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“Better the devil you know”: a preliminary study of the differential modulating effects of reputation on reward processing for boys with and without externalizing behavior problems

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Abstract

Very little is known about the neurobiological correlates of reward processing during social decision-making in the developing brain and whether prior social and moral information (reputations) modulates reward responses in youth as has been demonstrated in adults. Moreover, although externalizing behavior problems in youth are associated with deficits in reward processing and social cognition, a real-life social interaction paradigm using functional neuroimaging (fMRI) has not yet been applied to probe reward processing in such youth. Functional neuroimaging was used to examine the neural correlates of reward-related decision-making during a trust task in two samples of age-matched 11 to 16-year-old boys: with (n = 10) and without (n = 10) externalizing behavior problems. The task required subjects to decide whether to share or keep monetary rewards from partners they themselves identified during a real-life peer sociometric procedure as interpersonally aggressive or kind (vs. neutral). Results supported the notion that prior social and moral information (reputations) modulated reward responses in the adolescent brain. Moreover, boys with externalizing problems showed differential activation in the bilateral insula during the decision phase of the game as well as the caudate and anterior insula during the outcome phase of the game. Similar activation in adolescents in response to reward related stimuli as found in adults suggests some developmental continuity in corticostriatal circuits. Group differences are interpreted with caution given the small group sizes in the current study. Notwithstanding this limitation, the study provides preliminary evidence for anomalous reward responses in boys with externalizing behavior problems, thereby providing a possible biological correlate of well-established social-cognitive and reward-related theories of externalizing behavior disorders.

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Acknowledgments

The study was funded by Departmental Seed Funding to Dr. Carla Sharp while she was faculty at Baylor College of Medicine. We wish to thank the youth and their families who participated in this study. We also wish to thank Dr. Michael Beauchamp for useful comments on the task design, and Dr. Manuel de la Cruz Gutierrez for comments on an earlier version of the paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Houston, 126 Heyne Building, Houston, TX, 77204, USA

    Carla Sharp & Carolyn Ha

  2. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA

    Philip C. Burton

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  1. Carla Sharp
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  2. Philip C. Burton
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  3. Carolyn Ha
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Correspondence to Carla Sharp.

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Sharp, C., Burton, P.C. & Ha, C. “Better the devil you know”: a preliminary study of the differential modulating effects of reputation on reward processing for boys with and without externalizing behavior problems. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry 20, 581–592 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-011-0225-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-011-0225-x

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