Developmental asymmetries in learning to adjust to cooperative and uncooperative environments

Abstract

Learning to successfully navigate social environments is a critical developmental goal, predictive of long-term wellbeing. However, little is known about how people learn to adjust to different social environments, and how this behaviour emerges across development. Here, we use a series of economic games to assess how children, adolescents, and young adults learn to adjust to social environments that differ in their level of cooperation (i.e., trust and coordination). Our results show an asymmetric developmental pattern: adjustment requiring uncooperative behaviour remains constant across adolescence, but adjustment requiring cooperative behaviour improves markedly across adolescence. Behavioural and computational analyses reveal that age-related differences in this social learning are shaped by age-related differences in the degree of inequality aversion and in the updating of beliefs about others. Our findings point to early adolescence as a phase of rapid change in cooperative behaviours, and highlight this as a key developmental window for interventions promoting well-adjusted social behaviour.

Increased ventromedial prefrontal cortex activity in adolescence benefits prosocial reinforcement learning

“…First, prosocial learning was restricted to unknown others and should be extended in future research to other beneficiaries. Previous studies have shown that prosocial behaviors and their neural correlates in adolescence strongly depend on the beneficiary (e.g., (Brandner et al, 2020;Schreuders et al, 2018;Westhoff et al, 2020). Whether such differences between beneficiaries are also visible in prosocial learning and the concurrent neural tracking of PEs, is an interesting question for future studies.…”

“…Possibly, age-related differences in brain activity during prosocial PE tracking are explained by other mechanisms. For instance, although there was no reciprocity or competition, participants may have been influenced by social inequality preferences, such as a dislike to getting more (i.e., advantageous inequality aversion), or less (i.e., disadvantageous inequality aversion) than the other participant (Dawes et al, 2007;Fehr & Schmidt, 1999;Meuwese et al, 2015;Westhoff et al, 2020).…”

Increased Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex Activity in Adolescence Benefits Prosocial Reinforcement Learning

“…Also, age-related differences in brain activity during prosocial PE tracking may be explained by other social cognitive mechanisms than empathy. For instance, although there was no reciprocity or competition, participants may have been influenced by social inequality preferences, such as disliking to getting more (i.e., advantageous inequality aversion), or less (i.e., disadvantageous inequality aversion) than the other participant ( Dawes et al, 2007 , Fehr and Schmidt, 1999 , Meuwese et al, 2015 , Westhoff et al, 2020 ). Future studies could more explicitly assess several social-cognitive skills, strategies, and motivations along with a prosocial learning task to examine what behavioral mechanisms rely most on adolescents’ prosocial learning.…”

“…Second, it would be interesting if future research would extend the prosocial learning task to other beneficiaries. Previous studies have shown that prosocial behaviors and their neural correlates in adolescence strongly depend on the beneficiary (e.g., Brandner et al, 2020 , Schreuders et al, 2018 , van de Groep et al, 2020 , Westhoff et al, 2020 ). Future studies should further examine whether such differences between beneficiaries are also visible in prosocial learning and whether this affects the concurrent neural tracking of PEs.…”

The Association between Economic Inequality and Adolescents' Prosocial Behavior: Evidence from Brain Potentials and Genes

“…showing longitudinal relation between economic inequality and individuals' prosocial behavior from 1973 to 2012. However, previous researches' models had their limitations considering the interest variables (e.g., prosocial behavior) were viewed as static and non-developmental throughout adolescence, which is a particular period of rapid change in prosocial behaviors (Westhoff et al, 2020). With the development of autonomy and identity exploration, adolescents are more likely to engage in several prosocial behaviors, such as volunteering and donating (McGinley et al, 2021).…”