Measuring Rational Thinking in Adolescents: The Assessment of Rational Thinking for Youth (ART-Y)

Abstract

There has been considerable conceptual and empirical progress on the measurement of rational thinking in adult samples. Studies in developmental samples have demonstrated that many of these domains and paradigms can also be assessed in children and youth, especially in adolescent samples. Here, we present an efficient rationality assessment battery for adolescents and youth—the Assessment of Rational Thinking for Youth (ART-Y). The ART-Y consists of five subtests: Probabilistic and Statistical Thinking, Scientific Thinking, Avoidance of Framing, Knowledge Calibration, and Rational Temporal Discounting. Two supplementary measures of thinking dispositions are included in the ART-Y: Actively Open-Minded Thinking (AOT) and Deliberative Thinking. The ART-Y battery was examined in a sample of 143 adolescents (mean age = 15.4 years). The five rational thinking subtests displayed intercorrelations largely consistent with those obtained in the adult literature. Age, cognitive ability, problem solving, probabilistic numeracy, and thinking dispositions predicted variance differently across the five subtests of the ART-Y, but again largely consistent with the adult literature. These measures, along with the ART-Y subtests, were examined as predictors of two real-world skills: financial literacy and academic achievement. Scientific thinking, knowledge calibration, and rational temporal discounting were significant unique predictors of financial literacy when statistically controlling for cognitive ability. Scientific thinking predicted academic achievement when statistically controlling for cognitive ability.