Children and teenagers get better at learning from bad news as they grow older, according to a study by Christina Moutsiana and her colleagues at University College London.

Fifty-nine people aged 9 to 26 were asked how likely they thought they were to experience something bad, such as a car accident or burglary. The team then showed the volunteers actual probabilities for such events and asked them again.

The younger the volunteer, the worse he or she was at learning that a misfortune was more likely than previously believed. But if the chance of a bad experience was less likely than initially predicted, the good news got across to all ages. These results could explain why teens are inclined towards risky behaviour in spite of warnings.

Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA http://doi.org/nv5 (2013)