Evolving Science in Adolescence

Ellis et al. (2012) bring an evolutionary perspective to bear on adolescent risky behavioral development, clinical practice, and public policy. The authors offer important insights that (a) some risky behaviors may be adaptive for the individual and the species by being hard-wired due to fitness benefits and (b) interventions might be more successful if they move with, rather than against, the natural tendencies of an adolescent. Ellis and colleagues criticize the field of developmental psychopathology, but we see the 2 fields as complementary. Their position would be enhanced by integrating it with contemporary perspectives on dynamic cascades through which normative behavior turns into genuinely maladaptive outcomes, dual processes in adolescent neural development, and adolescent decision making. Finally, they rightly note that innovation is needed in interventions and policies toward adolescent problem behavior

Peer Influences on Adolescent Risk Behavior

Moving beyond studies of age differences in “cool” cognitive ­processes related to risk perception and reasoning, new approaches to understanding ­adolescent risk behavior highlight the influence of “hot” social and emotional ­factors on adolescents’ decisions. Building on evidence from developmental neuroscience, we present a theory that highlights an adolescent gap in the developmental timing of neurobehavioral systems underpinning incentive processing and cognitive control. Whereas changes in brain regions involved in incentive processing result in heightened sensitivity to social and emotional rewards in early adolescence, cognitive control systems do not reach full maturity until late adolescence or early adulthood. Within this framework, middle adolescence represents a window of heightened vulnerability to peer influences toward risk-taking behavior. At a time when adolescents spend an increasing amount of time with peers, research suggests that exposure to peer-related stimuli sensitizes the reward system to the reward value of risky behavior. As the cognitive control system gradually matures, adolescents gain the capacity to exercise self-regulation in socio-emotionally challenging situations, reflected by an increasing capacity to resist peer influence

Evolving Science in Adolescence

Ellis et al. (2012) bring an evolutionary perspective to bear on adolescent risky behavioral development, clinical practice, and public policy. The authors offer important insights that (a) some risky behaviors may be adaptive for the individual and the species by being hard-wired due to fitness benefits and (b) interventions might be more successful if they move with, rather than against, the natural tendencies of an adolescent. Ellis and colleagues criticize the field of developmental psychopathology, but we see the 2 fields as complementary. Their position would be enhanced by integrating it with contemporary perspectives on dynamic cascades through which normative behavior turns into genuinely maladaptive outcomes, dual processes in adolescent neural development, and adolescent decision making. Finally, they rightly note that innovation is needed in interventions and policies toward adolescent problem behavior

Judgment and decision making in adolescence

In this article, we review the most important findings to have emerged during the past 10 years in the study of judgment and decision making (JDM) in adolescence and look ahead to possible new directions in this burgeoning area of research. Three inter-related shifts in research emphasis are of particular importance and serve to organize this review. First, research grounded in normative models of JDM has moved beyond the study of age differences in risk perception and toward a dynamic account of the factors predicting adolescent decisions. Second, the field has seen widespread adoption of dual-process models of cognitive development that describe 2 relatively independent modes of information processing, typically contrasting an analytic (cold) system with an experiential (hot) one. Finally, there has been an increase in attention to the social, emotional, and self-regulatory factors that influence JDM. This shift in focus reflects the growing influence of findings from developmental neuroscience, which describe a pattern of structural and functional maturation that may set the stage for a heightened propensity to make risky decisions in adolescence

Peer Influences on Adolescent Risk Behavior

Moving beyond studies of age differences in “cool” cognitive ­processes related to risk perception and reasoning, new approaches to understanding ­adolescent risk behavior highlight the influence of “hot” social and emotional ­factors on adolescents’ decisions. Building on evidence from developmental neuroscience, we present a theory that highlights an adolescent gap in the developmental timing of neurobehavioral systems underpinning incentive processing and cognitive control. Whereas changes in brain regions involved in incentive processing result in heightened sensitivity to social and emotional rewards in early adolescence, cognitive control systems do not reach full maturity until late adolescence or early adulthood. Within this framework, middle adolescence represents a window of heightened vulnerability to peer influences toward risk-taking behavior. At a time when adolescents spend an increasing amount of time with peers, research suggests that exposure to peer-related stimuli sensitizes the reward system to the reward value of risky behavior. As the cognitive control system gradually matures, adolescents gain the capacity to exercise self-regulation in socio-emotionally challenging situations, reflected by an increasing capacity to resist peer influence

Age differences in strategic planning as indexed by the Tower of London

The present study examined age differences in performance on the Tower of London, a measure of strategic planning, in a diverse sample of 890 individuals between the ages of 10 and 30. Although mature performance was attained by age 17 on relatively easy problems, performance on the hardest problems showed improvements into the early 20s. Furthermore, whereas age-related performance gains by children and adolescents (ages 10–17) on the hardest problems were partially mediated by maturational improvements in both working memory and impulse control, improved performance in adulthood (ages 18+) was fully mediated by late gains in impulse control. Findings support an emerging picture of late adolescence as a time of continuing improvement in planned, goal-directed behavior

Peer Influences on Adolescent Risk Behavior

Research efforts to account for elevated risk behavior among adolescents have arrived at an exciting new stage. Moving beyond laboratory studies of age differences in risk perception and reasoning, new approaches have shifted their focus to the influence of social and emotional factors on adolescent decision making. We review recent research suggesting that adolescent risk-taking propensity derives in part from a maturational gap between early adolescent remodeling of the brain’s socioemotional reward system and a gradual, prolonged strengthening of the cognitive-control system. Research has suggested that in adolescence, a time when individuals spend an increasing amount of time with their peers, peer-related stimuli may sensitize the reward system to respond to the reward value of risky behavior. As the cognitive-control system gradually matures over the course of the teenage years, adolescents grow in their capacity to coordinate affect and cognition and to exercise self-regulation, even in emotionally arousing situations. These capacities are reflected in gradual growth in the capacity to resist peer influence