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Following a key developmental task of childhood—building a foundation of self‐knowledge in the form of domain‐specific self‐concepts—adolescents begin to explore their emerging identities in ways that foster autonomy and connectedness. Neuroimaging studies of self‐related processes demonstrate enhanced engagement of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (PFC) in adolescence, which may facilitate and reflect the development of identity by integrating the value of potential actions and choices. Drawing from neuroeconomic and social‐cognitive accounts, we propose that motivated behavior during adolescence can be modeled by a general value‐based decision‐making process centered around value accumulation in the ventromedial PFC. This approach advances models of adolescent neurodevelopment that focus on reward sensitivity and cognitive control by considering more diverse value inputs …