Neural and behavioral signatures of social evaluation and adaptation in childhood and adolescence: The Leiden consortium on individual development (L-CID)

Abstract

The transition period between early childhood and late adolescence is characterized by pronounced changes in social competence, or the capacity for flexible social adaptation. Here, we propose that two processes, self-control and prosociality, are crucial for social adaptation following social evaluation. We present a neurobehavioral model showing commonalities in neural responses to experiences of social acceptance and rejection, and multiple pathways for responding to social context. The Leiden Consortium on Individual Development (L-CID) provides a comprehensive approach towards understanding the longitudinal developmental pathways of, and social enrichment effects on, social competence, taking into account potential differential effects of such enrichment. Using Neurosynth based brain maps we point towards the medial prefrontal cortex as an important region integrating social cognition, self-referential processing and self-control for learning to respond flexibly to changing social contexts. Based on their role in social evaluation processing, we suggest to examine medial prefrontal cortex connections with lateral prefrontal cortex and the ventral striatum as potential neural differential susceptibility markers, in addition to previously established markers of differential susceptibility.

Is the psychological impact of exposure to COVID-19 stronger in adolescents with pre-pandemic maltreatment experiences? A survey of rural Chinese adolescents

“…Since the COVID-19 outbreak at the end of 2019, it has evolved into a global pandemic with tremendous mental health impact besides the threats to people’s physical health ( World Health Organization, 2020 ). Adolescents may be more vulnerable than adults to mental health problems, in particular during a lock down, because they are in a transition phase from growing up in a closely-knit family to a wider social network with increasing importance of peers, and struggling with their often brittle self-esteem ( Crone et al, 2020 ). In particular, although spread of the virus was of greatest concern to populations in large urban centers, rural adolescents may bear more pressure due to difficulties in accessing technologies for distance learning, limited nearby physical and mental health services, and increasing unemployment rates for their family with the associated threat of poverty( FAO, 2020 ).…”

The building blocks of social competence: Contributions of the Consortium of Individual Development

“…Each work package focuses on different aspects of explaining individual differences across development. Two longitudinal cohorts were set up: the YOUth cohorts to sample neurocognitive development (Work Package 1;Onland- Moret et al, 2020), and the Leiden-CID cohorts (‘L-CID’) to test interventions in twins (Work Package 2; Crone et al, 2020 ). Work Package 3 unites four current cohorts established prior to CID ( Branje et al, 2020 ): Generation R (‘Gen-R’, Kooijman et al, 2016 ); Netherlands Twin Register (‘NTR’, Boomsma et al, 2006 ); RADAR (e.g., Branje and Meeus, 2018 ; Crocetti et al, 2017 ) and TRAILS ( Ormel et al, 2012 ).…”

“…One of the main reasons why there is not yet such a detailed account is that while different strands of research provide relevant blocks of knowledge, these remain limited as they typically do not cross beyond the boundaries of their own scholarly discipline. To illustrate, developmental studies often rely on longitudinal studies to investigate how psychological child characteristics and environmental factors contribute to a child’s well-being in real-life ( Bronfenbrenner, 2005 ), but these studies often do not include a biological or neurocognitive levels through which factors affect social competence (but see Crone et al, 2020 ). In contrast, biologically-oriented models provide us with a detailed mechanistic understanding of genes, neural function, or brain maturation relevant to the development of social cognition (e.g., Bakermans‐Kranenburg and Van IJzendoorn, 2007 ; Blakemore, 2008 ; Happé and Frith, 2014 ; Johnson et al, 2015 ; Robinson et al, 2008 ; Werker and Hensch, 2015 ) but they do not take into account child characteristics such as emotion regulation.…”

“…A second strand of research should address how the interplay between genes, brain and environment affects social competence, which we address in our multi- method cohorts: YOUth-cohorts, l -CID and NTR all collect genes and multiple indices of environment (YOUth cohorts in WP1: Onland-Moret et al, 2020 twin cohorts L-CID in WP2; cf. Crone et al, 2020 ; NTR cohort in WP3: Boomsma et al, 2006 ; cf. Branje et al, 2020 ).…”

A Bi-Dimensional Taxonomy of Social Responsivity in Middle Childhood: Prosociality and Reactive Aggression Predict Externalizing Behavior Over Time

“…Recently, it was argued that treating prosociality and reactive aggression as opposing relations might be too limited for capturing the dynamics of these developmental relations ( Crone et al, 2020 ). An alternative way to address this is by using bi-dimensional models, in which the intersection of two constructs results in four different “quadrants” of behavioral profiles.…”