Citation

Ambrosia M, Eckstrand KL, Morgan JK, Allen NB, Jones NP, Sheeber L, Silk JS, Forbes EE. Soc. Cogn. Affect. Neurosci. 2018; 13(5): 483-491.

Affiliation

Center for the Neural Bases of Cognition, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Oxford University Press)

DOI

10.1093/scan/nsy028

PMID

29846717

Abstract

Adolescents are notorious for engaging in risky, reward-motivated behavior, and this behavior occurs most often in response to social reward, typically in the form of peer contexts involving intense positive affect. A combination of greater neural and behavioral sensitivity to peer positive affect may characterize adolescents who are especially likely to engage in risky behaviors. To test this hypothesis, we examined 50 adolescents' reciprocal positive affect and neural response to a personally relevant, ecologically valid pleasant stimulus: positive affect expressed by their best friend during a conversation about past and future rewarding mutual experiences. Participants were typically developing community adolescents (age 14-18 years, 48.6% female), and risky behavior was defined as a factor including domains such as substance use, sexual behavior and suicidality. Adolescents who engaged in more real-life risk-taking behavior exhibited either a combination of high reciprocal positive affect behavior and high response in the left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex-a region associated with impulsive sensation-seeking-or the opposite combination. Behavioral and neural sensitivity to peer influence could combine to contribute to pathways from peer influence to risky behavior, with implications for healthy development.

Language: en