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Processing of reward is the basis of adaptive behavior of the human being. Neural correlates of reward processing seem to be influenced by developmental changes from adolescence to late adulthood. The aim of this study is to uncover these neural correlates during a slot machine gambling task across the lifespan. Therefore, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate 102 volunteers in three different age groups: 34 adolescents, 34 younger adults, and 34 older adults. We focused on the core reward areas ventral striatum (VS) and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC), the valence processing associated areas, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and insula, as well as information integration associated areas, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), and inferior parietal lobule (IPL). Results showed that VS and VMPFC were characterized by a hyperactivation in adolescents compared with younger adults. Furthermore, the ACC and insula were characterized by a U-shape pattern (hypoactivation in younger adults compared with adolescents and older adults), whereas the DLPFC and IPL were characterized by a J-shaped form (hyperactivation in older adults compared with younger groups). Furthermore, a functional connectivity analysis revealed an elevated negative functional coupling between the inhibition-related area rIFG and VS in younger adults compared with adolescents. Results indicate that lifespan-related changes during reward anticipation are characterized by different trajectories in different reward network modules and support the hypothesis of an imbalance in maturation of striatal and prefrontal cortex in adolescents. Furthermore, these results suggest compensatory age-specific effects in fronto-parietal regions. Hum Brain Mapp 35:5153-5165, 2014. (c) 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
In a longitudinal study with N = 1,854 adolescents from Germany, we investigated patterns of change and gender differences in physical and relational aggression in relation to normative beliefs about these two forms of aggression. Participants, whose mean age was 13 years at T1, completed self-report measures of physically and relationally aggressive behavior and indicated their normative approval of both forms of aggression at four data waves separated by 12-month intervals. Boys scored higher than did girls on both forms of aggression, but the gender difference was more pronounced for physical aggression. Physical aggression decreased and relational aggression increased over the four data waves in both gender groups. The normative acceptance of both forms of aggression decreased over time, with a greater decrease for the approval of physical aggression. In both gender groups, normative approval of relational aggression prospectively predicted relational aggression across all data waves, and the normative approval of physical aggression predicted physically aggressive behavior at the second and third data waves. A reciprocal reinforcement of aggressive norms and behavior was found for both forms of aggression. The findings are discussed as supporting a social information processing perspective on developmental patterns of change in physical and relational aggression in adolescence.
Research has shown that learning disabilities are associated with internalizing problems in (pre) adolescents. In order to examine this relationship for math disability (MD), math achievement and internalizing problem scores were measured in a representative group of 1,436 (pre) adolescents. MD was defined by a discrepancy between math achievement and IQ. Internalizing problems were measured through a multi-informant (parents, teachers, self-report) approach. The results revealed that MD puts (pre) adolescents at a higher risk for internalizing problems. External and self-ratings differed between boys and girls, indicating that either they show distinct internalizing symptoms or they are being perceived differently by parents and teachers. Results emphasize the importance of both a multi-informant approach and the consideration of gender differences when measuring internalizing symptomatology of children with MD. For an optimal treatment of MD, depressive and anxious symptoms need to be considered.
The Girls Set the Tone: Gendered Classroom Norms and the Development of Aggression in Adolescence
(2015)
In a four-wave longitudinal study with N = 1,321 adolescents in Germany, we examined the impact of class-level normative beliefs about aggression on aggressive norms and behavior at the individual level over the course of 3 years. At each data wave, participants indicated their normative acceptance of aggressive behavior and provided self-reports of physical and relational aggression. Multilevel analyses revealed significant cross-level interactions between class-level and individual-level normative beliefs at T1 on individual differences in physical aggression at T2, and the indirect interactive effects were significant up to T4. Normative approval of aggression at the class level, especially girls' normative beliefs, defined the boundary conditions for the expression of individual differences in aggressive norms and their impact on physically and relationally aggressive behavior for both girls and boys. The findings demonstrate the moderating effect of social norms on the pathways from individual normative beliefs to aggressive behavior in adolescence.
Being surrounded by peers who are accepting of aggression is a significant predictor of the development and persistence of aggression in childhood and adolescence. Whereas past research has focused on social reinforcement mechanisms as the underlying processes, the present longitudinal study analysed the role of external control beliefs as an additional mediator explaining the link between peers’ acceptance of aggression and the development of aggressive behaviour. Drawing on a large community sample of N = 1,466 male and female children and adolescents from Germany aged between 10 and 18 years, results of latent structural equation modeling were consistent with the hypotheses that peer acceptance of aggression would predict external control beliefs in the social domain, which in turn, should predict aggressive behaviour over time. Additional multigroup analyses showed that the predicted pathways were consistent across gender and age groups.
Depressive symptoms have been related to anxious rejection sensitivity, but little is known about relations with angry rejection sensitivity and justice sensitivity. We measured rejection sensitivity, justice sensitivity, and depressive symptoms in 1,665 9-to-21-year olds at two points of measurement. Participants with high T1 levels of depressive symptoms reported higher anxious and angry rejection sensitivity and higher justice sensitivity than controls at T1 and T2. T1 rejection, but not justice sensitivity predicted T2 depressive symptoms; high victim justice sensitivity, however, added to the stabilization of depressive symptoms. T1 depressive symptoms positively predicted T2 anxious and angry rejection and victim justice sensitivity. Hence, sensitivity toward negative social cues may be cause and consequence of depressive symptoms and requires consideration in cognitive-behavioral treatment of depression.
Objective:
The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of age and weight status on adolescents' body dissatisfaction and its change over 20 months in a gender-comparing design. The influence of body image concern on eating concern was also investigated.
Method:
In a prospective study, 675 male and female adolescents aged 12–16 were assessed using self-report questionnaires on weight, shape, muscularity, and eating concerns. Height and weight measurements were taken by trained personnel. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.
Results:
Analyses of latent means revealed more pronounced weight/shape concern in females than males and more pronounced muscularity concern in males than females. Weight/shape concern increased in females over time, whereas muscularity concern remained stable in both genders. Baseline levels of weight/shape concern could be predicted by age and weight status in females and by weight status in males. The only predictor of change in weight/shape concern was weight status in males. Baseline levels of muscularity concern could be predicted by age in females and by weight status in males. Similar effects were found for changes in muscularity concern in both genders. Increases in weight/shape and muscularity concern were associated with more pronounced eating concern.
Discussion:
The results confirm gender differences in distinctive facets of body image concern and its prediction. The relevance of increase in body image concern in adolescents is underlined by its association with eating concern in both genders. Further explanatory variables for change in body dissatisfaction should be examined in future studies.
Schools are a major context for academic and socio-emotional development, but also an important acculturative context. This is notably the case in adolescence, which is a critical period for the development of a social and ethnic identity, as well as moral reasoning and intergroup attitudes. How schools approach cultural diversity issues is therefore likely to affect these developmental and acculturative processes and adaptation outcomes. In the present article, the manifestation and effects of the most prominent approaches to cultural diversity, namely those guided by a perspective of equality and inclusion, and those guided by a perspective of cultural pluralism, are reviewed and compared in the context of multi-ethnic schools. The aim is to explore when and how the potential of cultural diversity can best flourish, enhancing the academic and socio-emotional development of culturally diverse students.
This article investigated how the development of deviant behavior in adolescence is influenced by the variability of deviant behavior in the peer group. Based on the social information-processing (SIP) model, we predicted that peer groups with a low variability of deviant behavior (providing normative information that is easy to process) should have a main effect on the development of adolescents’ deviant behavior over time, whereas peer groups in which deviant behavior is more variable (i.e., more difficult to process) should primarily impact the deviant behavior of initially nondeviant classroom members. These hypotheses were largely supported in a multilevel analysis using self-reports of deviant behavior in a sample of 16,891 adolescents in 1,308 classes assessed at two data waves about 1-year apart. The results demonstrate the advantages of studying cross-level interactions to clarify the impact of the peer environment on the development of deviant behavior in adolescence.
This two-wave longitudinal study identified configurations of social rejection, affiliation with aggressive peers, and academic failure and examined their predictivity for reactive and proactive aggression in a sample of 1,479 children and adolescents aged between 9 and 19 years. Latent profile analysis yielded three configurations of risk factors, made up of a non-risk group, a risk group scoring high on measures of social rejection (SR), and a risk group scoring high on measures of affiliation with aggressive peers and academic failure (APAF). Latent path analysis revealed that, as predicted, only membership in the SR group at T1 predicted reactive aggression at T2 17 months later. By contrast, only membership in the APAF group at T1 predicted proactive aggression at T2.