Recent studies have suggested that social contexts, particularly peers, may also serve as a motivational cue and can diminish cognitive control during adolescence. It has been shown that the degree to which an adolescent’s peers are using substances is directly proportional to the amount of alcohol or illegal substances that the adolescent themselves will use 40. Using a simulated driving task, Gardner and colleagues 41 have shown that adolescents make riskier decisions in the presence of peers than when alone and that these risky decisions decrease linearly with age 23, 40.
