Special issue on the teenage brain: Sensitivity to social evaluation

Abstract

Relative to childhood, peer relationships take on a heightened importance during adolescence. Might adolescents be highly attuned to information that concerns when and how they are being evaluated, and what their peers think of them? This review evaluates how continuing brain development - which influences brain function - partially explains or reflects adolescents' attunement to social evaluation. Though preliminary, evidence is mounting to suggest that while processing information relevant to social evaluation and the internal states of other people, adolescents respond with greater emotional intensity and corresponding nonlinear recruitment of socioaffective brain circuitry. This review highlights research findings that relate trajectories of brain development and social behavior, and discusses promising avenues of future research that will inform how brain development might lead adolescents sensitized to social evaluation.

Keywords: Adolescence; brain; development; evaluation; rejection; social.

Figure 1

Tasks developed to assess adolescent social sensitivity. 1A depicts a social feedback task for which participants receive feedback that another peer did, or did not, like the participant’s picture (Gunther Moor et al., 2010). 1B depicts an adaptation of the Chatroom task (from (Silk et al., 2012). Participants initially decide whether they would like to chat online with a peer about a topic of mutual interest, and then subsequently find out whether that individual chose to chat with them. 1C depicts a developmental adaptation of the Cyberball task (from (Sebastian et al., 2010)) which socially includes and excludes participants from a virtual ball-tossing game.

Figure 2

While ostensibly being viewed by a peer in a live video-feed, self-reported embarrassment rises rapidly during adolescence (A), mimicked by emergent recruitment of the medial prefrontal cortex (B).