As mentioned in the Welcome post, I became interested in the topic because I myself believed that teenagers are inherently less capable of making good decisions when my intro psychology professor told us that the brain won’t fully develop until we become 22 year-old.
I would like to become a psychologist or at least use what I am learning at college, so I want to be as much accurate as I can in my comments on anything related to psychology. With a degree in psychology, I feel I have responsibility in doing my best to be accurate when people ask me as a psychology major. In addition, it is important for me to be able to admit that psychology may not have revealed much about the human psych yet. If asked to evaluate how “solid” the discipline is as a science, I do not think many psychological experiments can accurately control human behaviors like other scientific disciplines, since it is almost impossible to create the identical environments and people in a lab. So, tackling with this myth has reminded me of the importance in being able to always consider alternative explanations to any psychological findings.
In addition, I am old enough to have my own kids. If I do have some kids in the future, I would like to make a fair judgment on to what extent I am responsible for their behaviors. If I did not think about the myth in the blog, I would have probably used the myth to give up disciplining my kids and have just strictly supervised them, depriving them of any freedom.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Vulnerable Population
Parents
If parents do not want to believe that teens’ risky behaviors are consequences of their inabilities in disciplining their children, they may use the teenage brain myth as an excuse to why their children are not behaving well.
Therapists for Child Discipline
When therapists want to prove their competence over other therapists, they want some edge that can make them stand out. Since the public likes science, adding any topic in the brain science to their talk may allow those therapists to get more customers.
The media
Newspapers and popular magazines cannot provide latest scientific findings in detail because of their limited space and duty to be eye-catching, which leads them to omit limitations to those primary findings.
Brain Scientists and the Pharmaceutical Industry
This may sound weird, but it may be not if we consider who are funding their research. For example, if a pharmaceutical company funds a research, they want a result showing that the brain structure and functions strongly affect human risky behaviors; the pharmaceutical industry needs to show how medication can help control people’s behaviors. Therefore, brain scientists (psychologists?) are expected to find positive results, not negative results. If brain scientists are valued only when they find a strong influence of the brain structure and functions on behaviors, then it is easy to imagine that they may want to overestimate or overstate the role of the brain in human behaviors, which could also support the legitimacy of the teenage brain myth.
If parents do not want to believe that teens’ risky behaviors are consequences of their inabilities in disciplining their children, they may use the teenage brain myth as an excuse to why their children are not behaving well.
Therapists for Child Discipline
When therapists want to prove their competence over other therapists, they want some edge that can make them stand out. Since the public likes science, adding any topic in the brain science to their talk may allow those therapists to get more customers.
The media
Newspapers and popular magazines cannot provide latest scientific findings in detail because of their limited space and duty to be eye-catching, which leads them to omit limitations to those primary findings.
Brain Scientists and the Pharmaceutical Industry
This may sound weird, but it may be not if we consider who are funding their research. For example, if a pharmaceutical company funds a research, they want a result showing that the brain structure and functions strongly affect human risky behaviors; the pharmaceutical industry needs to show how medication can help control people’s behaviors. Therefore, brain scientists (psychologists?) are expected to find positive results, not negative results. If brain scientists are valued only when they find a strong influence of the brain structure and functions on behaviors, then it is easy to imagine that they may want to overestimate or overstate the role of the brain in human behaviors, which could also support the legitimacy of the teenage brain myth.
Cultural Differences
Japan: the topic is not popular in Japan compared to effective learning for young children such as Mozart Effect.
Why do Japanese not concern the teenage brain as much as Americans?
My 100% unscientific hypotheses are:
Psychology is not as much popular as in the U.S.
The amount of information and the public attention to psychology in Japan may be significantly lower than in the U.S.
Japanese teens are already under stricter supervision than those in the U.S. Americans may be torn between supervision and nurturing self-responsibility of children.
Japan has more equal distribution of wealth than the U.S.
Teens in Japan, with OK economic back grounds, may be able to avoid dealing with the dark side of the society such as drugs and violence.
Japan is safer than in the U.S.
Again, less experience in the dark side of the society may reduce the risk of teenagers’ criminal behaviors.
The Japanese media has less impact on teens’ behaviors.
Even though the Japanese media such as Manga and TV games are sometimes accused of showing violence, according to my observation, American movies and TV dramas show , for example, more aggressive scenes than Japanese ones. American teens may learn more risky behaviors than Japanese teens do from the media. In addition, watching real humans acting immaturely in movies may have more impact on teens’ behaviors than reading unreal pictures in Manga or animation. Compared to American movies and TV shows, Japanese ones are very mild.
Why do Japanese not concern the teenage brain as much as Americans?
My 100% unscientific hypotheses are:
Psychology is not as much popular as in the U.S.
The amount of information and the public attention to psychology in Japan may be significantly lower than in the U.S.
Japanese teens are already under stricter supervision than those in the U.S. Americans may be torn between supervision and nurturing self-responsibility of children.
Japan has more equal distribution of wealth than the U.S.
Teens in Japan, with OK economic back grounds, may be able to avoid dealing with the dark side of the society such as drugs and violence.
Japan is safer than in the U.S.
Again, less experience in the dark side of the society may reduce the risk of teenagers’ criminal behaviors.
The Japanese media has less impact on teens’ behaviors.
Even though the Japanese media such as Manga and TV games are sometimes accused of showing violence, according to my observation, American movies and TV dramas show , for example, more aggressive scenes than Japanese ones. American teens may learn more risky behaviors than Japanese teens do from the media. In addition, watching real humans acting immaturely in movies may have more impact on teens’ behaviors than reading unreal pictures in Manga or animation. Compared to American movies and TV shows, Japanese ones are very mild.
Most Important Misunderstanding
The most important misunderstanding is thatscience confirmed teenagers are innately unable to think as well as adults. No matter how much we train the teenage brain, it fails to make mature decisions because the brain can only develop according to one’s biological age.
First and foremost, scientists have never found any causation that teenagers are innately prone to make bad decisions.
Second, the same brain makes different decisions according to different environmental cues; that is, if teens are in an environment that induces risky actions typical in adolescence, they of course show more risky behaviors and different actions than adult. For example, teenagers may use drugs because their peers do. We could of course hypothesize that this is because teenagers are generally vulnerable to that temptation. However, can we eliminate a possibility that the society have been failing to teach teenagers mature behaviors compared to the society in the past, when many teenagers were treated as adults (like when human beings could only live for 50 years)? If this is the case, we cannot only blame the teenage behaviors on the teenage brain.
Overall, many people assume that the teenage brain is inherently less capable of making mature decisions than the adult brain because most newspaper articles and speakers for disciplining children do not mention the importance of social contexts in adolescent behaviors. It may lead the society to placing teenagers under more extreme supervisions of parents and the society, preventing adolescents from making their own life decisions.
First and foremost, scientists have never found any causation that teenagers are innately prone to make bad decisions.
Second, the same brain makes different decisions according to different environmental cues; that is, if teens are in an environment that induces risky actions typical in adolescence, they of course show more risky behaviors and different actions than adult. For example, teenagers may use drugs because their peers do. We could of course hypothesize that this is because teenagers are generally vulnerable to that temptation. However, can we eliminate a possibility that the society have been failing to teach teenagers mature behaviors compared to the society in the past, when many teenagers were treated as adults (like when human beings could only live for 50 years)? If this is the case, we cannot only blame the teenage behaviors on the teenage brain.
Overall, many people assume that the teenage brain is inherently less capable of making mature decisions than the adult brain because most newspaper articles and speakers for disciplining children do not mention the importance of social contexts in adolescent behaviors. It may lead the society to placing teenagers under more extreme supervisions of parents and the society, preventing adolescents from making their own life decisions.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Examples in Popular Culture
http://videos.howstuffworks.com/hsw/11837-health-the-teenage-brain-video.htm
About the video clip: In the experiment, the intelligent teen struggles with judging facial emotions. According to the video, the amygdala, responsible for feeling emotions, develops first, and teens overestimate an emotional reward from a risky behavior until the prefrontal cortex, responsible for inhibition and planning, is fully developed in adulthood. The narrator emphasizes that even the genius teen has an underdeveloped brain compared to adults’.
What the video implies: All teenagers innately have undeveloped brains no matter how smart they are.
Critique: Does having a college degree at the age of 12 mean the same as being able to make moral judgments? One point to question the video clip is that we are not sure if the teenage genius had as much time as ordinary adults to experience judging others’ facial expressions. That is, it is possible that the teenage genius could have done better if he had more socialized before. And some adults who have not socialized well could only do as much as the teen genius did. In short, we never know if teenagers tend to behave badly because of their innate developmental period or because of the amount of social experience.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IysnctaEAk&feature=related
The above link is to a TV show telling why teens do something risky, (as if adults never do…)
About the video clip: In the experiment, the intelligent teen struggles with judging facial emotions. According to the video, the amygdala, responsible for feeling emotions, develops first, and teens overestimate an emotional reward from a risky behavior until the prefrontal cortex, responsible for inhibition and planning, is fully developed in adulthood. The narrator emphasizes that even the genius teen has an underdeveloped brain compared to adults’.
What the video implies: All teenagers innately have undeveloped brains no matter how smart they are.
Critique: Does having a college degree at the age of 12 mean the same as being able to make moral judgments? One point to question the video clip is that we are not sure if the teenage genius had as much time as ordinary adults to experience judging others’ facial expressions. That is, it is possible that the teenage genius could have done better if he had more socialized before. And some adults who have not socialized well could only do as much as the teen genius did. In short, we never know if teenagers tend to behave badly because of their innate developmental period or because of the amount of social experience.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IysnctaEAk&feature=related
The above link is to a TV show telling why teens do something risky, (as if adults never do…)
Thursday, May 20, 2010
What People Mean
Since the brain makes decisions, the myth “Teens behave irresponsibly because of their immature brains” may not be actually a myth, but a true phenomenon. However, how people interpret this phenomenon may be problematic.
Interpretation 1: The teenage brain cannot develop to the adult level no matter what until they become a certain age.
Interpretation 2: No matter how parents and school teach teens to behave, they cannot behave like adults.
Interpretation 3: All teens from the age of puberty to 19 years-old, are coherently less capable of responsible decision making than adults.
Interpretation 4: Adults are coherently better at making decisions, so they should be responsible for their children’s life decisions.
Interpretation 5: “The only one who knew the danger of the teenage brain is the auto insurance industry, which imposes considerably high premium on those who are under 25” (A famous joke among neuroscientists)
Possible impacts of these interpretations are discussed in the post Most Important Misunderstanding.
Interpretation 1: The teenage brain cannot develop to the adult level no matter what until they become a certain age.
Interpretation 2: No matter how parents and school teach teens to behave, they cannot behave like adults.
Interpretation 3: All teens from the age of puberty to 19 years-old, are coherently less capable of responsible decision making than adults.
Interpretation 4: Adults are coherently better at making decisions, so they should be responsible for their children’s life decisions.
Interpretation 5: “The only one who knew the danger of the teenage brain is the auto insurance industry, which imposes considerably high premium on those who are under 25” (A famous joke among neuroscientists)
Possible impacts of these interpretations are discussed in the post Most Important Misunderstanding.
Mind Traps
Causation and correlation
Even if A and B are correlated, it doesn’t mean A causes B nor vice versa.
For example, suppose you lost your weight after you started taking an expensive supplement you got at Amazon.com. You may think that the supplement worked, but, in fact, we never know, since there are many other possible causes such as that you slept really well, that something stressful was gone in your work environment, or that you recovered from some unknown disease that had caused you gaining weight. Unless all these variables are well controlled in scientific laboratories, you cannot make any claim that the supplement actually works to you.
Similarly, even though undeveloped brain and risky behaviors are correlated, no scientific research has found that an undeveloped brain caused certain risky behaviors typical to teens. First, it is unethical to make teens actually take high-risk behaviors in a controlled setting. Therefore, scientists can experiment only on non-risky behaviors such as a gambling game, which cannot fully replicate risky behaviors in a variable-free setting. Collecting data from what actually happened in the society have other possible variables such as cultures, classes or peer-environments of teens.
Seeing what we expect to see
Once people form beliefs, people often unintentionally seek information that confirms their beliefs as well as find flaws in information that disconfirms their beliefs.
For example, suppose you wanted to get a new car, and you already have your favorite BMW in your mind. Any good review on the BMW easily get your attention, but any bad critique to the car only prompts you to question the reviewer by saying like “This author comments more on the BMW’s aesthetics compared to the one I read in the other magazine. He may not be an expert in mechanics. Why should I believe him?” We like confirming information maybe because we don’t have much time and resources to contemplate every decision we make.
Similarly, once people believe that teens behave badly because of their immature brains, they seek evidence that supports the belief. For example, suppose parents concluded the myth is true because they couldn’t discipline their kids well. After forming the belief they may unintentionally start finding evidence that supports the myth because, in their hidden desires, they do not want to spend more time on what they have already concluded.
Leveling Information
When the speaker/writer needs to be informative and interesting, they may present only parts that attract people.
For example, a car dealer tells that your favorite BMW has a super efficient gas mileage, 50mpg. However, what he does not tell you is that when and where the car has that mileage. Usually, the mileage in a car catalog is often measured at the manufacturer’s test course that is flat and oval like a track for athletes. The weather is nice too. Therefore, we cannot really tell how a car is really efficient in gas unless somebody tests it in a real environment.
Similarly, many newspaper articles, popular magazines and speakers for discipline seminars do not always give you the whole picture of primary scientific findings. For example, the NY Times articles in Read this/Not that section don’t mention limitations to their claims such as that scientists haven’t found any causation between the teenage brain structure, or functions, and risky behaviors typical to teens. It may be understandable because newspaper articles have limited space to provide attractive information to the reader. Since mentioning limitations to primary findings may spoil sensations to the reader, they may unintentionally, or intentionally, level information from primary sources that is less attractive to the reader.
Even if A and B are correlated, it doesn’t mean A causes B nor vice versa.
For example, suppose you lost your weight after you started taking an expensive supplement you got at Amazon.com. You may think that the supplement worked, but, in fact, we never know, since there are many other possible causes such as that you slept really well, that something stressful was gone in your work environment, or that you recovered from some unknown disease that had caused you gaining weight. Unless all these variables are well controlled in scientific laboratories, you cannot make any claim that the supplement actually works to you.
Similarly, even though undeveloped brain and risky behaviors are correlated, no scientific research has found that an undeveloped brain caused certain risky behaviors typical to teens. First, it is unethical to make teens actually take high-risk behaviors in a controlled setting. Therefore, scientists can experiment only on non-risky behaviors such as a gambling game, which cannot fully replicate risky behaviors in a variable-free setting. Collecting data from what actually happened in the society have other possible variables such as cultures, classes or peer-environments of teens.
Seeing what we expect to see
Once people form beliefs, people often unintentionally seek information that confirms their beliefs as well as find flaws in information that disconfirms their beliefs.
For example, suppose you wanted to get a new car, and you already have your favorite BMW in your mind. Any good review on the BMW easily get your attention, but any bad critique to the car only prompts you to question the reviewer by saying like “This author comments more on the BMW’s aesthetics compared to the one I read in the other magazine. He may not be an expert in mechanics. Why should I believe him?” We like confirming information maybe because we don’t have much time and resources to contemplate every decision we make.
Similarly, once people believe that teens behave badly because of their immature brains, they seek evidence that supports the belief. For example, suppose parents concluded the myth is true because they couldn’t discipline their kids well. After forming the belief they may unintentionally start finding evidence that supports the myth because, in their hidden desires, they do not want to spend more time on what they have already concluded.
Leveling Information
When the speaker/writer needs to be informative and interesting, they may present only parts that attract people.
For example, a car dealer tells that your favorite BMW has a super efficient gas mileage, 50mpg. However, what he does not tell you is that when and where the car has that mileage. Usually, the mileage in a car catalog is often measured at the manufacturer’s test course that is flat and oval like a track for athletes. The weather is nice too. Therefore, we cannot really tell how a car is really efficient in gas unless somebody tests it in a real environment.
Similarly, many newspaper articles, popular magazines and speakers for discipline seminars do not always give you the whole picture of primary scientific findings. For example, the NY Times articles in Read this/Not that section don’t mention limitations to their claims such as that scientists haven’t found any causation between the teenage brain structure, or functions, and risky behaviors typical to teens. It may be understandable because newspaper articles have limited space to provide attractive information to the reader. Since mentioning limitations to primary findings may spoil sensations to the reader, they may unintentionally, or intentionally, level information from primary sources that is less attractive to the reader.
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