Neural correlates of social influence on risk perception during development

ABSTRACT Studies have shown that adolescents are more likely than adults to take risks in the presence of peers than when alone, and that young adolescents’ risk perception is more influenced by other teenagers than by adults. The current fMRI study investigated the effect of social influence on risk perception in female adolescents (aged 12–14) and adults (aged 23–29). Participants rated the riskiness of everyday situations and were then informed about the (alleged) risk ratings of a social influence group (teenagers or adults), before rating each situation again. The results showed that adolescents adjusted their ratings to conform with others more than adults did, and both age groups were influenced more by adults than by teenagers. When there was a conflict between the participants’ own risk ratings and the ratings of the social influence group, activation was increased in the posterior medial frontal cortex, dorsal cingulate cortex and inferior frontal gyrus in both age groups. In addition, there was greater activation during no-conflict situations in the right middle frontal gyrus and bilateral parietal cortex in adults compared with adolescents. These results suggest that there are behavioral and neural differences between adolescents and adults in conflict and no-conflict social situations.

[1]  S. Asch.  Effects of Group Pressure Upon the Modification and Distortion of Judgments , 1951 .

[2]  M. Deutsch,et al.  A study of normative and informational social influences upon individual judgement. , 1955, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[3]  I. Iscoe,et al.  MODIFICATION OF CHILDREN'S JUDGMENTS BY A SIMULATED GROUP TECHNIQUE: A NORMATIVE DEVELOPMENTAL STUDY. , 1963, Child development.

[4]  M. E. Shaw,et al.  CONFORMITY AS A FUNCTION OF AGE LEVEL , 1966 .

[5]  K. Hoving,et al.  Social influence as a function of stimulus ambiguity at three age levels. , 1969 .

[6]  T. J. Berndt,et al.  Developmental Changes in Conformity to Peers and Parents , 1979 .

[7]  L. Steinberg,et al.  The vicissitudes of autonomy in early adolescence. , 1986, Child development.

[8]  Karl J. Friston,et al.  Analysis of functional MRI time‐series , 1994, Human Brain Mapping.

[9]  Karl J. Friston,et al.  Event‐related f MRI , 1997, Human brain mapping.

[10]  A. Anderson,et al.  Emotional memory: What does the amygdala do? , 1997, Current Biology.

[11]  K. Sundet,et al.  PSYCHOMETRIC PROPERTIES OF A NORWEGIAN RESEARCH VERSION OF THE 'WECHSLER ABBREVIATED SCALE OF INTELLIGENCE' (WASI) , 2001 .

[12]  Sterling C. Johnson,et al.  Neural correlates of self-reflection. , 2002, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[13]  John M Hoffman,et al.  Ecstasy and Agony: Activation of the Human Amygdala in Positive and Negative Emotion , 2002, Psychological science.

[14]  Matthew D. Lieberman,et al.  Does Rejection Hurt? An fMRI Study of Social Exclusion , 2003, Science.

[15]  K. R. Ridderinkhof,et al.  The Role of the Medial Frontal Cortex in Cognitive Control , 2004, Science.

[16]  Noah J. Goldstein,et al.  Social influence: compliance and conformity. , 2004, Annual review of psychology.

[17]  Matthew D. Lieberman,et al.  Why rejection hurts: a common neural alarm system for physical and social pain , 2004, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[18]  Laurence Steinberg,et al.  Peer influence on risk taking, risk preference, and risky decision making in adolescence and adulthood: an experimental study. , 2005, Developmental psychology.

[19]  Joseph E LeDoux,et al.  Contributions of the Amygdala to Emotion Processing: From Animal Models to Human Behavior , 2005, Neuron.

[20]  G. Glover,et al.  Earlier Development of the Accumbens Relative to Orbitofrontal Cortex Might Underlie Risk-Taking Behavior in Adolescents , 2006, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[21]  L. Steinberg,et al.  Age differences in resistance to peer influence. , 2007, Developmental psychology.

[22]  Gereon R. Fink,et al.  Mirror Neuron and Theory of Mind Mechanisms Involved in Face-to-Face Interactions: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Approach to Empathy , 2007, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[23]  C. Frith,et al.  Social Cognition in Humans , 2007, Current Biology.

[24]  Laurence Steinberg,et al.  Age differences in future orientation and delay discounting. , 2009, Child development.

[25]  G. Fernández,et al.  Reinforcement Learning Signal Predicts Social Conformity , 2009, Neuron.

[26]  Matthew F S Rushworth,et al.  The Computation of Social Behavior , 2009, Science.

[27]  Cameron S Carter,et al.  Neural activity predicts attitude change in cognitive dissonance , 2009, Nature Neuroscience.

[28]  Gregory S. Berns,et al.  Neural mechanisms of the influence of popularity on adolescent ratings of music , 2010, NeuroImage.

[29]  Norihiro Sadato,et al.  Neural correlates of cognitive dissonance and choice-induced preference change , 2010, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[30]  R. Dolan,et al.  How the Opinion of Others Affects Our Valuation of Objects , 2010, Current Biology.

[31]  G. Fernández,et al.  Downregulation of the Posterior Medial Frontal Cortex Prevents Social Conformity , 2011, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[32]  L. Steinberg,et al.  Peers increase adolescent risk taking by enhancing activity in the brain's reward circuitry. , 2011, Developmental science.

[33]  Jin Fan,et al.  Common and distinct networks underlying reward valence and processing stages: A meta-analysis of functional neuroimaging studies , 2011, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews.

[34]  J. Dreher,et al.  Processing of primary and secondary rewards: A quantitative meta-analysis and review of human functional neuroimaging studies , 2013, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews.

[35]  Emma J. Kilford,et al.  Developmental changes in effects of risk and valence on adolescent decision-making☆ , 2013, Cognitive development.

[36]  Keise Izuma,et al.  Social Manipulation of Preference in the Human Brain , 2013, Neuron.

[37]  John O. Willis,et al.  Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence , 2014 .

[38]  R Core Team,et al.  R: A language and environment for statistical computing. , 2014 .

[39]  P. Brockhoff,et al.  lmerTest: Tests for random and fixed effects for linear mixed effect models (lmer objects of lme4 package) , 2014 .

[40]  Jonathan D. Power,et al.  Statistical improvements in functional magnetic resonance imaging analyses produced by censoring high‐motion data points , 2014, Human brain mapping.

[41]  S. Huettel,et al.  Functional connectivity with ventromedial prefrontal cortex reflects subjective value for social rewards. , 2014, Social cognitive and affective neuroscience.

[42]  S. Blakemore,et al.  Social Influence on Risk Perception During Adolescence , 2015, Psychological science.

[43]  A. V. van Duijvenvoorde,et al.  Longitudinal Changes in Adolescent Risk-Taking: A Comprehensive Study of Neural Responses to Rewards, Pubertal Development, and Risk-Taking Behavior , 2015, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[44]  Angela R. Laird,et al.  Left inferior parietal lobe engagement in social cognition and language , 2016, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews.

[45]  Eva H. Telzer,et al.  Neural mechanisms of social influence in adolescence. , 2016, Social cognitive and affective neuroscience.

[46]  S. Blakemore,et al.  Age-related differences in social influence on risk perception depend on the direction of influence , 2017, Journal of adolescence.

[47]  Stefano F. Cappa,et al.  Perceived social isolation is associated with altered functional connectivity in neural networks associated with tonic alertness and executive control , 2017, NeuroImage.

[48]  S. Blakemore.  Avoiding Social Risk in Adolescence , 2018 .