Literatuur college 2A justitieel ingrijpen
Is the peer presence effect on Heightened adolescent risky decision-making only present in
Males?
Taken together, using a validated task, the present findings demonstrate that individual
differences (i.e., gender) can determine whether the social environment (i.e., peer presence)
affect risk-taking in early- and mid-adolescents. The finding that performance on a
laboratory risky decision-making task can perhaps help identify adolescents that are
vulnerable to diverse types of heightened risk behaviors is an important finding for science
as well as prevention and intervention efforts.
Neurodevelopmental imbalance models postulate that heightened adolescent risk-taking
occurs, particularly in emotionally arousing contexts, wherein adolescent’s hyper- responsive
motivational-reward system in the brain gets triggered, resulting in a pronounced imbalance
with their relatively immature cognitive control system. Distinctively, social variants of
neurodevelopmental imbalance models (i.e., social neuro- developmental imbalance
models) postulate that peers increase risk-taking particularly in adolescence, because the
mere presence of peers activates the same brain regions as rewards do, and in that sense,
peers can be considered as socially rewarding. However, whereas some studies clearly
showed that the mere presence of peers increases risky decision making in adolescents,
other studies reported that mere peer presence does not increase risk- taking in adolescents
and college students. Yet other studies showed mixed/conditional effects. These
inconsistent results could perhaps be attributed to gender and/or adolescent phase
moderation effects in the influence of peer presence on risk-taking, but thus far such
moderation effects have been largely neglected.
Although gender has consistently been shown to moderate risk-taking in the real-world, the
limited amount of studies on gender-moderated peer-presence effects on adolescent risk-
taking in the laboratory show mixed findings.
Although an imbalance in the brain around early adolescence might make an individual more
vulnerable to engage in risks, apparently ecological factors such as increases in risk exposure
as adolescents age ultimately contribute to higher risk-taking levels among older adolescents
versus younger adolescents in the real-world. However, in the laboratory where risk expo-
sure is equal for all ages, younger adolescents engage in more risks perhaps because of
delayed cognitive ability (e.g., inhibitory control). All in all, accounting for adolescent phase
differences in risk-taking whether in the laboratory or the real-world is essential.
Most theories and correlational studies suggest that from mid-adolescence onwards
individuals are more likely to be equipped to resist peer influence. However, the only
laboratory study that could be located that investigated age differences in peer presence
effects on risk-taking showed mixed findings. Thus, it would be of added value for the
current experimental study, with a sample of 12–13 year olds (1st year high-school pupils)
and 14–15 year olds (3rd year high-school pupils), to investigate whether adolescent phase
moderates the hypothesized link from peer presence to risky decision making.
The results of study one suggest that adolescents who perform the stoplight game together
with two-same sex peers do not significantly engage in more risk-taking compared to when
adolescents complete the stoplight game alone. Furthermore, gender moderated the peer
,presence effects on risk-taking, namely, whereas boys and girls engaged in equal levels of
risks in the alone condition, boys engaged in more risk-taking than girls in the peer condition.
The results of study two showed that risky decision making on the stoplight game was
predictive of risky traffic behavior, alcohol use and delinquency in adolescents, and these
linkages were found above and beyond (significant) effects of sensation seeking, age and
gender.
Social neurodevelopmental imbalance models posit that peer presence causes heightened
adolescent risk-taking. Whereas social neurodevelopmental imbalance models suggest that
such peer presence effects particularly occur during early adolescence, evolutionary theory
suggests that these effects would be most pronounced in males. However, the small but
growing number of experimental studies on peer presence effects in adolescent risky
decision making showed mixed findings, and the vast majority of such studies did not test for
the gender and adolescent phase moderation effects. By taking such gender and adolescent
phase moderation effects into account, the current article aimed to add to the literature
about what is known about peer presence effects, and to potentially reconcile the mixed
findings (study one). Furthermore, the current article assessed whether the employed
laboratory risky decision-making task (i.e., the stoplight game) is meaningful for
understanding real-word adolescent risk behavior (study two).
Study one
Results of study one showed that peer presence generally did not lead to an increase in
adolescent risky decision making, which contradicts the peer presence hypothesis of social
neurodevelopmental imbalance models. However, there was an interaction effect between
gender and peer presence on risky decision making. Follow-up post hoc analyses showed
that whereas boys’ and girls’ risk-taking in the alone condition did not significantly differ, in
the peer condition boys significantly took more risks than girls. Moreover, whereas same-sex
peers have an increasing effect on boys’ risk-taking, same-sex peers have a diminishing effect
on girls’ risk-taking. These gender moderation effects of the influence of peer presence on
risk-taking are in line with evolutionary perspectives. In accordance with the current
findings, one of the few experimental risk-taking studies that investigated gender differences
also did not find a peer presence effect for risky decision making on the stoplight game when
boys and girls were combined.
As for the theoretical framework, considering that no general peer presence effect was
found, could imply that the social neurodevelopmental imbalance model might be most
meaningful for adolescent boys’ heightened risk-taking in the presence of peers, but not for
girls. In line with these perspectives, the cur- rent findings perhaps suggest that since males
associate their fitness with being successful in risky “competitive” situations, the adolescent
males (versus females) in the current study likely felt more pressured in the presence of
their same-sex peers to engage in risks in order to maintain or enhance their reputation.
Such peer pressure could have been transferred both verbally (directly) or non-verbally
(indirectly/subtle). Equally possible is that both boys and girls encourage risk-taking,
however girls are more capable of sup- pressing or resisting peer pressure than boys are. It
should be noted however, that in the current study same-sex peers had an increasing effect
on boys’ risk-taking, whereas same-sex peers had a diminishing effect on girls’ risk- taking.
Thus perhaps the girls’ triad primarily consisted of pressure discouraging risk-taking whereas
the boys’ triad consisted primarily of pressure encouraging risk-taking. In any case, in
correlational studies, adolescent girls report more resistance to peer influence than do
, adolescent boys on self-report measures of peer resistance, and peers have been shown to
have more negative influences on boys’ risk-taking compared to girls’ risk-taking. Thus these
correlational results are consistent with the current results that show a gender moderation
effect of peer influence on risk-taking.
Taken together, consistent with evolutionary perspec- tives on why males take more risks
and the aforementioned past correlational studies, the present results could suggest that
whether peer presence sensitizes adolescents to rewards leading to risk-taking and/or
whether this sensitization to respond to the rewarding aspect of risk-taking behaviors
further undermines self-regulation capacities (e.g., resistance to peer influence), might
further be modulated by gender. However, this effect existed using just one type of risky
decision-making task (driving task), and although such effects were also found on the BART,
it is worthwhile for future studies to explore whether these moderation effects are also
found for other types of risky decision-making tasks. Finally, peer presence effects might also
be modulated by the above- mentioned social mechanisms (e.g., peer pressure or peer
norms). Thus future studies could further explore whether social learning perspectives could
be relevant for understanding peer presence effects on risk-taking.
Next, inspired by social neurodevelopmental imbalance models it was expected that
particularly early adolescents would be most susceptible to peer presence effects on risk-
taking. However, no age moderation effects of peer presence existed in the current study.
Perhaps, the age discrepancy between early adolescents and mid-adolescents was not large
enough to capture such effects. For example, a comparison between early versus midlate
adolescents would have been a more pronounced difference in adolescent phase and could
have provided more power for identifying adolescent phase moderation effects in peer
presence effects on risk-taking. Future studies could explore this possibility with a sample
with wider age ranges.
Study two
Study two demonstrated that the above-described results of study one are meaningful for
understanding real-word adolescent risk-taking behaviors. Namely, overall performance on
the stoplight game predicted risky traffic behavior, alcohol use and delinquency in
adolescents, and these linkages were found above and beyond effects of sensation- seeking,
age, and gender. The stoplight game is a simulated risky driving task, thus it is to be expected
that performance on this task predicted self-reported real-world risky traffic behavior—and
this speaks to its criterion validity. With regard to alcohol use, the current findings are more
or less consistent with Kim-Spoon et al. (2016). However, that study included older (i.e., late)
adolescents, and the present results further suggest that the significant link found in that
study from performance on the stoplight game to a composite score of smoking, alcohol and
marijuana, might be primarily driven by alcohol use. All things considered, the current
findings suggest that perhaps the decision- making processes that are at play during
completion of the stoplight game, are the same underlying processes that contribute to real-
world risky traffic behavior, alcohol use and delinquency in adolescents.
Conclusion
The current results showed no general peer presence effect on heightened adolescent risk-
taking, but instead peer presence effects only existed for boys. These results contradict
social neurodevelopmental imbalance models that do not posit gender differences, however
they do support the evolutionary theories on gender differences in peer influence on risk-
taking. Namely, they suggest that heightened adolescent risk-taking in the presence of peers
might be gender specific, for both early- and mid-adolescents. In the real-world, adolescent
