Social Influence in Adolescent Decision-Making: A Formal Framework

Frontiers in Psychology

article

Simon Ciranka¹  Wouter van den Bos¹ 

[1] Center for Adaptive Rationality, Max Planck Institute for Human Development;Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research;Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Amsterdam

关键词: adolescence;    decision-making;    social influence;    risk-taking;    expected utility;    computational modeling;    hierarchical bayes;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01915

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Adolescence is a period of life during which peers play a pivotal role in decision-making. The narrative of social influence during adolescence often revolves around risky and maladaptive decisions, like driving under the influence, and using illegal substances ( Steinberg, 2005 ). However, research has also shown that social influence can lead to increased prosocial behaviors ( Van Hoorn et al., 2017 ) and a reduction in risk-taking ( Braams et al., 2019 ). While many studies support the notion that adolescents are more sensitive to peer influence than children or adults, the developmental processes that underlie this sensitivity remain poorly understood. We argue that one important reason for this lack of understanding is the absence of precisely formulated models. To make a first step toward formal models of social influence during adolescence, we first identify three prominent verbal models of social influence in the literature: (1) social motivation, (2) reward sensitivity, and (3) distraction. We then illustrate how these can be translated into formal models, and how such formal models can inform experimental design and help identify developmental processes. Finally, by applying our formal models to existing datasets, we demonstrate the usefulness of formalization by synthesizing different studies with seemingly disparate results. We conclude with a discussion on how formal modeling can be utilized to better investigate the development of peer influence in adolescence.

【 授权许可】

CC BY