Giving to Others and Neural Development During Adolescence

University Of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles CA

Investigators

Abstract

Adolescents' risky decision making and antisocial behaviors have received a great deal of public and scientific attention. Less is known about prosocial behaviors among adolescents, such as sharing and supportiveness. How do changes in the adolescent brain relate to the development of these more positive behaviors? And how does adolescents' tendency to engage in positive behaviors vary depending upon the social context? This project brings together a team of developmental and social psychologists and neuroscientists to study how one particular aspect of prosocial behavior, giving to others, changes across adolescence, and how brain changes relate to the age-related changes in prosocial behavior. One specific goal is to explore whether giving behaviors become more sensitive to the situation (such as the recipient and the cost of giving) across development. Another goal is to understand the involvement of different brain systems (such as those responsible for processing rewards and inhibiting impulsive behaviors) in giving behaviors. A final goal is to understand how other social skills such as perspective-taking and empathy relate to giving and brain developments. A total of 120 participants at 9, 14, and 19 years of age will participate in an experimental giving task while having their brains scanned in an MRI machine. They also will complete questionnaires and daily checklists that assess social experience, perspective-taking, empathy, and values. Giving to friends and strangers is expected to increase and decrease, respectively, and giving to family will remain stable across the years of adolescence. This differential giving should correlate with greater activation and connectivity among neural networks associated with reward, mentalizing, and cognitive control when giving to friends as compared to family and strangers, and when giving to family as compared to strangers. Differential giving and neural activation according to recipient is expected to be linked with greater valuing and orientation toward peers and family, and individual differences among participants in overall giving and activation will be correlated with social experience, perspective-taking, and empathy. Findings will enrich the field's understanding of the developing adolescent brain for behavior by highlighting the role of neural development in positive, prosocial behavior and the potential impact of social experience in these dynamics.