Resisting peer pressure: new findings shed light on adolescent decision-making

The capacity to resist peer pressure in early adolescence may depend on the strength of connections between certain areas of the brain, according to a study carried out by University of Nottingham researchers.

New findings suggest that enhanced connections across brain regions involved in decision-making may underlie an individual's ability to resist the influence of peers.

The study, published in the July 25 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience, suggests that brain regions which regulate different aspects of behaviour are more interconnected in children with high resistance to peer influence.

Professor Tomas Paus and colleagues at The University of Nottingham used functional neuroimaging to scan adolescents while they watched video clips of neutral or angry hand and face movements. Previous research has shown that anger is the most easily recognised emotion.

Professor Paus and his team observed 35 ten-year-olds with high and low resistance to peer influence, measured by a questionnaire. The researchers then showed the children video clips of angry hand movements and angry faces and measured their brain activity.

They found that the brains of all children showed activity in regions important for planning and extracting information about social cues from movement, but the connectivity within these regions was stronger in children who were marked as less vulnerable to peer influence.

Those children were also found to have more activity in the prefrontal cortex, an area important for decision-making and inhibition of unwanted behaviour.

Professor Paus said: “This is important if we are to understand how the adolescent brain attains the right balance between acknowledging the influences of others and maintaining one's independence.”

Future research will involve follow-ups with the same children to determine whether their resistance to peer influence is related to the brain changes observed in this study.

The work was a supported by grants from the Santa Fe Institute Consortium and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

The Journal of Neuroscience is published by the Society for Neuroscience, an organisation of more than 36,500 basic scientists and clinicians who study the brain and nervous system.

— Ends —

Notes to editors: The University of Nottingham is Britain's University of the Year (The Times Higher Awards 2006). It undertakes world-changing research, provides innovative teaching and a student experience of the highest quality. Ranked by Newsweek in the world's Top 75 universities, its academics have won two Nobel Prizes since 2003. The University is an international institution with campuses in the United Kingdom, Malaysia and China.

More information is available from Professor Tomas Paus, Brain & Body Centre, University of Nottingham, on +44 (0)115 951 5362, tomas.paus@nottingham.ac.uk ; or Media Relations Manager Tim Utton in the University's Media and Public Relations Office on +44 (0)115 846 8092, tim.utton@nottingham.ac.uk .

Strength of connections between brain regions may affect an adolescent's response to peer influence

Brain regions that regulate different aspects of behavior are more interconnected in children with high resistance to peer influence than those with low resistance, according to a new study published in the July 25 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.

"These findings may help develop more effective strategies to prevent the development of lifestyles of violence and crime,” says John Sweeney, PhD, Director of the Center for Cognitive Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Sweeney was not involved in this study.

In the new study, Tomas Paus, MD, PhD, at the University of Nottingham, and his colleagues used functional neuroimaging to scan adolescents while they watched video clips of neutral or angry hand and face movements. Previous research has shown that anger is the most easily recognized emotion.

Paus and his team observed 35 10-year-olds with high and low resistance to peer influence, as determined by a questionnaire. The researchers then showed the children video clips of angry hand movements and angry faces and measured their brain activity. They found that the brains of all children showed activity in regions important for planning and extracting information about social cues from movement, but the connectivity between these regions was stronger in children who were marked as less vulnerable to peer influence. These children were also found to have more activity in the prefrontal cortex, an area important for decision making and inhibition of socially inappropriate behavior.

“This is important if we are to understand how the adolescent brain attains the right balance between acknowledging the influences of others and maintaining one’s independence,” says Paus.

Future research will involve follow-up studies with the same children to determine whether their resistance to real-life peer influence is related to the differences in brain wiring observed in this study.

The work was a supported by grants from the Santa Fe Institute Consortium and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

The Journal of Neuroscience is published by the Society for Neuroscience, an organization of more than 36,500 basic scientists and clinicians who study the brain and nervous system. Paus can be reached at tomas.paus@nottingham.ac.uk.

First Law of Branding ; Second Law of Branding ; Third Law of Branding ; Fourth Law of Branding ; Fifth Law of Branding ; Sixth Law of Branding ; Seventh Law of Branding ; Eighth Law of Branding ; Ninth Law of Branding ; Tenth Law of Branding ; Eleventh Law of Branding ; Twelfth Law of Branding