Suchergebnisse

AbstractRecent mechanistic models of cognitive control define the normative level of control deployment as a function of the effort cost of exerting control balanced against the reward that can be attained by exerting control. Despite these models explaining empirical findings in adults, prior literature has suggested that adolescents may not adaptively integrate value into estimates of how much cognitive control they should deploy. Moreover, much work in adolescent neurodevelopment casts social valuation processes as competing with, and in many cases overwhelming, cognitive control in adolescence. Here, we test whether social incentives can adaptively increase cognitive control. Adolescents (Mage = 14.64, 44 male, N = 87) completed an incentivized cognitive control task in which they could exert cognitive control to receive rewards on behalf of real peers who were rated by all peers in their school grade as being of either high‐ or low‐status. Using Bayesian modeling, we find robust evidence that adolescents exert more cognitive control for high‐ relative to low‐status peers. Moreover, we demonstrate that social incentives, irrespective of their high‐ or low‐status, boost adolescent cognitive control above baseline control where no incentives are offered. Findings support the hypothesis that the cognitive control system in early adolescence is flexibly modulated by social value.

AbstractMany prosocial behaviors involve social risks such as speaking out against a popular opinion, bias, group norm, or authority. However, little is known about whether adolescents' prosocial tendencies develop over time with their perceptions of social risks. This accelerated longitudinal study used within‐subject growth‐curve analyses to test the link between adolescents' prosocial tendencies and social risk perceptions. Adolescents completed self‐reports annually for 3 years (N = 893; Mage = 12.30 years, 10–14 years at Wave 1, and 10–17 years across the full study period; 50% girls, 33% White non‐Latinx, 27% Latinx, 20% African American, 20% mixed/other race). The association between social risk tolerance and prosocial tendencies changed significantly across adolescence. Specifically, for younger adolescents, more prosocial tendencies were associated significantly with less social risk tolerance, whereas for relatively older adolescents, more prosocial tendencies were associated marginally with more social risk tolerance. Additional individual differences by empathy (but not sensation seeking) emerged. These findings suggest that prosocial tendencies across adolescence may be associated with an underlying ability to tolerate social risks.