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Why DO teens do THAT? Raging hormones? Prefrontal cortex fully developed? Thrill Seeking? New research from The Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania has released a report explaining Why Teens Take Risks: It's Not a Deficit in Brain Development:
The authors propose an alternative model that emphasizes the role that risk taking and the experience gained by it play in adolescent development. This model explains much of the apparent increase in risk taking by adolescents as "an adaptive need to gain the experience required to assume adult roles and behaviors." That experience eventually changes the way people think about risk, making it more "gist-like" or thematic and making them more risk averse.
"Recent meta-analyses suggest that the way individuals think about risks and rewards changes as they mature, and current accounts of brain development must take these newer ideas into account to explain adolescent risk taking," said co-author Valerie Reyna, Ph.D., director of the Human Neuroscience Institute at Cornell University.
Romer[1] added, "The reason teens are doing all of this exploring and novelty seeking is to build experience so that they can do a better job in making the difficult and risky decisions in later life – decisions like 'Should I take this job?' or 'Should I marry this person?' There's no doubt that this period of development is a challenge for parents, but that's doesn't mean that the adolescent brain is somehow deficient or lacking in control."
[1] Daniel Romer, Ph.D
Daniel Romer, Valerie F. Reyna, Theodore D. Satterthwaite. Beyond stereotypes of adolescent risk taking: Placing the adolescent brain in developmental context. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 2017; 27: 19 DOI: 10.1016/j.dcn.2017.07.007 (Javascript required).
Alternate Link: Science.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by crafoo on Monday August 28 2017, @05:05PM (1 child)
I've seen the same thing.
We, as a society, do our young a disservice when we lie to them about risks and consequences. We also vastly underestimate young men and women's abilities and reasoning. They are reasoning and making decisions just fine, usually. They just aren't coming to YOUR conclusions. It's a failure on our part usually, as adults. They are living in a different world. One that you think you understand but you do not. We are looking down a 20+ year tunnel at their world, only seeing small pieces of it before we go back to our daily routine, problems, challenges.
I also see older people get their panties in a bunch when a younger person comes along that just kicks their ass in critical reasoning, skill level, and intelligence. It pisses them off. They claim their experience trumps this younger person's performance and knowledge. Yeah. The experience of doing the same thing for 15 years does automatically entitle the older person a senior position, respect, and deference. So many times I've seen younger people with a better handle of the situation, better decision making skills, and better ideas get constantly shat on by "their elders": arrogant people who got comfortable bossing people around according to their 20 year old ideas and knowledge base.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday August 29 2017, @02:42AM
That's one reason I'm willing to listen: I can usually suss out the best way to do something just by stopping and thinking about it, but will definitely crow about someone coming up with a better way.
Anytime i can have someone point out a better way to do something, I will thank them. Just makes my life easier (and therefore my bosses life easier).
But usually, i am left with people doing things in the most illogical, hardest way to do it. Some people just don't think about what they are doing.
One brief, stupid example: carbon paper; the kind where there are two sheets together, printed together, with the holes along both sides. I can't tell you how many people are surprised when I fold the paper together so the perforated pieces are together and rip the perforations at one time.
So many people rip the perforations one at a time, and have done so for YEARS!
Some people just. don't. think.
They. just. do.
And my wife keeps asking me why I like my computers better than I like people: it's because my computer (or at least my operating system) is logical, whereas people are illogical and 'drama, drama, drama's.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---