Your peers in adolescence could make or break you

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2022-06-29 09:01

International

Your mother was right: Your peers can either lead you astray or help you thrive, especially in your early teens, according to international researchers. In a series of decision-making experiments with 146 10- to 20-year-olds, the team showed that disobedient peers provoked rule-breaking, while compliant peers increased rule compliance. Early adolescents were found to be particularly influenced by their peers, with this period suggested by the authors to be a key window to harness social influence and ‘peer pressure’ to reduce anti-social behaviour and false beliefs.

Media release

From: The Royal Society

Social influence in adolescence as a double-edged sword

As adolescents prepare for adult roles in society, they are heavily influenced by their peers. Although peer influence among adolescents is often associated with risky and unruly conduct, with long-term negative effects on educational, economic and health outcomes. We conducted decision-making experiments with 146 adolescents showing that in rule compliance, belief formation and prosociality, good and bad examples can change behavior, for the better or worse. Social influence is very strong in early adolescence, but steadily decreases as people approach adulthood. Our results highlight early adolescence as a key window for peer-based interventions to improve developmental trajectories.

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Journal/
conference: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: University of Amsterdam, Netherlands

Funder: L.M. and W.v.d.B. are supported by an Open Research Area grant no. (ID 176). L.M. is further supported by an Amsterdam Brain and Cognition Project grant no. 2018. W.v.d.B. is further supported by the Jacobs Foundation European Research Council grant no. (ERC-2018-StG-803338) and the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research grant no. (NWO-VIDI 016.Vidi.185.068). S.C. is supported by the International Max Planck Research School on Computational Methods in Psychiatry and Ageing Research (IMPRS COMP2PSYCH).

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