Adolescent Psychology: From Brain to Behavior

Faculty Advisor: Postdoctoral Fellow, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Research Program Introduction

Adolescence is a unique time characterized by ‘social reorientation’—an increased need for friendship and heightened susceptibility to peer influence. Have you ever wondered what changes adolescence brings to our brains and behavior? Is peer pressure good or bad? When do we choose to conform to our peers? What can we do to reduce bullying and harassment?

In this practicum, you will find interesting answers to all the above questions, and more. You will examine the heightened importance of friends and other social agents during adolescence. Through learning about social brain development during the second decade of life, you can answer questions like, “Why do teens want to spend so much time with their friends?“ and “Are teenagers more susceptible to peer pressure than kids and adults?” 

The topic of adolescent mental health during the pandemic will feature in the program. Your final project might be a research proposal aimed at testing unanswered questions about adolescent mental health pre/post-pandemic and/or could be to design some intervention.

Final Deliverables

During this program, you will learn the fundamentals of adolescent social development through weekly synchronous meetings and independent work. Each week, you will be expected to complete several readings and supplemental videos. During the group meetings, you will listen to course lectures and engage in discussion, drawing from insights gained from the readings and videos. To aid with completing their final project, you will learn to search for and navigate empirical research articles.

Possible Topics For Final Project:

• Adolescence is characterized as a period of ‘social reorientation’. What changes in brain development facilitate this heightened attentiveness to social information? 

• Does adolescence's heightened susceptibility to peer influence always lead to dangerous or antisocial behaviors? Can susceptibility to peer influence be good? 

• From an evolutionary perspective, what are three reasons why adolescence would be a developmental period marked by greater orientation to friends instead of parents? 

• Teenagers do not always copy their peers. What are some factors determining whether a teenager decides to conform to the behaviors or attitudes of their peers?  

• Use what you know about social development and behavior in adolescence to develop an informational packet for parents about how to continue supporting their child’s development and well-being when peers become so important. 

• Use what you know about social development and behavior in adolescence to design a school-based intervention for reducing bullying and harassment.

• Try to answer how adolescent mental health has changed during the pandemic.

• Other professor-approved topics in this subject area that you are interested in

Program Details

• Cohort size: 3 to 5 students

• Duration: 12 weeks

• Workload: Around 4 hours per week (including class and homework time)

• Target students: 9 to 12th graders interested in Psychology, Biology, and/or Social Sciences.