Journal Article

Preference uncertainty accounts for developmental effects on susceptibility to peer influence in adolescence

Goodyer, Ian M., Reiter, Andrea M. F., Fonagy, Peter, Kievit, Rogier, Bullmore, Edward T., Jones, Peter B., Dolan, Raymond J., Moutoussis, Michael, Vanes, Lucy

2021

Overview

Adolescents are prone to social influence from peers, with implications for development, both adaptive and maladaptive. Here, using a computer-based paradigm, we replicate a cross-sectional effect of more susceptibility to peer influence in a large dataset of adolescents 14 to 24 years old. Crucially, we extend this finding by adopting a longitudinal perspective, showing that a within-person susceptibility to social influence decreases over a 1.5 year follow-up time period. Exploiting this longitudinal design, we show that susceptibility to social influences at baseline predicts an improvement in peer relations over the follow-up period. Using a Bayesian computational model, we demonstrate that in younger adolescents a greater tendency to adopt others’ preferences arises out of a higher uncertainty about their own preferences in the paradigmatic case of delay discounting (a phenomenon called ‘preference uncertainty’). This preference uncertainty decreases over time and, in turn, leads to a reduced susceptibility of one’s own behaviour to an influence from others. Neuro-developmentally, we show that a measure of myelination within medial prefrontal cortex, estimated at baseline, predicts a developmental decrease in preference uncertainty at follow-up. Thus, using computational and neural evidence, we reveal adaptive mechanisms underpinning susceptibility to social influence during adolescence. People often change their preferences to conform with others. Using a longitudinal design, the authors show that such conformity decreases over the course of adolescence and that this reduction in conformity is accompanied by a decreasing degree of uncertainty about what to like.

• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group UK,Nature Publishing Group,Nature Portfolio
• Subject: 59/57 / 631/378/1595 / 631/378/2571 / 631/378/2645 / 631/378/2649 / 631/378/3919 / Adolescence / Adolescent / Adolescent Behavior - physiology / Adolescent Development / Adolescents / Bayesian analysis / Child development / Computational neuroscience / Conformity / Cross-Sectional Studies / Female / Humanities and Social Sciences / Humans / Influence / Magnetic Resonance Imaging - methods / Male / multidisciplinary / Myelination / Peer Group / Peer Influence / Peer relationships / Preferences / Prefrontal cortex / Prefrontal Cortex - diagnostic imaging / Prefrontal Cortex - physiology / Psychomotor Performance - physiology / Science / Science (multidisciplinary) / Social Behavior / Susceptibility / Teenagers / Uncertainty / Young Adult