Giving to Others and Neural Development During Adolescence

青少年的危险决策和反社会行为受到了公众和科学的极大关注。关于青少年中的亲社会行为，如分享和支持，人们知之甚少。青春期大脑的变化如何与这些更积极的行为的发展有关？青少年积极行为的倾向如何根据社会环境的不同而不同？这个项目汇集了一组发展和社会心理学家和神经科学家，以研究亲社会行为的一个特定方面，即给予他人，在青春期是如何变化的，以及大脑的变化如何与亲社会行为的年龄相关变化有关。一个具体的目标是探索捐赠行为是否会对整个发展过程中的情况(如接受者和捐赠的成本)变得更加敏感。另一个目标是了解不同大脑系统(如负责处理奖励和抑制冲动行为的系统)在给予行为中的参与。最后一个目标是了解其他社交技能，如换位思考和同理心与给予和大脑发育的关系。共有120名9岁、14岁和19岁的参与者参加了一项实验性的捐赠任务，同时在核磁共振机器中对他们的大脑进行扫描。他们还将完成调查问卷和日常清单，评估社会经验、视角、同理心和价值观。给朋友和陌生人的礼物预计会分别增加和减少，而给家人的礼物在青春期将保持稳定。与家人和陌生人相比，当给予朋友时，与陌生人相比，当给予家人时，给予家人时，与陌生人相比，给予朋友时，这种差异应该与神经网络之间更大的激活和连接相关，这些神经网络与奖励、精神化和认知控制有关。根据接受者的不同给予和神经激活预计与对同龄人和家庭的更大价值和取向有关，参与者在总体给予和激活方面的个体差异将与社会经验、视角采取和同理心相关。这些发现将通过强调神经发育在积极的亲社会行为中的作用以及社会经验在这些动态中的潜在影响，来丰富该领域对青少年大脑发育中行为的理解。

Adolescents' risky decision making and antisocial behaviors have received a great deal of public and scientific attention. Less is known about prosocial behaviors among adolescents, such as sharing and supportiveness. How do changes in the adolescent brain relate to the development of these more positive behaviors? And how does adolescents' tendency to engage in positive behaviors vary depending upon the social context? This project brings together a team of developmental and social psychologists and neuroscientists to study how one particular aspect of prosocial behavior, giving to others, changes across adolescence, and how brain changes relate to the age-related changes in prosocial behavior. One specific goal is to explore whether giving behaviors become more sensitive to the situation (such as the recipient and the cost of giving) across development. Another goal is to understand the involvement of different brain systems (such as those responsible for processing rewards and inhibiting impulsive behaviors) in giving behaviors. A final goal is to understand how other social skills such as perspective-taking and empathy relate to giving and brain developments.A total of 120 participants at 9, 14, and 19 years of age will participate in an experimental giving task while having their brains scanned in an MRI machine. They also will complete questionnaires and daily checklists that assess social experience, perspective-taking, empathy, and values. Giving to friends and strangers is expected to increase and decrease, respectively, and giving to family will remain stable across the years of adolescence. This differential giving should correlate with greater activation and connectivity among neural networks associated with reward, mentalizing, and cognitive control when giving to friends as compared to family and strangers, and when giving to family as compared to strangers. Differential giving and neural activation according to recipient is expected to be linked with greater valuing and orientation toward peers and family, and individual differences among participants in overall giving and activation will be correlated with social experience, perspective-taking, and empathy. Findings will enrich the field's understanding of the developing adolescent brain for behavior by highlighting the role of neural development in positive, prosocial behavior and the potential impact of social experience in these dynamics.