Dr. Dai studies adolescent development through a social lens, with research interests that include peer influence, puberty, face perception, social reward and sensitivity, risk taking, and real-world social networks. He earned his Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Penn State University in 2021, completed postdoctoral training at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and joined Georgia State in 2024. Across this work, he uses methods including fMRI, behavioral paradigms, sociometric network analysis, and survey measures to better understand how adolescent brain development is shaped by social context.
In this NeuroKnow Conversations issue, Dr. Dai discusses how adolescence is often oversimplified, why peer influence is more complicated than it seems, and what developmental neuroscience can reveal about social contexts, puberty, and the teenage brain.
Q: Many conversations about teenagers still reduce adolescence to impulsivity or bad decisions. What is often missed when adolescence is framed this way?
Dr. Dai: When adolescence is framed mainly as a period of impulsivity or poor decision-making, we miss that it is also an important period of learning, adaptation, growth, and increasing autonomy. Teenagers are becoming more independent, forming deeper relationships, exploring their identities, and learning how to navigate increasingly complex social environments. Many behaviors that adults interpret as “bad decisions” may actually be part of this broader and normal developmental process. Importantly, not every teenager engages in risky behavior, and taking risks does not necessarily lead to negative outcomes. In fact, many adaptive behaviors in adulthood require some willingness to take risks; for instance, applying to a competitive program, trying a new activity, speaking up for an important belief, forming new relationships, or pursuing an unfamiliar opportunity all involve uncertainty and the possibility of failure.
It is important to keep youths away from taking too many risks, but keep in mind that adolescence also provides the opportunity to learn and explore how to balance potential rewards and consequences through experience. A more complete view of adolescence now therefore recognizes it not simply as a period of risk, but as a period of tremendous possibility and developmental opportunity.
“… adolescence now therefore recognizes it not simply as a period of risk, but as a period of tremendous possibility and developmental opportunity.”
Q: Peer influence is often framed as negative. From a developmental neuroscience point of view, when can peers increase risk, and when can they also support healthier choices?
Dr Dai: Peer influence is not inherently negative. During adolescence, youths become particularly attentive to social information related to peers, such as peer faces, peer evaluation, and peer acceptance. This sensitivity can make many rewards feel more meaningful when peers are present, especially in risk taking contexts (e.g., smoking, drinking). For instance, risk may increase when youths are surrounded by peers who encourage dangerous behaviors, or when risky actions are endorsed by peer groups. However, the same neurodevelopmental sensitivity can also support adaptive and healthy choices. We have some research showing that peers can model positive behaviors, encourage academic effort, promote health activity, reduce substance use, and increase prosocial behaviors. From this perspective, adolescents’ responsiveness to peers may be understood as part of a broader tendency to learn from their peers, rather than simply an inherent weakness. The effect of peers depends on the norms of their group, the situation, the quality of relations, and the individual youth. Therefore, instead of asking whether peer influence is good or bad, we should ask what kinds of peer environments help channel youths’ sensitivity toward exploration, connection, and positive development.
Q: One of your papers examined social hierarchies in adolescents’ real-world peer networks. What does this kind of work reveal, compared to a more isolated lab task?
Dr Dai: Laboratory tasks are valuable because they allow researchers to carefully control what adolescents see and experience. However, adolescents do not encounter peers as anonymous faces or simple experimental stimuli in everyday life. Indeed, they interact with classmates and often unconsciously infer each peer’s social status. Our findings suggested that adolescents’ brains spontaneously distinguish among peers based on their social value within the group. This kind of research connects neuroscience methods with adolescents’ actual social worlds. It helps us understand how adolescents interpret the complex relationships and hierarchies they navigate every day. Ultimately, these real-world social structures may help us better understand why particular peer experiences are associated with differences in adolescents’ behavior.
Q: Many reduce puberty down to just hormones and mood swings. From brain development research, what is the most important thing to understand about puberty being a developmental process rather than just a stereotype?
Dr Dai: Puberty is not a single hormonal event; it is a gradual and multidimensional developmental process involving hormonal changes, physical maturation, brain development, and shifts in how youths understand themselves and relate to others. It is also important to understand puberty within different contexts. The experience of maturing early or late may differ depending on family support, peer relationships, cultural expectations, school environments, and how others respond to the adolescent’s changing body. Therefore, puberty is a normal process that is relevant to adolescent development.
Q: Human faces are important in this work as well. Why are faces such an important window into adolescent social development, especially during a stage when peer relationships are very important?
Dr Dai: Faces are one of the most important social information we encounter in our daily life. Importantly, human has an innate ability to quickly recognize faces and make decision towards different individuals, which are fundamentally supported by a wide range of face processing brain networks. Faces may be especially meaningful during adolescence because peer relationships become increasingly central to everyday life. Our lab has much research demonstrating that adolescents recognize their peers’ faces better than other faces, which we believe to have important relevance for adolescent social behaviors in peer contexts, especially peer influences.
Q: In this field of work, there is a clear interest in adolescence being shaped in social contexts rather than in isolation. What drew you to studying development in this broader social context?
Dr Dai: What drew me to this work was the realization that I have seen many youths (including those when I was a teenager) ultimately develop in different ways when they grow up. In addition, research has shown that are substantial individual differences in adolescent development. For instance, while some kids tend to make risky decisions in their lives, many kids do not take risks. One important factor I consider is social context. Adolescents develop in multiple social contexts, which may overlap and work together to influence adolescents’ brain development, social behaviors, and mental health.
Q: For readers of NeuroKnow, what is one idea from developmental neuroscience that can make peer pressure more understandable and less one-dimensional?
Dr Dai: One helpful idea is that peer pressure is not simply a teenager “losing control” because of friends. Adolescents are learning how to function within a new social world – peer relations. Because belonging and social acceptance become especially meaningful during adolescence, a decision may carry two kinds of consequences: the real consequence of the behavior itself and the social consequence of how peers may respond. For instance, youth may reject a cigarette from a friend, which protects their health but they may lose social status. Adolescents are susceptible to such peer influences in risk taking, but the same sensitivity to peers can also work in positive directions. Adolescents may study harder, try a new activity, stand up for someone, avoid harmful behavior, or seek help because peers support those choices. Therefore, peer influence is better understood as a form of social learning – adolescents care about their friends and may change their behaviors. In this case, providing youths a good environment to make them grow and strive is important.
“… peer influence is better understood as a form of social learning …”
Thank you, Dr. Dai!
Website: https://www.insd-lab.com/
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