title: But do you think I'm cool? Developmental differences in striatal recruitment during direct and reflected social self-evaluations.
abstract: The current fMRI study investigates the neural foundations of evaluating oneself and others during early adolescence and young adulthood. Eighteen early adolescents (ages 11-14, M=12.6) and 19 young adults (ages 22-31, M=25.6) evaluated whether academic, physical, and social traits described themselves directly (direct self-evaluations), described their best friend directly (direct other-evaluations), described themselves from their best friend's perspective (reflected self-evaluations), or in general could change over time (control malleability-evaluations). Compared to control evaluations, both adolescents and adults recruited cortical midline structures during direct and reflected self-evaluations, as well as during direct other-evaluations, converging with previous research. However, unique to this study was a significant three-way interaction between age group, evaluative perspective, and domain within bilateral ventral striatum. Region of interest analyses demonstrated a significant evaluative perspective by domain interaction within the adolescent sample only. Adolescents recruited greatest bilateral ventral striatum during reflected social self-evaluations, which was positively correlated with age and pubertal development. These findings suggest that reflected social self-evaluations, made from the inferred perspective of a close peer, may be especially self-relevant, salient, or rewarding to adolescent self-processing--particularly during the progression through adolescence - and this feature persists into adulthood.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Oregon, 97403-1227, United States.
authors.forename: Kathryn F
authors.initials: KF
authors.lastname: Jankowski
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Oregon, 97403-1227, United States.
authors.forename: William E
authors.initials: WE
authors.lastname: Moore
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Oregon, 97403-1227, United States.
authors.forename: Junaid S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Merchant
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Oregon, 97403-1227, United States.
authors.forename: Lauren E
authors.initials: LE
authors.lastname: Kahn
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Oregon, 97403-1227, United States. Electronic address: jpfeifer@uoregon.edu.
authors.forename: Jennifer H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Pfeifer
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology / Q000523:psychology; D002648:Child; D003342:Corpus Striatum / Q000254:growth & development* / Q000502:physiology*; D059026:Diagnostic Self Evaluation; D005260:Female; D033062:Friends / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D010379:Peer Group; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D011627:Puberty / Q000502:physiology / Q000523:psychology; D012201:Reward; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Adolescence; Medial prefrontal cortex; Puberty; Self; Social cognition; Ventral striatum