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

Abstract

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.

Longitudinal Changes in the Value and Influence of Parent and Peer Attitudes about Externalizing Behaviors across Adolescence

“…Preferences for knowing parents' and peers' risk attitudes increased across adolescence to nearly ceiling-level rates, underscoring the importance of information pursuit as a mechanism underlying the development of adolescent risk attitudes. Whereas prior work has focused on the anticipated benefits of receiving advice from experienced or trusted sources during adolescence (Engelmann et al, 2012;Rodriguez Buritica et al, 2019), especially when uncertain about one's preferences (Reiter et al, 2021), these data highlight the active role in which adolescents solicit the opinions of others to inform decision making. In contrast to when information pursuit is costly, there were no differences between the value of parent and peer risk attitudes when gaining vs. forgoing knowledge was equally costly.…”

“…Despite the potential value associated with learning parent and peer opinions, ongoing cognitive development constrains when and how much adolescents integrate the opinions of others into their decisions over time. In early adolescence, greater uncertainty about one's own preferences is associated with greater peer influence susceptibility, an association that declines longitudinally as individual preferences become better defined (Reiter et al, 2021). Age-related improvements in metacognitive skills from childhood to adolescence further enable youth to assess the quality of others' advice, facilitating more independent decisions (Moses-Payne et al, 2021).…”

Diminished reinforcement sensitivity in adolescence is associated with enhanced response switching and reduced coding of choice probability in the medial frontal pole

“…According to drift-diffusion accounts (McDougle & Collins, 2021;Mormann et al, 2010;Pedersen et al, 2017), it takes longer to sample noisy information. Hence, this may be indicative of relatively elevated uncertainty as to the value of choice options our younger participants, which has previously been shown to decrease across adolescence (Reiter et al, 2021).…”

Social learning across adolescence: A Bayesian neurocognitive perspective

“…Might it be the case that, while sensory precision can already be decoded in sensory brain areas, this is not translated to the more parietal and prefrontal cortical areas because they are still in development ( Gogtay et al, 2004 , Casey et al, 2008 , Casey, 2015 ), rendering adolescents less adept at using precision estimates and therefore more uncertain in their learning and decision making? Does the degree of maturation of the higher cognitive areas at the individual level correspond to lower uncertainty in adolescents ( De Neys et al, 2011 ; Reiter et al, 2021 )? Is the combination of higher uncertainty and tolerance for ambiguity related to less reliable confidence estimates in adolescence?…”