The social reward: indispensable for teenagers

Neuroimaging studies show how in adolescents social rejection is experienced as a threat to physical health. That explains why friendships and their breakup feel as if their lives depended on it, because, in a way, they live it that way.

The adolescent brain is unique and is characterized by its constant mutability and its multiple interregional connections. The limbic system, the one in charge of emotions, intensifies during puberty. On the contrary, the prefrontal cortex, in charge of impulse control, does not mature until the age of 25.

A study that analyzed the inhibition of response in adolescents and adults found that adults used the prefrontal cortex automatically while adolescents used this area less. Adults were able to inhibit responses much more successfully than adolescents, except when promising to reward adolescents.

With an incentive they were not only able to perform the inhibition of responses as well as an adult but they also made greater use of their prefrontal centers. This explains why teens can be a charm during breakfast, a nest of displeasure at dinner, witty on Monday, athletes on Wednesday and zombies on Thursday.

The social reward is highly valued in adolescence

Teenagers are still learning to use their new connections, they have grown and are changing but still do not know what motivates them, what stresses them, what tires them and what bothers them. Adolescents also have a different approach to adults in terms of taking risks. They recognize risks just as well as adults, but they assume more risks because they value rewards more than adults.

In fact, one of the most valued rewards in adolescence is the social reward. During adolescence there is also an increase in sensitivity to dopamine, the neurotransmitter responsible for the rewards and which helps the learning of patterns and decision making. Hence his speed of learning and his great receptivity to rewards. This same sensitivity also explains melodramatic reactions to success or failure in adolescents.

Social rejection is experienced as a threat

The adolescent brain aims to prepare a person to be independent and be able to survive outside the safe environment of their home. Therefore, adolescents tend to gravitate toward people their age away little by little from the world created by their parents for them. Friendships take on new meaning and social life gains a new and high value. Neuroimaging studies show how in the adolescents social rejection is experienced as a threat to physical health. That explains why friendships and their breakup feel as if their lives depended on it, because, in a way, they live it that way.

All human functioning has its origin in natural selection that seeks to save energy and optimize performance. But, if this is the case, why are our centers of logic, planning, decision making and impulse control the last to mature? Especially at an age when we are most needed, when it comes to choosing an academic career, when there is an increase in liberties and independence for the first time, there are so many new opportunities that cross our path, etc. It is clear that adolescence can be seen as a period in which the brain promotes behaviors and thoughts practically dysfunctional, however they have their reason for being.

This is because once the process of myelination is over, it is very difficult for the brain to change. Thus, the window in which experiences can guide connections is very specific in each brain area. For example, the areas in charge of language end their myelination when the human turns 13 and makes it more difficult to acquire other languages after this age. Likewise, the myelination of the prefrontal cortex is expected to consolidate approximately around the age of 25, which is when we have to face the world as independent adults. The human being is the only animal whose neuronal development begins in the sensory and ends in the rational, but thanks to this also the rational centers are the last to be depleted.

Adolescence: an age of great transformations

The adolescence is a difficult stage not only for all the physically visible changes that are experienced but also for a series of brain transformations. Thanks to this neuronal development we become responsible adults, and although it is a period of confusion and difficulty, It is a period where we define who we are going to be.

It can be seen throughout all the cultures that adolescents are the most vulnerable group to be recruited as soldiers or terrorists, just as they are the easiest group to influence to be engineers, altruists, entrepreneurs, writers, professors, etc.

As parents it is important that we have known instill values in our children before this stage, ensuring that they have the necessary tools to counteract these years of overwhelming emotions and impulses. We must also understand that perhaps our son is not lazy, but has not found the necessary motivation; our son did not crash the car, he was blinded by his emotions and did not rationally compare the benefits and costs; or consider that if our son seems to have lost his world by feeling left out, to understand that it literally hurts him.

Maite J. Balda. Psychologist and Master in Cognitive Neurosciences

It may interest you:

- The danger of risk in adolescents

- Fear of social rejection, how to be accepted in the group

- Learning to make decisions in adolescence: from the impulsive to the prudent

- Friendships in adolescents: how do they influence their development?