Social Search Strategies During Adolescence: Who do you Follow?

• In Event: Ownership and Economic Considerations in Childhood and Adolescence

Abstract

Adolescence is a period of emerging independence, in which adolescents face difficult decisions, including those that involve risk for health and well-being. Previous research has highlighted the impact of peers on adolescent decision-making, but mainly focused on the adolescent as passive receiver of social information, such as the choice, opinion or pressure of a peer (e.g. Dekkers et al., 2020; Cohen & Prinstein et al., 2006). However, adolescents also play an active role in gaining information about others’ behaviour (i.e. social information seeking behaviour) to inform their decisions. To date little is known about the type of peer adolescents prefer to consult. Our current study investigated this information seeking behaviour in the context of adolescents’ social network at school. We combined social relationship assessment with a novel social search paradigm, to address which peers were selected to inform decisions under uncertainty. Here, participants were able to collect the real choices of their own classmates in a gambling task, before they decided to gamble or play safe. We show in two independent samples (N=175 and N=278) that adolescents consulted their close friends, peers who were highly trusted and/or those who were considered smart. Contrary to our expectations, popularity was not an important feature of consulted peers. To examine the domain specificity of these results a follow-up study (N= 400) was conducted, with hypothetical scenario’s representing different decision domains (e.g. education-related choices, prosocial choices). Participants indicated for each scenario whether, and by whom they wanted to be informed. The results show age differences in social information-seeking behaviour per decision domain. However, selecting friends for guidance showed to be consistent over all domains. This work will demonstrate the importance of viewing the adolescent as an active agent and sheds light on the characteristics of powerful peers, which will help understand, and foster the adaptive nature of social influence across adolescence.

Authors

• Scarlett Slagter, University of Amsterdam
  Presenting Author

• Anna Van Duijvenvoorde, Leiden University

• Wouter Van den Bos, University of Amsterdam