Peers increase adolescent risk taking by enhancing activity in the brain’s reward circuitry

By Jason M. Chein, Dustin Albert, Lia O'brien, K. Uckert, Laurence Steinberg. Developmental Science, 2011

1,141 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The presence of peers increases risk taking among adolescents but not adults. We posited that the presence of peers may promote adolescent risk taking by sensitizing brain regions associated with the anticipation of potential rewards. Using fMRI, we measured brain activity in adolescents, young adults, and adults as they made decisions in a simulated driving task. Participants completed one task block while alone, and one block while their performance was observed by peers in an adjacent room. During peer observation blocks, adolescents selectively demonstrated greater activation in reward-related brain regions, including the ventral striatum and orbitofrontal cortex, and activity in these regions predicted subsequent risk taking. Brain areas associated with cognitive control were less strongly recruited by adolescents than adults, but activity in the cognitive control system did not vary with social context. Results suggest that the presence of peers increases adolescent risk taking by heightening sensitivity to the potential reward value of risky decisions.

Subfields: Applied Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/510d09e2e3f10aa6565a26846ac932e95e129d53

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Citations in the corpus

The dual systems model: Review, reappraisal, and reaffirmation (2015, positive): “Studies that have manipulated the social context have found that adolescents are more induced by peer presence to take risks than are adults (Chein et al., 2011; Gardner and Steinberg, 2005; Smith et al., 2014a).”
Is adolescence a sensitive period for sociocultural processing? (2014, positive): “Adapted from Chein et al. (2011).”
Developmental Stages and Sex Differences of White Matter and Behavioral Development through Adolescence: A Longitudinal Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) Study (2013, positive): “In humans, activation in orbitofrontal cortex is reported in functional imaging studies of social cooperation/ competition tasks (Hampton et al., 2008; McCabe et al., 2001) and is associated with risk-taking behaviors (Chein et al., 2011; Shad et al., 2011).”
Adolescent risk-taking in the context of exploration and social influence (2021, background): “For instance, some studies suggest that the general arousal associated with peer presence makes adolescents drive riskier in a driving simulation (Chein et al., 2011; Gardner & Steinberg, 2005).”
Beyond simple models of self-control to circuit-based accounts of adolescent behavior. (2015, background): “The mere presence of a peer increases risky decision making in adolescents relative to adults (Chein et al. 2011, Gardner & Steinberg 2005, Weigard et al. 2014) and increases the number of car accidents for adolescent, but not adult, drivers (Chen et al. 2000).”
The effects of poor quality sleep on brain function and risk taking in adolescence (2013, positive): “Prior work has found that adults recruit the lateral PFC to a greater extent than adolescents during risk taking (Chein et al., 2011; Eshel et al., 2007), and children show decreased activation in the lateral PFC compared to adults when matched on performance during a cognitive control task (Bunge e”
Neural Correlates of Susceptibility to Group Opinions in Online Word-of-Mouth Recommendations (2015, background): “Following this logic, a growing body of literature has characterized the neural systems associated with conformity and social influence on individual opinions and behaviors (Berns et al. 2005, 2010; Campbell-Meiklejohn et al. 2010; Chein et al. 2011; Falk et al. 2010; Klucharev et al. 2009; Mason, D”