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Sensation seeking and gender: Impacts on children's judgement and decision-making in road crossing scenarios
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Sensation seeking and gender: Impacts on children's judgement and decision-making in road crossing scenarios

Wenjing Liu, Ming Zhu, Jiandong Huang, David C. Schwebel and Huarong Wang
Journal of transport & health, Vol.49, 102309
06/2026
DOI: 10.1016/j.jth.2026.102309

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Abstract

Objective Road traffic injury represents a serious pediatric public health challenge worldwide. Both male gender and sensation seeking tendencies are known to associate with children's risk-taking behavior in traffic, but the causal pathway of their impact remains unclear. One possibility is that sensation-seeking and gender affect judgement and decision-making in traffic, factors that may serve as a mediator to risky behavior. The present study examined the impact of sensation seeking level and gender on children's judgement and decision-making in road crossing scenarios. Methods Following screening, 164 children aged 9 to 13 years who scored high or low in sensation seeking were included, stratified by sensation seeking and gender. All participants completed two tasks in counterbalanced order, a traffic situation recognition task and a road crossing decision task. Three outcomes were considered: children's accuracy of judging safety and their response time to items in the recognition task, and count of risky decisions in the road crossing decision task. Results (1) Among the high sensation-seeking group, boys' accuracy to judge pedestrian safety was lower than girls’ but no significant gender differences emerged in judgment accuracy among the low sensation-seeking group; (2) No significant effects of sensation seeking group or gender emerged for reaction time to recognize risk in traffic but all children responded faster to dangerous pedestrian images than to safe pedestrian images; and (3) Boys high in sensation seeking level had higher proportions of risky crossing decisions. Conclusions Sensation seeking affects children's judgement and decision-making in road crossing scenarios, and gender moderates the effect, with high sensation-seeking boys having the lowest accuracy of judgment and taking the most risks in traffic. Results have implications for guiding development of interventions and improvement of road design and regulations to reduce child pedestrian injury risk.
 Children Sensation seeking Gender Pedestrian safety

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