Trust and social reciprocity in adolescence--a matter of perspective-taking.
Changes in social behaviour from childhood to adulthood have been suggested to be driven by an increased sensitivity to others' perspectives. Yet, the link between perspective-taking and social processes, such as trust and reciprocity, has rarely been investigated during adolescence. Using two trust games with a cooperative and an unfair counterpart and an online perspective-taking task with 50 adolescents, we show that those with a higher perspective-taking tendency demonstrate greater trust towards others and higher levels of trust during cooperative interactions. Both low and high perspective-takers adapted their levels of trust in response to unfair behaviour. However, high perspective-takers reduced their trust more drastically and showed more malevolent and less benevolent tit-for-tat when they were treated unfairly by their counterpart. The findings suggest that a higher perspective-taking tendency in adolescence is associated with specific mechanisms of trust and reciprocity, as opposed to undifferentiated increases in positive social behaviour towards others.
Department of Educational Neuroscience and LEARN! Research Institute for Learning and Education, Faculty of Psychology and Education, VU University Amsterdam, Van der Boechorststraat 1, 1081 BT Amsterdam, The Netherlands; King's College London, Institute of Psychiatry, Department of Psychosis Studies, De Crespigny Park, London SE5 8AF, United Kingdom. Electronic address: A.J.Fett@vu.nl.
Anne-Kathrin J
AK
Fett
King's College London, Institute of Psychiatry, Department of Psychosis Studies, De Crespigny Park, London SE5 8AF, United Kingdom.
Sukhi S
SS
Shergill
Department of Educational Neuroscience and LEARN! Research Institute for Learning and Education, Faculty of Psychology and Education, VU University Amsterdam, Van der Boechorststraat 1, 1081 BT Amsterdam, The Netherlands; King's College London, Institute of Psychiatry, Department of Psychosis Studies, De Crespigny Park, London SE5 8AF, United Kingdom.
Paula M
PM
Gromann
Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London WC1N 3AR, United Kingdom; Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London, London WC1E 7HX, United Kingdom.
Iroise
I
Dumontheil
Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London WC1N 3AR, United Kingdom.
Sarah-Jayne
SJ
Blakemore
Department of Educational Neuroscience and LEARN! Research Institute for Learning and Education, Faculty of Psychology and Education, VU University Amsterdam, Van der Boechorststraat 1, 1081 BT Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Farah
F
Yakub
Department of Educational Neuroscience and LEARN! Research Institute for Learning and Education, Faculty of Psychology and Education, VU University Amsterdam, Van der Boechorststraat 1, 1081 BT Amsterdam, The Netherlands; King's College London, Institute of Psychiatry, Department of Psychosis Studies, De Crespigny Park, London SE5 8AF, United Kingdom.
Lydia
L
Krabbendam
D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D003657:Decision Making; D005260:Female; D005716:Game Theory; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D012919:Social Behavior; D012938:Social Perception; D056345:Theory of Mind; D035502:Trust
Decision making; Perspective-taking; Social cognition; Theory of mind; Trust