| Course | PS 105 Developmental Psychology |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 5 |
| Paper type | Adolescence paper |
| Length | About 1,020 words, 6 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Herzing University |
| Program | BS in Psychology |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for PS 105 Unit 5
Two Friends in the Back Seat: Peer Presence and Adolescent Risk Taking Explained Through Steinberg's Social Neuroscience Account, and What Carries Into Adulthood
Student Name
Psychology, Herzing University
PS 105: Developmental Psychology
Instructor Name
April 13, 2026
Two Friends in the Back Seat: Peer Presence and Adolescent Risk Taking Explained Through Steinberg's Social Neuroscience Account, and What Carries Into Adulthood
The Question
Adolescence could be studied in many ways, and a survey of the whole period would leave no room for explanation. This paper takes one question: why do teenagers take more risks when their friends are present than when they are alone? It answers with one theory, sets out the evidence and the populations it came from, applies the theory to a composite case, and asks what of this pattern carries forward into adult life.
The Theory
Steinberg (2008) proposed a social neuroscience account of adolescent risk taking. In his view, two brain systems develop on different timetables. A socioemotional system, involving regions that respond to reward and to social information, becomes much more easily aroused around puberty. A cognitive control system, involving regions that support planning, impulse control and weighing consequences, matures gradually through adolescence and into the mid-twenties. Adolescence is therefore a period when the drive toward rewarding experiences is strong and the capacity to regulate that drive is still developing.
The theory makes a specific prediction about peers. Because the socioemotional system is sensitive to social stimuli, the presence of peers should heighten the reward value of risky choices for adolescents. The effect should be weaker in young adults and absent in older adults, whose control systems are mature and whose reward systems are less reactive.
The Evidence and Its Populations
Gardner and Steinberg (2005) tested the prediction with a video driving game in which players earned points for driving farther but lost everything if the car crashed into a wall that appeared when a traffic light turned yellow. Three age groups took part: thirteen- to sixteen-year-olds, eighteen- to twenty-two-year-olds, and adults of twenty-four and over. Each person took the task solo or while two friends looked on. Having friends present roughly doubled risky driving among the youngest group, increased it by about half among the middle group and had no effect on adults. Questionnaires on risk preference and risky decisions showed a similar pattern.
Chein et al. (2011) extended the work using brain imaging. Adolescents, young adults and adults played a similar driving task in a scanner, either alone or knowing that friends were watching from another room. Only the adolescents took more risks when observed by peers, and only in adolescents did peer observation increase activity in reward-related brain regions during the task. Activity in regions associated with cognitive control did not differ by peer condition.
Both studies used laboratory tasks with modest samples, mostly from American urban areas. Findings about this age group vary across settings and generations, and a video game is not a road. The studies show that peer presence can change adolescents' choices in a controlled setting; they do not measure how often it does so in daily life.
The Theory Applied to a Composite Case
The case is a composite. Ava is sixteen and has held a provisional driver's license for three months. Driving alone to school, she follows the speed limit and stops fully at stop signs. On a Friday night, driving three friends home from a game, she accelerates through a yellow light and takes a curve faster than usual while her friends cheer. Nothing happens. On Monday she cannot quite explain why she did it.
The theory explains the difference between Tuesday and Friday. Ava's knowledge of traffic rules and risks did not change between the two drives, which fits Steinberg's point that adolescents' risk taking is not mainly a failure of knowing the risks. What changed was the social context. With friends present, the reward of their approval and the excitement of the moment were heightened, while her capacity to restrain the impulse, still developing at sixteen, was the same as before. Gardner and Steinberg would predict exactly this kind of difference between solo and peer driving in someone her age, and would predict a smaller difference if she were twenty-five.
The theory also explains why many states restrict how many young passengers a newly licensed teen may carry. Those laws target the situation the research identifies, rather than relying on teens to know the risks, which they usually already do.
Limits and Criticism
The two-system account has been challenged. Pfeifer and Allen (2012) argue that dual-systems models oversimplify how the adolescent brain develops, that a straightforward mismatch between reward and control is less well supported than popular accounts suggest, and that adolescence is also a period of positive social learning, not only risk. Their critique is a reminder that peer sensitivity is not only a hazard: the same responsiveness to peers helps adolescents learn social roles. The theory also explains averages; many adolescents drive more carefully with friends present, and individual differences are large.
There is a further gap between the laboratory and the road. The studies show that observed teenagers choose riskier options in a game with points at stake. They do not show how much of the higher crash risk of young drivers with passengers comes from this mechanism rather than from inexperience, distraction or the conversation itself. Passenger restrictions for new drivers are consistent with the research, but the laws were not designed as tests of the theory, and their effects reflect all of these factors together. A careful paper keeps the experimental finding, the real-world pattern and the policy response as three related but separate claims.
What Carries Forward Into Adulthood
The evidence suggests that the peer effect on risky choices fades as people move into their twenties. Gardner and Steinberg found it reduced in young adults and absent in older adults, and Chein et al. found the reward-region response to peers only in adolescents. What carries forward is not the heightened sensitivity itself but its products: habits formed during adolescence, the skills learned through peer relationships, and in some cases the consequences of risks taken. Adolescence, on this account, is a hinge because the social world matters most to decisions at exactly the time when the capacity to regulate those decisions is still being built.
References
Chein, J., Albert, D., O'Brien, L., Uckert, K., & Steinberg, L. (2011). Peers increase adolescent risk taking by enhancing activity in the brain's reward circuitry. Developmental Science, 14(2), F1-F10. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2010.01035.x
Gardner, M., & Steinberg, L. (2005). Peer influence on risk taking, risk preference, and risky decision making in adolescence and adulthood: An experimental study. Developmental Psychology, 41(4), 625-635. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.41.4.625
Pfeifer, J. H., & Allen, N. B. (2012). Arrested development? Reconsidering dual-systems models of brain function in adolescence and disorders. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 16(6), 322-329. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2012.04.011
Steinberg, L. (2008). A social neuroscience perspective on adolescent risk-taking. Developmental Review, 28(1), 78-106. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dr.2007.08.002
What the PS 105 Unit 5 instructions ask for
The fifth PS 105 unit asks students to examine either identity formation or peer influence in adolescence through one theory doing real explanatory work. Expect to narrow the topic to a single question, set out the theory with its author credited and its predictions for this stage stated precisely, report evidence with the populations studied, apply the theory to a composite case and explain what carries forward into adult life. Findings about adolescents vary across settings and generations, so populations matter. Social media is an acceptable focus if the theory and evidence are specific. Writing about a teenager in your own family shares private details, so a composite case is the better choice.
Inside the PS 105 Unit 5 example
A short opening narrows the period to one question. The theory section sets out Steinberg's two systems and the specific prediction about peers across ages. The evidence section reports the driving game study and the brain imaging study with their age groups, tasks and limits. The application follows a composite sixteen-year-old driving alone and then with friends, explaining what changed and what did not, and notes how passenger restrictions target the same situation. A limits section reports Pfeifer and Allen's critique and separates the laboratory finding from crash patterns and policy. The close explains why the peer effect fades in the twenties and what carries forward. The case is analyzed by what changed between two drives and what stayed the same.
Where the points sit in the PS 105 Unit 5 rubric
Herzing's rubric for the adolescence paper usually allots points to a narrowed question, a precisely stated theory, evidence reported with populations, a case explained by the theory's mechanism, criticism and a forward link to adulthood, plus clear writing. Narrowing earns credit because a survey of adolescence leaves no room to explain. The theory criterion rewards predictions specific to this stage. Evidence scores when samples, ages and tasks are named. The case is often weighted heavily and earns full marks when the theory explains a specific difference rather than labeling behavior. Criticism and the link to adulthood are frequently what separate strong papers from adequate ones.
Common PS 105 Unit 5 mistakes, and how to avoid them
Adolescence papers lose points when they describe the whole period instead of answering one question. Another frequent problem is a theory named but never used to explain anything specific. Students often report findings without saying who was studied or how. Some treat a laboratory task as if it measured real-world behavior directly. Others present brain research as settled when it is debated. Many forget to say what carries into adulthood. Writing about a family member's teenage years shares private details. If you are choosing between identity and peer influence, our writers can help you narrow the question and draft the paper. Mentioning a critique without saying what it changes about the conclusion also earns little.
Get a PS 105 Unit 5 example written to your instructions
One message does it: the Unit 5 instructions, your PS 105 rubric and whichever question the assignment sets on identity or peer influence. We write a custom example that narrows first, states the theory before the evidence, reports findings with their populations and links the period to childhood and adulthood. First custom sample free, back in 24 to 48 hours.
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PS 105 Unit 5 questions, answered
Identity or peer influence, which one should I take?
Whichever your readings support best, and your instructions may decide it. Identity gives you a well developed theoretical literature to work with, while peer influence gives you more empirical studies and clearer measurement. Either can carry a strong paper. What weakens both is trying to cover them together, which usually produces two half arguments instead of one whole one.
Can I write about social media and teenagers?
Only through the research, and check that your readings cover it. This is an area where confident claims circulate well ahead of the evidence, and a paper repeating them without citation will be marked on that. If your sources report studies, use them, name the populations and the designs, and keep the conclusions at the strength those designs support.
Can I write about a teenager in my own family?
Build a composite instead. A young person described in a graded paper is recognizable to anyone who knows them, they did not agree to be written about, and school records, counseling notes or medical information about them belong to that family. A constructed case drawn from patterns your reading describes carries the argument just as well, labeled as constructed.
Where can I find a free PS 105 Unit 5 sample paper?
Every part of the PS 105 Unit 5 adolescence paper on peer influence and risk is free on this page, with the evidence, the composite case, the critique and margin notes. Writing on identity instead? Pass along the prompt and a version for that question is written free, typically within two days.
Identity or peer influence, which works better for PS 105 Unit 5?
Either, if you narrow it to one question with a theory that predicts something specific. The sample chooses peer influence because experiments show how peers change adolescents' choices compared with adults.