問題詳情
Peer pressure is often used as the reason or excuse for why ‘good’ kids do stupid things. As with many recent advances in understanding adolescent development, it appears to be related to teenage brain development.Psychologists at Temple University conducted an experiment on teenagers, college students, and adults using functional MRI technology (studying peoples brains while they are actually doing stuff). Researchers got participants to play a six-minute video driving game while inside a brain scanner. Participants were given prizes for completing the game in a certain time, but players had to make decisions about stopping at yellow lights, and being delayed, or racing through yellow lights, which could result in a faster time and a bigger prize, but also meant a higher risk for crashing and an even longer delay. Each participant played four rounds of the game. Half the time they played alone, and half the time they were told that two same-sex friends who had accompanied them to the study were watching the play in the next room.Among adults and college students, there were no meaningful differences in risk taking, regardless of whether their friends were watching. However, teenagers ran about 40% more yellow lights and had 60% more crashes when they knew their friends were watching. It was observed that the regions of the brain associated with reward showed greater activity when teenagers were playing in view of their friends.“The presence of peers activated the reward circuitry in the brain of adolescents that it didn’t do in the case of adults,” Dr Steinberger said. This is because the part of the brain involved in reward processing is also involved in the processing of social information. What is particularly worth noting about this research is that the peer group had no direct contact with the teenager while they were driving. The brain was responding just to the knowledge that peers were watching not to any direct suggestions or encouragement. Traditionally peer pressure has been associated with young people being coerced by verbal or physical influence from their friends. However this research suggests teenagers are susceptible to peer pressure just knowing that their friends are observing them.The desire for young people to fit in and impress their peers is very powerful. Teenagers are also very conscious of others watching them and evaluating them all the time. It is the combination of these two things that influence teenage behavior when they are in the public space.
【題組】36.() What is the article mainly about?
(A) To show the seriousness of peer pressure.
(B) To illustrate the phenomenon of peer pressure.
(C) To prove that peer pressure may influence negatively on teens.
(D) To explain peer pressure through biological perspective.
參考答案
答案：[無官方正解]
難度：適中0.5
統計：A(0),B(0),C(0),D(0),E(0)