Consequences for peers differentially bias computations about risk across development.

Powers, Katherine E.; Yaffe, Gideon; Hartley, Catherine A.; Davidow, Juliet Y.; Kober, Hedy; Somerville, Leah H.

doi:10.1037/xge0000389

Cited by 34 publications

(43 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…We found that younger participants exhibited higher levels of risk taking in the hot task because they were less deterred by the probability of incurring the potential loss associated with riskier choices. These results converge with prior work demonstrating greater tolerance of risk in adolescents’ decisions compared to adults’ (Defoe et al., ; Powers et al., ) and further constrains these shifts to affectively engaging contexts such as the hot CCT.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

“…We found that the mere presence condition did not yield significantly altered risky choice in either task and at any age. These findings mirror classic and more recent work demonstrating that audience effects on performance are constrained to active monitoring conditions (Cottrell, Wack, Sekerak, & Rittle, 1968;Powers et al, 2018). The present findings imply that the active monitoring by peers is a critical element of the mechanisms that, under certain circumstances, lead to enhanced risky choice with peers in adolescents more so than adults.…”

Section: Mere Presence Of Peerssupporting

confidence: 88%

“…This study acquired data on participants’ and peers’ actual risk preferences, but did not measure the participant's conception of their peer's risk attitude. Indeed, recent work has demonstrated that adolescents in particular have inaccurate conceptions of their peer's risk attitudes (Powers et al., ). Therefore, this analysis is not a strong test of homophily mechanisms because participants could indeed be targeting homophily, but based on a skewed perception of their peer's risk attitudes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Dissecting “Peer Presence” and “Decisions” to Deepen Understanding of Peer Influence on Adolescent Risky Choice

et al. 2018

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This study evaluated the aspects of complex decisions influenced by peers, and components of peer involvement influential to adolescents' risky decisions. Participants (N = 140) aged 13-25 completed the Columbia Card Task (CCT), a risky choice task, isolating deliberation-reliant and affect-reliant decisions while alone, while a friend monitors choices, and while a friend is merely present. There is no condition in which a nonfriend peer is present. Results demonstrated the risk-increasing peer effect occurred in the youngest participants in the cold CCT and middle-late adolescents in the hot CCT, whereas other ages and contexts showed a risk-decreasing peer effect. Mere presence was not sufficient to influence risky behavior. These boundaries in age, decision, and peer involvement constrain prevailing models of adolescent peer influence.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Section: Mere Presence Of Peerssupporting

confidence: 88%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Dissecting “Peer Presence” and “Decisions” to Deepen Understanding of Peer Influence on Adolescent Risky Choice

et al. 2018

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“…Although this seems surprising at first since adolescents are generally thought to take more risks than adults in the real world and therefore one might expect that adolescents also take more risks than adults in the laboratory, the literature on developmental patterns of risky decision‐making in the laboratory shows mixed results. Some studies have found increased risky decision‐making in adolescence (Braams et al., ; Chein et al., ; Powers et al., ) whereas other studies do not find differences (Blankenstein et al., ; Van Leijenhorst et al., ). Adolescent increases in risk taking behavior in the real world are not only driven by the analysis of objective risk in a situation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Developmental patterns of change in the influence of safe and risky peer choices on risky decision‐making

Braams

Davidow

Somerville

2018

Developmental Science

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Adolescents take more risks when peers monitor their behavior. However, it is largely unknown how different types of peer influence affect adolescent decision-making. In this study, we investigate how information about previous choices of peers differentially influences decision-making in adolescence and young adulthood. Participants (N = 99, age range 12-22) completed an economic choice task in which choice options were systematically varied on levels of risk and ambiguity. On each trial, participants selected between a safer choice (low variability in outcome) and a riskier choice (high variability in outcome). Participants made choices in three conditions: a solo condition in which they made choices with no additional information, a social condition in which they saw choices of supposed peers, and a computer condition in which they saw choices of a computer. Results showed that participants' choices conform to the choices made by the peers, but not a computer. Furthermore, when peers chose the safe option, late adolescents were especially likely to make a safe choice. Conversely, when the peer made a risky choice, late adolescents were least likely to follow choices made by the peer. We did not find evidence for differential influence of social information on decisions depending on their level of risk and ambiguity. These results show that information about previous decisions of peers are a powerful modifier for behavior and that the effect of peers on adolescents' decisions is less ubiquitous and more specific than previously assumed.

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“…Loss-related processing in the anterior insula has been linked to avoidance learning from punishments (Samanez-Larkin et al ., 2008; Palminteri et al ., 2012), suggesting that insula activity may subserve the ability to use negative outcomes to incrementally update value representations. Though future work is needed to elucidate the behavioral consequences of this trajectory, it stimulates hypotheses about whether attenuated loss value processing is a key mechanism that contributes to adolescents’ tendency toward risky decision-making (Figner et al ., 2009; Defoe et al ., 2015; Powers et al ., in press) and altered learning from or sensitivity to negative feedback (van Duijvenvoorde et al ., 2008; van den Bos et al ., 2012; Rodman et al ., 2017). …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Asymmetric neural tracking of gain and loss magnitude during adolescence

Insel

Somerville

2018

Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience

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Adolescence has been characterized as a developmental period of heightened reward seeking and attenuated aversive processing. However, it remains unclear how the neural bases of distinct outcome valuation processes shift during this stage of the lifespan. A total of 74 participants ranging in age from 13 to 20 years completed a value-modulated functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) task in which participants earn low and high magnitude monetary outcomes to test whether gain and loss magnitude tracking—the neural representation of relative value in context—change differentially over this age span. Results revealed that gain and loss magnitude tracking follow asymmetric developmental trajectories. Gain magnitude tracking is elevated in the striatum during early adolescence and then decreases with age. By contrast, loss magnitude tracking in the anterior insula follows a quadratic pattern, undergoing a temporary attenuation during mid–late adolescence. A typical comparison of gain vs loss outcomes (collapsing over magnitude effects) showed robust activity across a suite of brain regions sensitive to value based on prior work including the ventral striatum, but they exhibited no changes with age. These findings suggest that value coding subprocesses follow divergent developmental paths across adolescence, which may contribute to normative shifts in adolescent motivated behavior.

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Consequences for peers differentially bias computations about risk across development.

Cited by 34 publications

References 55 publications

Dissecting “Peer Presence” and “Decisions” to Deepen Understanding of Peer Influence on Adolescent Risky Choice

Dissecting “Peer Presence” and “Decisions” to Deepen Understanding of Peer Influence on Adolescent Risky Choice

Developmental patterns of change in the influence of safe and risky peer choices on risky decision‐making

Asymmetric neural tracking of gain and loss magnitude during adolescence

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