Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Burgemeester Oudlaan 50, Rotterdam 3062 PA, The Netherlands.
Department of Developmental Psychology, Leiden University, Wassenaarseweg 52, Leiden 2333 AK, The Netherlands.
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2023 Feb 8;18(1). doi: 10.1093/scan/nsac062.
This longitudinal behavioral neuroimaging study tested two hypotheses concerning self-concept development in adolescence: domain-specific self-concept and similarity between own (direct) and perceived peers' (reflected) opinions of the self. Participants (N = 189; 10-24 years) evaluated their traits in academic, physical appearance and prosocial domains from direct and reflected perspectives in an functional magnetic resonance imaging session across three time points (TP1: n = 160; TP2: n = 151; TP3: n = 144). Behaviorally, we observed a mid-adolescent dip in self-concept positivity, which was strongest for the academic domain, showing domain differentiation in mid-adolescence. Self-evaluations were associated with activity in, e.g. medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and temporal-parietal junction (TPJ). mPFC showed an adolescent-emerging peak in activation, pronounced more for direct than reflected self-evaluations. TPJ activation was generally stronger for reflected self-evaluations, and activation linearly increased with age for both reflected and direct self-evaluations. Longitudinal prediction analyses showed that positivity of self-evaluations predicted increases in self-concept clarity and less fear of negative evaluation 1 and 2 years later, highlighting the developmental benefits of acquiring a positive self-concept. Together, we show that adolescent self-development is characterized by dissociable neural patterns underlying self-evaluations in different domains, and from reflected and direct perspectives, confirming adolescence as a formative phase for developing a coherent and positive self-concept.
特定领域的自我概念和自己（直接）与感知到的同龄人对自己的看法（反映）之间的相似性。参与者（N=189；10-24 岁）在三个时间点（TP1：n=160；TP2：n=151；TP3：n=144）的功能磁共振成像会议上从直接和反映的角度评估了他们在学术、外貌和亲社会领域的特质。行为上，我们观察到自我概念积极性在青少年中期出现下降，在学术领域最为明显，表明青少年中期出现了领域分化。自我评估与内侧前额叶皮层（mPFC）和颞顶联合区（TPJ）等区域的活动有关。mPFC 表现出青少年时期出现的激活峰值，直接自我评估比反映自我评估更为明显。TPJ 的激活通常更强，对于反映自我评估，并且对于反映和直接自我评估，激活随年龄呈线性增加。纵向预测分析表明，自我评估的积极性预测自我概念清晰度的增加和 1 到 2 年后对负面评价的恐惧减少，这突显了获得积极自我概念的发展优势。总之，我们表明青少年自我发展的特点是不同领域自我评估的神经模式分离，以及从直接和反映的角度来看，证实了青少年时期是形成一致和积极自我概念的形成阶段。
