Adaptive Social learning in Typical and atypical developing Adolescents

• Applicant: Wouter van den Bos, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology ; Developmental and Educational Psychology ; Personality Psychology, Clinical and Medical Psychology, Methodology ; Social Psychology, Industrial and Organisational Psychology
• Term: from 2016 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 278545514

Learning to successfully navigate a social environment is a critical skill, predictive of long-term wellbeing. Our understanding of social learning is still sparse and the this collaborative project aims to extend the current knowledge base via three projects that are individually strong, but also complement each other. The first project focuses on building computational models inherent to social situations. By combining parameters of learning with neural measures we will contribute to our understanding of adaptive social learning. The second project studies adolescents social learning, a life-period in which social learning is of importance for healthy peer networks and long-term positive development. Here, we will study the specific neurobiological changes that occur during puberty and how these contribute to changes in social learning patterns. The third project focuses on adolescents with specific social and behavioural difficulties, i.e., adolescents with conduct problems. We will investigate whether these youth are characterized by social learning patterns that differ from their typically developing peers and will assess whether this is attributable to their social learning histories or callous-unemotional traits. Understanding social learning in context of normal and deviant development is of basic scientific interest and will also provide building blocks for guiding future educational and clinical interventions.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Netherlands, United Kingdom
• Cooperation Partners: Anna van Duijvenvoorde, Ph.D.; Professorin Essi Viding, Ph.D.