Do Hostile School Environments Promote Social Deviance by Shaping Neural Responses to Social Exclusion?

Abstract

The present study examined adolescents' neural responses to social exclusion as a mediator of past exposure to a hostile school environment (HSE) and later social deviance, and whether family connectedness buffered these associations. Participants (166 Mexican-origin adolescents, 54.4% female) reported on their HSE exposure and family connectedness across Grades 9-11. Six months later, neural responses to social exclusion were measured. Finally, social deviance was self-reported in Grades 9 and 12. The HSE-social deviance link was mediated by greater reactivity to social deviance in subgenual anterior cingulate cortex, a region from the social pain network also implicated in social susceptibility. However, youths with stronger family bonds were protected from this neurobiologically mediated path. These findings suggest a complex interplay of risk and protective factors that impact adolescent behavior through the brain.

Maternal Buffering of Adolescent Dysregulation in Socially Appetitive Contexts: From Behavior to the Brain

“…Although not primary regions of interest, we also found that older participants recruited several other regions during successful inhibition toward appetitive contexts in the presence of their mother, including the dACC, fusiform, and temporal pole. The dACC is associated with social stress (Schriber et al, 2018), suggesting that the monitoring of a caregiver may induce social motivation to improve performance during adolescence. The fusiform gyrus has been proposed to detect salient social information (Nelson, Leibenluft, McClure, & Pine, 2005) and is implicated during adolescent decisionmaking in the presence of mothers and peers (Guassi Moreira & Telzer, 2018;van Hoorn, McCormick, Rogers, Ivory, & Telzer, 2018).…”

“…Social buffering is the process by which the presence of sensitive parental figures buffers youth from emotional dysregulation (Gee et al., ). Effective social buffering occurs via modulated neurobiological processes (Gunnar, Hostinar, Sanchez, Tottenham, & Sullivan, ; Hostinar & Gunnar, ; Schriber & Guyer, ), such that parental presence buffers youth from behavioral disinhibition by promoting neural regulation via the mPFC (e.g., Gee et al., ; Schriber et al., ). For example, the physical presence of mothers redirects adolescent risk‐taking behavior toward safer decision‐making (Telzer, Ichien, & Qu, 2015a), which occurs via striatum–mPFC coupling (Guassi Moreira & Telzer, ).…”

Adolescent Brain Development: Implications for Understanding Risk and Resilience Processes Through Neuroimaging Research

“…Schriber et al. () examined social influences of both parents and peers in their longitudinal study. They examined neural responses to social exclusion in hostile school environments and whether family connectedness buffered the effects of social exclusion on later deviance.…”

Broadening the Impact of Developmental Neuroscience on the Study of Adolescence

“…Schriber et al. () present findings on how the link between a hostile school environment and later behavioral problems may be associated with neural reactivity to social rejection. But even this association can depend upon the family environment, offering a rare developmental neuroscience study that examines the interaction between two social environments.…”

“…The articles in this special section nicely exemplify the strengths of applying neuroscience to psychopathology, as adolescence is a period at which many of these problems manifest themselves. All of the articles focus on patterns of functional activation associated with potential emotional and behavioral difficulties, including externalizing and conduct disorder behaviors (Brieant et al, 2018;Saxbe et al, 2018;Schriber et al, 2018;Trucco, Cope, Burmeister, Zucker, & Heitzeg, 2018), risky decision making (Hansen, Thayer, Feldstein-Ewing, Sabbineni, & Bryan, 2018;Rodrigo, Padr on, de Vega, & Ferstl, 2018), stress responsivity (T.-H. Lee, Qu, & Telzer, 2018), and depression symptomatology (K. H. Lee, Oppenheimer, et al, 2018). Recent calls have been made to build upon these insights and expand the field's scope to understanding normative processes, puberty, and the unique opportunities for positive development afforded by brain development during adolescence (Crone & Dahl, 2012;Pfeifer & Blakemore, 2012).…”