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First published online May 31, 2016

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The Power of the Like in Adolescence: Effects of Peer Influence on Neural and Behavioral Responses to Social Media

Lauren E. Sherman [email protected], Ashley A. Payton, […], Leanna M. Hernandez, Patricia M. Greenfield, and Mirella Dapretto+2View all authors and affiliations

Volume 27, Issue 7

https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797616645673

Abstract
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References
Supplementary Material

Abstract

We investigated a unique way in which adolescent peer influence occurs on social media. We developed a novel functional MRI (fMRI) paradigm to simulate Instagram, a popular social photo-sharing tool, and measured adolescents’ behavioral and neural responses to likes, a quantifiable form of social endorsement and potential source of peer influence. Adolescents underwent fMRI while viewing photos ostensibly submitted to Instagram. They were more likely to like photos depicted with many likes than photos with few likes; this finding showed the influence of virtual peer endorsement and held for both neutral photos and photos of risky behaviors (e.g., drinking, smoking). Viewing photos with many (compared with few) likes was associated with greater activity in neural regions implicated in reward processing, social cognition, imitation, and attention. Furthermore, when adolescents viewed risky photos (as opposed to neutral photos), activation in the cognitive-control network decreased. These findings highlight possible mechanisms underlying peer influence during adolescence.

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All materials have been made publicly available via Open Science Framework and can be accessed at https://osf.io/atj4d. The complete Open Practices Disclosure for this article can be found at http://pss.sagepub.com/content/by/supplemental-data. This article has received the badge for Open Materials. More information about the Open Practices badges can be found at https://osf.io/tvyxz/wiki/1.%20View%20the%20Badges/ and http://pss.sagepub.com/content/25/1/3.full.

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Supplementary Material

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