For those of us who would prefer that our children not experiment with drugs, drink themselves into oblivion every weekend, and engage in casual sex, the peer group often appears to be a formidable adversary. After all, if you let most American villages raise your child, you typically end up with the village idiot. We consider ourselves quite fortunate to have children (now young adults) who were not pushed around by peer pressure. Other parents are not so lucky, and their teens would probably jump off a cliff if the peers told them this was the right thing to do.
Tomas Paus and his colleagues at the University of Nottingham’s Brain and Body Center think they may have found some neural correlates of the ability to withstand peer pressure [1]. Ten-year-olds whose answers to a questionnaire indicated that they were highly resistant to peer pressure showed greater activity in the prefrontal cortex, which of course is important in decision-making and the inhibition of unwanted behavior. In addition, Paus et al. noted that connections between areas of the brain involved with perceiving social cues and planning behavior seemed stronger in the peer-resistant youth.
The group plans to follow the same children into adolescence to see if their resistance to peer pressure and brain activity differences are stable or not.
I would love to see further work exploring the origin of these differences. Are we socially independent because of the way our brains are wired? Or does behaving in an independent way, or being reinforced by parents and others for behaving independently change the way our brains process social cues? I doubt it’s either–or. Within a single family, it’s easy to see that some children are more influenced by peers than others, suggesting some systemic temperamental or personality differences. On the other hand, adolescents who are most susceptible to peer pressure to engage in antisocial behaviors are those who did not receive or expect much supervision from a father or father-figure, suggesting strong environmental influences as well [2].
1. Grosbras, M.H., Jansen, M., Leonard, G., McIntosh, A., Osswald, K., Poulsen, C., Steinberg, L., Toro, R., & Paus, T. (2007). Neural mechanisms of resistance to peer influence in early adolescence. Journal of Neuroscience, 27(30), 8040-8045.
2. Curtner-Smith, M. E., & MacKinnon-Lewis, C.E. (1994). Family process effects on adolescent males’ susceptibility to antisocial peer pressure. Family Relations, 43(4), 462-468.
2 Comments
fayzi · August 13, 2007 at 2:35 am
After reading “Reviving Ophelia” by Mary Pipher and “Nurture Assumption” by Judith Harris it’s a scary thought how environment, external factor play major role in children upbringing.
At least if this finding is validated, knowing the brain state of the children can be huge assistant for parents to formulate how their kids should be brought up.
Dianawagen · October 2, 2007 at 10:49 am
We learned in class that being left out socially actualy causes physical pain!
I think this is why peer pressure is so effective, I was a montessori teacher and we used peer pressure to elliminate the teacher as a disiplinary figure so that she could focus on giving lessons and teaching. The older children were models of good behavior and took great pride in showing the little ones the ropes. I worked with the little ones, but I have seen montessori high schools that still used the same principal and the older students set the positive example for the classroom envirement atleast, I dont know about trusting the village It is up to the parents to know who thier kids friends are.
Odd girl out was a great book that helped me understand some of the teen issues girs have to deal with.
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