Risk Behavior and Addiction in Adolescence Britt Bovee
Hoorcollege 1 05-09-2024
Risk behavior: Behaviors that risk a healthy physical, cognitive, psychosocial development
of adolescents
- Substance use (e.g., smoking/vaping, alcohol use, cannabis use, use of XTC etc.)
- Other risk behaviors (e.g., (online) gambling, gaming, social media use)
The general developmental process of addiction:
1. Contact with substance
2. Experimenting with substance
3. Integrated use with substance
4. Excessive use of substance
5. Addicted use
Early adolescence (ages 10-14): physical growth, sexual maturation, psychosocial
development, identity
Mid adolescence (ages 15-17): experimenting with (risk) behaviors, personal identity
formation
Late adolescence (ages 18-24): practicing adult roles
During adolescence there is a strong grow in brain volume:
- Increase in white matter that forms connections between brain regions
o Long term memory increases
o The capacity for abstract thinking and metacognition increases
- Decrease in grey matter (nerve cells)
Pruning: when you don’t use certain nerves or connections, you will lose them
- High plasticity and flexibility of the brain > the capacity to form new connections
and nerve cells
Also, the affective-motivational system (reward center) is developing fast, whereas the
control system (rational brain) develops slowly. Part of the reason why engaging in risky
behaviors peak during adolescence
- Reward center is overactive during early and mid adolescence which causes
adolescents to experience stronger positive emotions than adults when they receive a
reward > enhanced by testosterone
o Bottom-up processes, behavioral activation = BAS > more adolescent
period
- The rational control brain develops slowly (until 25 years). This center plays an
important role in the development of executive functions such as: risk estimation,
monitoring long term goals and inhibiting the tendency for short term rewards (=
impulse control, inhibition and self control)
o Top down processes and behavioral inhibition = BIS > develops slower,
less adolescent
- Increased risk taking during adolescence is a result of an imbalance between the
reward sensitivity (affective motivation system/reward center) and impulse control
(control system/rational brain)
Psychoactive substances are chemical substances that cross the
blood-brain barrier and affect the function of the central
nervous system, thereby altering perception, mood and
consciousness. They also often induce cravings after a regular use
and evoke loss of control after they have been regularly used
Hallucinogens: LSD, Mushrooms, 2CB
Downers (depressants): heroin, GHB, Alcohol
Uppers (stimulants): cocaine, meth, speed, nicotine
>> cannabis and ketamine is a mix of hallucinogens and downers
and XTC is a mix of hallucinogens and uppers
,In the Article of Sussman (2017) there was a differentiation made between intentional and
extensional addiction:
Intentional: definitions aim to describe a causal addiction process
Extensional: classification of characteristics of an addiction (criteria or symptoms)
>> DSM5TR: addiction is recurrent use over the last 12 months AND meeting 2 or more
criteria (2-3 mild, 4-5 moderate, 6> severe)
Two learning principles underlying the development of addiction:
1. Positive reinforcement: occurs when the rate of a behavior increases because a
desirable experience (e.g., euphoria, relaxation) is resulting from the behavior.
2. Negative reinforcement: occurs when the rate of a behavior increases because an
aversive experience is prevented from happening (e.g., withdrawal symptoms).
When people use drugs, the brain will release dopamine in the nucleus accumbens (reward
center), which causes a feeling of reward. When in the nucleus accumbens, the brain will
adapt it self, causing the sensitivity of the reward system to decrease > after regular
use of abuse of the drug
This decrease in the sensitivity of the brain reward system results from a reduction in the
number of dopamine receptors, AND the decreasing sensitivity to dopamine of the
existing dopamine receptors
>> this results in:
1. Tolerance: needing a higher dose of the drug to have the same effects
2. Withdrawal symptoms during abstinence
3. Reduced sensitivity to natural incentives, like sexual interest
Because drug use has rewarding outcomes, stimuli related to drugs use (= drug cues) also
get associated with its rewarding outcomes. These drug cues will become salient (opvallend)
because of its association with reward (incentive salience). This will lead to 2 implicit cognitive
biases:
1. Attentional bias: individuals with addictive behaviors develop an (automatic)
heightened attention towards drug-cues.
2. Approach bias: individuals with addictive behaviors develop an automatic tendency to
approach, rather than avoid, drug-cues.
If people are addicted, the imbalance between the
affective-motivational and control system will
increase even more, so when adolescents get
addicted, their imbalance is extremely high.
50% of 12-16 year olds perceive themselves to
be addicted to social media
Because of this, the APA is researching to
expand common behaviors as possible
behavioral addictions in the next DSM
, This development may be a threat to the credibility of scientific field of behavioral
addiction and to stigmatize common behavior
There must be more longitudinal research in disordered gaming and social media
use and it risks before it can be an official disorder
in ongoing studies there is increasing empirical evidence that gaming and
social media use are repeated behaviors leading to significant harm or
distress of a functionally impairing nature, which is not reduced by the
person (and persists over a significant period of time)
Hoorcollege 2 10-09-2024
It is true that similarity in risk behavior is due to peer influence, bad friends causes
bad influence:
Adolescents are influenced more because of evolution, drastic neurological changes
in the social brain (importance of status and affection) and social-structural changes
(fitting in with peers is adaptive because it enhances compatibility)
The maturity gap theory (Moffitt) is specific for risk behavior in adolescents. There
is a gap in the biological maturity and social maturity
>> two possible processes underlie similarity
1. Selection effects: the tendency to affiliate with similar peers (similar age, gender,
ethnicity etc.)
2. Influence effects: the tendency for peers to become more similar over time
o Multiple studies demonstrate that young individuals become more similar to their
friends over time > in aggression, bullying, delinquent behavior, weapons,
drinking and drug use, vaping
Different types of influence:
- Peer pressure: adolescents say that they don’t experience peer pressure related to
substance use, but more of an internal self-pressure. They say that peer pressure is not
accompanied by teasing or bullying
- Imitation: observing and imitating the behavior of others
o Conscious: because of an anticipated reward or sanction
o Unconscious imitation
- Norms: peer norms reflect a certain level of consensus on what behaviors are expected
or typical
o Descriptive norms: what is the majority doing? What is common?
o Injunctive norms: what is appropriate? How SHOULD you behave?
o Popularity norms: how to get a high status and get popular
Norms can cause informational social influence (= belief that the group is better
informed, need for accuracy and leads to private acceptance) OR normative social
influence (= desire to fit in, need for social acceptance and leads to public
compliance) > BOTH LEAD TO EXTRINISC REWARDS (bad)
Social identity theory: norms can cause a group belonging and sense of self,
which indirectly contributes to a favorable self-identity, via acceptance > LEADS TO
INTRINSIC REWARDS (good)
Influence of friends on peers risk attitudes was strongest where risk attitudes were
associated with popularity (more popular kids that do risky behavior = more
influence because of the popularity)
o Popular peers set the norm for friendship selection and influence related to
aggression
o Popularity norms can predict differences in alcohol and tobacco consumption
- Mutual reinforcement
>> In a computer task it was found that direct pressure was stronger than imitation. It was
also found that if peers discourage something, adolescents are influenced as well, so
positive peer pressure
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