Department of Psychology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA.
Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA.
J Exp Child Psychol. 2021 Apr;204:105057. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2020.105057. Epub 2020 Dec 23.
Peer feedback becomes highly salient during adolescence, especially for girls. The way in which adolescents react to social feedback is associated with psychosocial adjustment and mental health. Consequently, researchers are increasingly interested in understanding the physiological and neural underpinnings of adolescent response to feedback by simulating the experience of rejection and acceptance using computer-based paradigms. However, these paradigms typically use nonfamiliar peers and the facade of internet chatrooms or games to present artificial peer feedback. The current study piloted the use of a novel and potentially more ecologically valid peer expressed emotion paradigm in which participants listen to prerecorded clips of ostensible personalized feedback made by their close friend. Physiological data measuring autonomic nervous system response were collected as an index of emotional reactivity/arousal and cognitive-affective processing. Results show promising preliminary evidence validating the task for future use. Participants (N = 18 girls, aged 11-17 years) reported feeling more positive following praise, relative to critical and neutral feedback, and reported feeling more upset following criticism, relative to praise and neutral feedback. Girls exhibited greater pupillary dilation, skin conductance levels (N = 17), and/or heart rate (N = 17) while listening to affectively charged, peer feedback compared with neutral yet personally relevant statements. Girls also exhibited variable physiological response when listening to praising versus critical feedback. Findings from this pilot study validate the use of this novel Peer Expressed Emotion task for the investigation of adolescents' emotional and physiological reactivity in response to real-world peer evaluation. However, it is important to recognize that this study provides only preliminary findings and that future research is needed to replicate the results in larger samples.
同伴反馈在青少年时期变得非常重要，尤其是对于女孩。青少年对社会反馈的反应方式与心理社会适应和心理健康有关。因此，研究人员越来越感兴趣的是理解青少年对反馈的生理和神经基础，通过使用基于计算机的范式模拟拒绝和接受的经验。然而，这些范式通常使用非熟悉的同伴和互联网聊天室或游戏的外观来呈现人工同伴反馈。目前的研究试点使用了一种新颖的、潜在更具生态有效性的同伴表达情绪范式，参与者听取他们亲密朋友录制的假定个性化反馈的片段。收集生理数据来测量自主神经系统反应，作为情绪反应/唤醒和认知情感处理的指标。结果显示了有希望的初步证据，证明该任务未来可以使用。参与者（N=18 名女孩，年龄 11-17 岁）报告说，与批评和中性反馈相比，表扬会让他们感觉更积极，与表扬和中性反馈相比，批评会让他们感觉更沮丧。与中性但与个人相关的陈述相比，女孩在听情感强烈的同伴反馈时瞳孔扩张更大，皮肤电导水平（N=17）和/或心率（N=17）更高。当听赞美与批评反馈时，女孩的生理反应也有所不同。这项初步研究的结果验证了这种新的同伴表达情绪任务用于研究青少年对现实世界同伴评价的情绪和生理反应的有效性。然而，重要的是要认识到，这项研究仅提供了初步的结果，需要进一步的研究来在更大的样本中复制这些结果。
