Neural Signatures of Promotion and Prevention Goal Activation in Adolescence
Adolescence is a period of profound growth in self-evaluative and interpersonal capacities, as youth seek to develop their identity. One such capacity is the pursuit of personal goals, which is a fundamental psychological activity for both adults and adolescents. Functional MRI studies in adults have identified patterns of BOLD activation associated with self-regulation of personal goal pursuit, but to our knowledge there are no studies to using fMRI to examine BOLD responses to personal goals in adolescence. Using regulatory focus theory, which distinguishes between self-regulation modes of promotion and prevention, Detloff and colleagues (2020) observed both shared and unique regions of activation associated with idiographically assessed promotion vs. prevention goal priming, as well as variations in BOLD response depending on whether participants believed they were or were not making progress toward attaining the goal. We conducted a replication study using the identical procedures as Detloff et al. in a sample of 47 healthy adolescents. We observed significant overlap between adolescent and adult neural activation during promotion and prevention priming in regions associated with higher-order cognition such as the insula, thalamus, and the post-central gyrus. Nonetheless, adolescents also demonstrated unique neural activation in regions related to the processing of social stimuli, such as the temporoparietal junction, medial prefrontal cortex, and the angular and supramarginal gyrus. The findings enrich and extend our understanding regarding the nature of personal goal pursuit and identity-related self-regulation during adolescence.
