Peers become increasingly important during adolescence, with emerging gender differences in peer relationships associated with distinct behavioral and emotional outcomes. Males tend to socialize in larger peer groups with competitive interactions, whereas females engage in longer bouts of dyadic interaction with more intimacy. To examine gender differences in neural response to ecologically valid displays of positive affect and future social interactions, 52 adolescents (14–18 years old; female = 30) completed a social reward functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) task with videos of a same-gender best friend (BF) or unfamiliar peer (UP) expressing positive (versus neutral) affect. Participants completed ecological momentary assessment of social experiences for two 5-day intervals. Compared with females, males more often reported that their happiest experience in the past hour occurred with class/teammates. Females and males displayed greater fusiform gyrus (FG) activation during BF and UP conditions, respectively (p_voxel<0.0001, p_cluster<0.05, family-wise error). Compared with males, females exhibited greater nucleus accumbens (NAcc)-precuneus functional connectivity to BF Positive> UP Positive. An exploratory analysis indicated that the association of male gender with a greater proportion of positive experiences with class/teammates was statistically mediated by greater NAcc-precuneus functional connectivity. Gender differences in positive social experiences may be associated with reward and social cognition networks.

同伴在青春期变得越来越重要，同伴关系中新出现的性别差异与独特的行为和情感结果相关。男性倾向于通过竞争性互动在较大的同龄人群体中社交，而女性则以更长久的亲密关系参与二元互动。为了检查对正面影响和未来社会互动的生态有效展示的神经反应中的性别差异，有52名青少年（14-18岁；女性= 30）完成了社交奖励功能磁共振成像（fMRI）任务，其中视频内容相同，性别正面朋友（BF）或陌生同伴（UP）表现出积极的（与中立的相比）。参与者每两个5天完成一次社会经历的生态瞬时评估。与女性相比 男性更经常报告他们过去一个小时中最快乐的经历发生在班级/队友身上。在BF和UP条件下，雌性和雄性分别表现出更大的梭状回（FG）激活（p_体素<0.0001，p_聚类<0.05，家庭误差）。与男性相比，女性表现出更大的伏隔核（NAcc）-胎前功能连接到BF阳性> UP阳性。一项探索性分析表明，男性与NACC-precuneus功能连接性的增加在统计学上介导了男性与班级/队友更多比例的积极经历之间的联系。积极的社会经验中的性别差异可能与奖励和社会认知网络有关。