Uit onderzoek van Wouter Van Den Bos van de universiteit van Leiden blijkt dat jongeren in de adolescentie wel degelijk narcistisch zijn, en dat dit ook blijkt uit hersenscans, dit is het abstract van het artikel dat in het januari-nummer van Psychology Science werd gepubliceerd:

“Adolescence is characterized by the emergence of advanced forms of social perspective taking and significant changes in social behavior. Yet little is known about how changes in social cognition are related to changes in brain function during adolescence. In this study, we investigated the neural correlates of social behavior during three phases of adolescence, carrying out functional magnetic resonance imaging of participants’ brains while they were Player 2 in the Trust Game. We found that with age, adolescents were increasingly sensitive to the perspective of the other player, as indicated by their reciprocal behavior. These advanced forms of social perspective-taking behavior were associated with increased involvement of the left temporo-parietal junction and the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. In contrast, young adolescents showed more activity in the anterior medial prefrontal cortex, a region previously associated with self-oriented processing and mentalizing. These findings suggest that the asynchronous development of these neural systems may underlie the shift from thinking about self to thinking about the other.” (bron)

Wat is het ’trust’ game?

“In the trust game, one of the players (Player 1) can either share a certain amount of money equally with another player or giving the entire sum to that player. If Player 1 divides the money equally, the game ends. But if Player 1 does give it all to the other player, the amount of money increases and at this point Player 2 has the choice to share that amount with Player 1 or keep most of the money (called defecting).”

Lees meer over het onderzoek hier.