Temptations of friends: adolescents' neural and behavioral responses to best friends predict risky behavior.

ABSTRACT: Adolescents are notorious for engaging in risky, reward-motivated behavior, and this behavior occurs most often in response to social reward, typically in the form of peer contexts involving intense positive affect. A combination of greater neural and behavioral sensitivity to peer positive affect may characterize adolescents who are especially likely to engage in risky behaviors. To test this hypothesis, we examined 50 adolescents' reciprocal positive affect and neural response to a personally relevant, ecologically valid pleasant stimulus: positive affect expressed by their best friend during a conversation about past and future rewarding mutual experiences. Participants were typically developing community adolescents (age 14-18 years, 48.6% female), and risky behavior was defined as a f

SUBMITTER: Ambrosia M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6007330 | biostudies-literature | 2018 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature