Neural sensitivity to social reward predicts social behavior and satisfaction in adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic

Neural reward network sensitivity in adolescence is proposed to differentially impact the effects of social environments on social outcomes. The COVID-19 pandemic provided an opportunity to test this hypothesis within a context of diminished in-person social interaction. We examined whether neural sensitivity to interactive social reward moderates the relationship between frequency of interactive or passive social activity and social satisfaction. Survey reports of frequency of interactions with friends, non-interactive social media use, feelings of social needs being met, and loneliness were gathered in 2020 during mandated precautions limiting in-person contact. A subset of participants previously participated in an fMRI study examining social interactive reward during a simulated peer interaction (Survey n = 76; Survey + fMRI n = 40). We found evidence of differential response to social context, such that adolescents with higher neural reward sensitivity had a strong positive association between frequency of interactive connections with friends and social needs met, while those with lower sensitivity showed no effect. Further, high reward sensitive adolescents reported higher levels of loneliness with increasing social media use, whereas low reward sensitive adolescents reported the opposite with the same behaviors. This indicates that youth with greater sensitivity to social interactive reward are more susceptible to negative effects of infrequent contact, whereas low reward sensitive adolescents are less susceptible and instead maintain social well-being through passive viewing of social content. These differential outcomes have implications for supporting youth during times of major social disruption as well as ensuring mental health and well-being more broadly.