Why do otherwise good kids seem to make bad decisions when they are with their friends? New research on risk taking and the teenage brain offers some answers.
In studies at Temple University, psychologists used functional magnetic resonance imaging scans on 40 teenagers and adults to determine if there are differences in brain activity when adolescents are alone versus with their friends. The findings suggest that teenage peer pressure has a distinct effect on brain signals involving risk and reward, helping to explain why young people are more likely to misbehave and take risks when their friends are watching.
To test how the presence of peers influences risk taking, the researchers asked 14 young teenagers (ages 14 to 18), 14 college students and 12 young adults to play a six-minute video driving game while in a brain scanner. Participants were given cash prizes for completing the game in a certain time, but players had to make decisions about stopping at yellow lights, and being delayed, or racing through yellow lights, which could result in a faster time and a bigger prize, but also meant a higher risk for crashing and an even longer delay. The children and adults played four rounds of the game while undergoing the brain scan. Half the time they played alone, and half the time they were told that two same-sex friends who had accompanied them to the study were watching the play in the next room.
Among adults and college students, there were no meaningful differences in risk taking, regardless of whether friends were watching. But the young teenagers ran about 40 percent more yellow lights and had 60 percent more crashes when they knew their friends were watching. And notably, the regions of the brain associated with reward showed greater activity when they were playing in view of their friends. It was as if the presence of friends, even in the next room, prompted the brain’s reward system to drown out any warning signals about risk, tipping the balance toward the reward.
“The presence of peers activated the reward circuitry in the brain of adolescents that it didn’t do in the case of adults,” said Laurence Steinberg, an author of the study, who is a psychology professor at Temple and author of “You and Your Adolescent: The Essential Guide for Ages 10 to 25.” “We think we’ve uncovered one very plausible explanation for why adolescents do a lot of stupid things with their friends that they wouldn’t do when they are by themselves.”
Dr. Steinberg notes that the findings give a new view of peer pressure, since the peers in this experiment were not even in the same room as the teenager in the scanner.
“The subject was in the scanner, so the friends were not able to directly pressure the person to take chances,” Dr. Steinberg said. “I think it’s helpful to understand because many parents conceive of peer pressure as kids directly coercing each other into doing things. We’ve shown that just the knowledge that your friends are watching you can increase risky behavior.”
Dr. Steinberg notes that the brain system involved in reward processing is also involved in the processing of social information, explaining why peers can have such a pronounced effect on decision making. The effect is believed to be especially strong in teenagers because brain changes shortly after puberty appear to make young people more attentive and aware of what other people are thinking about them, Dr. Steinberg said.
The study results are borne out in real-world data that show teenagers have a much higher risk of car accidents when other teenagers are in the car. More study is needed to determine if the effect shown in the game study is the same when teenagers are in the presence of an opposite-sex friend or romantic interest. In the study, there were no meaningful differences in risk taking among boys and girls. However, some real-world driving data suggests that teenage boys take more risks behind the wheel when one or more boys are in the car, but drive more carefully if they are with a girlfriend.
For parents, the study data reinforce the notion that groups of teenagers need close supervision.
“All of us who have very good kids know they’ve done really dumb things when they’ve been with their friends,” Dr. Steinberg said. “The lesson is that if you have a kid whom you think of as very mature and able to exercise good judgment, based on your observations when he or she is alone or with you, that doesn’t necessarily generalize to how he or she will behave in a group of friends without adults around. Parents should be aware of that.”
Healthy living doesn’t happen at the doctor’s office. The road to better health is paved with the small decisions we make every day. It’s about the choices we make when we buy groceries, drive our cars and hang out with our kids. Join columnist Tara Parker-Pope as she sifts through medical research and expert opinions for practical advice to help readers take control of their health and live well every day. 
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Yeah! Data to back up the obvious. When my kids are on their own, they live up to their intelligence. The more friends that show up in their periphery, it seems their IQ’s drop 10 points for every added person.
It’s not always bad….but they do make some risky decisions
— AksIs this behaviour due to young people’s tendency towards deep insecurity; or the human condition of wanting what you are not; or a combination of both?
The study didn’t reflect why kids need to push the boundaries when with peers. My theory is that it COULD be they are terribly insecure and want to appear strong before their peers. Or perhaps they want so badly to be like the other kids; maybe they think the other guys have”it” — something that they themselves lack.
Also, in teens, hormone levels are raging; it takes little for them to get jumpy or excited. This is more likely where the pack mentality would take over.
It would be interesting to take this article further and obtain more insights from youth-psychologists..
http://www.sfherbalmedicine.com
— Lydia Akhzar, L.Ac.This is a small sample, no?
FROM TPP — It’s actually pretty large for an fMRI study. The differences were statistically significant.
— LovelyVelocity“…based on your observations (the parents) when he or she is alone or with you, that doesn’t necessarily generalize to how he or she will behave in a group of friends without adults around. Parents should be aware of that.”
Yes… they should. If they aren’t, then they’re self-delusional, and may in fact be the spawn of aliens.
This advice really shouldn’t have to be given… we all know it from our own life experience. But it seems that it nevertheless needs to be given. Parents often blind themselves to their “own” memories of their “own” experiences. And in my opinion, parents are often not all that more intellectually developed than their children.
We shouldn’t expect too much of them. Cluelessness is bliss, until a bomb drops. And then it’s “My little boy/girl? NO! They’d never do that!”
Nevertheless, nine months later, “mom and dad” are now “grandma and grandpa”.
It’s a given that the precious bundle of joy isn’t the “same” person that he/she is when they’re with their peers… compared to when they’re with the parents. Were we the same person with parents and peers, at that age? Some of you maybe… most of us not. This especially applies to the more extroverted, and to the “looking for peer approval” crowd… who want to “be cool”… or at least “accepted”.
One teacher said (unofficially, but based upon experience) to a small group of parents at a PTA meeting, in regards to bullying, that most parents were blind to their sadistic darlings behavior, and said:
“When out of sight of the parents or other adult authority, the kid(s) seemed only to listen to the little horned guy on their left shoulder… and reveled in the domination, intimidation, and control… enjoying the pain inflicted. And then, would be all smiles and “please n thank-you” when the adults were back in sight.”
Risky behavior, whether applied to driving, sex, fighting, drugs, extreme sporting, et al… are part and parcel to varying degrees for most kids in that age bracket… and in my opinion, up into the late teens and early twenty’s… for many.
I guess that one solution to help to insure our posterity might be to have with them ,at all times, a constant robotic companion, that’s programmed to adhere to Asimov’s Three Laws Of Robotics:
1. A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
— RC2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
Popular movies such as The Hangover don’t really help in explaining the differences between adults and adolescents, either!
— SamTell me something I don’t know.
— Alvin GoreThis study has some massive flaws. (Whether or not it agrees with the observed behavior is irrelevant.)
The main problem is the risk/reward balance, which should be obvious.
Driving alone, they are competing with themselves, or the game. The “videogamer” mentality would be to do the best they can. That is all benefit.
Friends (supposedly) start watching: now the risk/benefit changes dramatically. Kids want to be cool, and driving carefully IN A VIDEOGAME is not cool. Crashing and running lights, on the other hand, is cool.
So, given that there are no consequences to driving recklessly — and in fact, there are perceived (negative) consequences (you’re not cool) to driving carefully — the outcome is obvious.
When you have circumstance where the negative effect on one side is zero and the positive effect on the other is higher, then anyone will do the benefit side. Adults will be different — being “cool” is not a value.
To make this study worthwhile, add another factor: this is a test of whether they get to keep their license. Or, they have to pay for each accident (which should be a rule in real life.) the results, i am sure, would change dramatically.
FROM TPP — The negative consequence of driving recklessly in the study was to be delayed and lose prize money. In other studies, when the kids weren’t in the M.R.I. scanner and had friends with them, the effect was even more pronounced.
— MichaelI’ve seen it go the other way too – kids can inspire each other to act positively, although I’m not arguing any frequency here.
But why look just at kids? Don’t we see this in adults all the time? Look at how polarized we are politically, much of it coming from egging each other on against “them” and demonizing “them”, even though we mostly want the same things.
FROM TPP — The study did look at adults and in this scenario there was no effect of peer observation on behavior (at least not in a video game exercise).
— swatterThe social pressures which is activated on the youth is actually the struggle for existence and it is replaced by another type of daily struggle for existence at an older age. At each stage in life there are different pressures on the individual which are caused by the social and economic environment he or she exposed to.
— 50PlusSamhttp://www.lifestyle-after50.com/lifestyle.html
Looking back on my teen years, and those of my friends, it’s a wonder any of us managed to survive into adulthood.
— AnneWell this study will certainly feed the extreme risk aversion of all those helicopter parents. Poor kids- not allowed to become mature adults.
— Rachel EnglerDoesn’t seem like a very large sample size…Only 40 test subjects?
— Jacob AdenbaumFROM TPP — What’s important in a study like this is not the size of the sample but the size of the effect and whether it’s statistically meaningful. Most fMRI studies are small for practical reasons of time and cost of the scanner. But this is not a randomized trial to study a drug effect where a very large sample is necessary to achieve a meaningful result — it’s a behavioral study and a brain study. The findings are statistically significant so the sample is not too small from which to draw conclusions.
It’s easier for parents to believe that their kids are, for the most part, basically the same, when out in the world of their peers. This is beyond naïve… and in a real way, potentially dangerous.
I expected my son to, at some point, get sexually curious/interactive, to try smoking pot and cigarettes, to try alcohol, to attempt to do things that would place him in the hierarchy… the pecking order in his peer world.
I told him that in his interactions with his peers, there is a vast difference between “being cool”, and “trying” to be cool. Trying to be cool is obvious, and will only garner you contempt.
Being cool “isn’t” doing what a “peer” tells you to do, because that makes you seem stupid and easily manipulated. Manipulate yourself… don’t be manipulated by some other 13 year old D-level student who’ll probably end up in jail or the military by the time he’s 17. Don’t be a follower. You don’t have to be a leader… but don’t be a follower. Following makes you a sheep… and sheep are stupid. Have some pride. Call your own shots. You only have one body, one set of eyes etc… and beware…
“Come on, try it, it‘s not a big deal”… “You go first”… “It won’t hurt you”… “Don’t worry about it”… “I dare you”… “Go ahead… are you a (blank?)… and so on.
I doubt that he followed this fatherly advice much more than I did when my father gave it to me. But the advice may at least “somewhat” mitigates the process of succumbing to peer pressure. It can’t hurt. It’s better than thinking that your angel isn’t possibly like most kids, and isn’t profoundly affected by peer pressure. Your kids are either followers or leaders… and even the leaders are following others… usually older others.
The relative age of the peers is an important factor… because when you’re 14 and a 16-18 year old says, “Go ahead, try it”… it’s more difficult to resist those that seem to be more mature and more “cool”. Impressing them, and being accepted by them is an affirmation of “coolness”, and validates existence.
— RCIf those of us who are middle age or *gasp* old were honest with ourselves, we’d admit we made the occasional bad decision or two…and lived to tell the tale.
— SabrinaAt first glance, the finding that teenagers take more risks with their friends than when alone does seem to be common sense. What’s new here — and what I imagine you didn’t know — is the identification of the underlying neural processes. Not everyone is interested in understanding how the brain works, but neuroscientists are.
— Laurence SteinbergI was under the impression that the brain’s risk evaluation “software” was not fully integrated until sometime in the early to mid twenties.
Wouldn’t this alone explain teen’s sometimes stupid risk taking behavior? (When judged from an adult perspective.)
— PaulThere is probably an evolutionary advantage to this behavior in that group recklessness would be helpful in group hunting and defending the tribe in the presence of peers.
— John JohnsonOf course the desire for peer approval could also explain the origin of the famous-last-words phrase – “Hey Guys… Watch This!!!”
— PaulI was with you until “For parents, the study data reinforce the notion that groups of teenagers need close supervision.” Arguably, in our helicopter-parented society, the opposite is true.
Adolescents take risks as a group because evolution has programmed them to test themselves and to practice functioning as part of an adult group. Traditional human societies recognize this with a coming of age ceremony that, not infrequently, is genuinely hazardous. Such ceremonies exist on a more local level in modern societies as well, fraternity hazing being one well-known example.
Historically, these risky behaviors prepared adolescents for the rigors of the hunt, and of war, and the desire to take risks persists in young adult males (females seem on average to be more risk averse, presumably because their survival was more critical to the propagation of the group).
The days in which we had to face down lions and mammoths have passed, but war and other physical conflict remains a part of life. So do other risky behaviors in which adults participate, such as drinking and drug use.
Many of the conflicts we have with adolescents today seem to stem from our desire to delay their natural maturation, which includes participation in adult behaviors. But our experience with helicopter-parented children has, so far, not been a very good one; at least, I see reports that once they are of age and on their own, they have trouble mastering adversity and independence.
— Josh HillThe most visibly hideous manifestation of teenage psychotic group behavior is graffiti tagging, which I equate to soiling one’s own nest and degrading nature itself. Here in Montreal they’re even tagging trees.
— RichardIt used to be called “Chicken!” So, the teenager who thinks his friends are watching doesn’t want to be considered a chicken. For some reason dead duck seems to be a better option.
Girls play it too, obviously. I guess for them it’s called Double Dawg Dare you.
— Joan in CaliforniaWe don’t know why teens succumb to peer pressure but this study suggests that, in contrast to adults, they are hard-wired to do so.
— jackA couple of weeks ago just a short distance from my home, a nineteen-year-old kid at a party accidentally shot his seventeen-year-old friend in the stomach with a sawed-off shotgun that someone else had brought to a party. (I don’t want to get into the underaged drinking nor what a seventeen-year-old girl was doing sixty miles from home at 11 o’clock at night.) The shooter, although not a model citizen with a perfect past, immediately recognized what he’d done and himself placed the 911 call. He’s been charged with second-degree murder. My heart goes out to him. She was a friend. He was, if the stories are true, goofing off. This study makes a good case for manslaughter or perhaps even a lesser charge for him.
— KimWhich is why putting all the teenagers in junior and high school, or letting them all communicate via facebook and texting is such a recipe for bulling, sexual brutality and many other disasters waiting to happen.
But then warehousing adolescents and pretending they are a different species while their hormones drive them insane is a lot cheaper for society than actually dealing with them.
— Real LifeNow do you understand why Amy Chua didn’t allow sleepovers?
— tuteIn our town we have a parent pledge to call the host parent whenever their child goes there for a party. Guess what? Nobody ever calls.