Child Psychology - Topic 2: Pre-adult brain

Question 1

Background Research - Chein

What is it?
Reliability?
Found 2 results

Answer 1

Did a Lab experiment testing the difference of risks taken, number of crashes and the fMRI of brain activity between adolescents, young adults and adults

Reliability - all participants were asked to bring two same-age same-sex, friends.

They found that:

• The presence of peers influences risky behaviours in adolescents
• The use of fMRI suggests that when peers are present there is greater activity in the Ventral Striatum in the adolescent sample and as the ventral striatum is part of the reward system – risky behaviours are seen as more rewarding to the adolescent brain.

Question 2

Key Research - Barkley Levenson (Aim, Method, Sample, Procedure, Results)

Answer 2

Aim:

• to research if adolescents value money or greater available rewards by examining subjective variance of objectively valued choices.

Method:

• They used a quasi-experiment with independent measures.
• IV was whether the participant was an adult or an adolescent
• DV was their performance on a gambling game during FMRI scanning which measures brain activity.

Sample:

• consisted of 19 right handed adults ages 25-30 and 22 right handed adolescents 13-17.

Procedure:

1. After attending an intake session the participants were given money which they could play with in a gambling game.
2. While in a fMRI scanner the participants completed a gambling tests where they could win or lose between $5 and $20

Results:

• found that adolescents were more likely to gamble if there was a higher expected value.
  The expected value is a predicted value of a variable, calculated as the sum of all possible values each multiplied by the probability of its occurrence.
• The adolescent had greater activation of the ventral striatum and medial prefrontal cortex but decreased activity in the amygdala.

Question 3

Application - GDL & OC

Answer 3

GDL - Adolescents are influenced by peers to take more risky behaviour when driving so there should be a probationary period with restrictions such as:

• The number and age of passengers
• Alcohol consumption
• Night-time driving

Operant Conditioning rewards safe behaviour and there should be punishments for risky behaviours