather than strategic) exploration?
This multi-method approach allows us to investigate not just whether mental health is related to how adolescents make decisions, but how and why those patterns might differ across individuals.
Why This Matters
Adolescence is a critical time for the development of both decision-making abilities and mental health. Anxiety and depression often emerge during these years, and understanding the cognitive processes underlying these conditions is key to developing better support strategies. If mental health problems disrupt adolescents’ ability to explore new experiences, it could prevent them from engaging in formative experiences essential for their development.
By studying the explore-exploit trade-off in young people, we aim to contribute to a deeper understanding of how thought patterns relate to emotional health. In the future, insights from this work could help inform interventions that support adolescents in building more adaptive, resilient decision-making habits.
What’s Next
We are currently in the data collection phase and are excited to see what the results will reveal. This is just the beginning of our journey to better understand the complex intersection of cognition and mental health in adolescents. Stay tuned as we continue to explore how a simple choice—whether to stay or to move on—can provide valuable insights into the developing mind.
