The Cognitive Mechanisms That Drive Social Belief Updates During Adolescence

Abstract

Adolescence is a key life phase for developing well-adjusted social behaviour. Belief updates about the trustworthiness of peers are essential during adolescence as social reorientation emerges and peer relationships intensify. This study maps the age-related changes of those belief updates during adolescence (n = 157, 10-24 years). We used computational modelling and an information sampling paradigm to reveal that three cognitive mechanisms contribute to age-related changes in those belief updates: prior beliefs, prior uncertainty, and uncertainty tolerance. The age-related changes in these three cognitive mechanisms result in increasingly adaptive belief updates from early to mid-adolescence when it comes to beliefs about trustworthiness. Our findings shed light on age-related changes in adaptive learning about others during adolescence.