Changes in the adolescent brain contribute to both risk taking and prosocial behaviors.
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Interactions between risk taking, prosociality, and social context remain unstudied.
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We propose a new area of study, Prosocial Risk Taking (PSRT).
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Prosocial Risk Taking involves helping another individual at a risk to oneself.
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Social risks may be more salient than other risk types for PSRT behaviors.
Abstract
Recent work has shown that the same neural circuitry that typically underlies risky behaviors also contributes to prosocial behaviors. Despite the striking overlap between two seemingly distinct behavioral patterns, little is known about how risk taking and prosociality interact and inform adolescent decision making. We review literature on adolescent brain development as it pertains to risk taking and prosociality and propose a new area of study, Prosocial Risk Taking, which suggests that adolescents can make risky decisions with the intention of helping other individuals. Given key socialization processes and ongoing neurodevelopmental changes during this time, adolescence may represent a sensitive period for the emergence of Prosocial Risk Taking, especially within a wide variety of social contexts when youth’s increased sensitivity to social evaluation and belonging impacts their behaviors. Prosocial Risk Taking in adolescence is an area of study that has been overlooked in the literature, but could help explain how ontogenetic changes in the adolescent brain may create not only vulnerabilities, but also opportunities for healthy prosocial development.
