Risk Taking Behavior Analysis

Adolescence is popularly known to be a very tumultuous stage in a person’s life. In the adolescent stage (also coined the identity vs. role confusion stage by theorist Erik Erikson) bodies are changing rapidly, emotions are unfamiliar and unexplainable, and refraining from succumbing to peer pressure is more challenging than ever.

Despite the lack of communication, the comparison between risk-takers and reckless people is a key factor in life. Everyone will most likely experience one of these once in their life, but the real question is which one will you be? Although they bear many minor similarities, the differences between reckless and risk takers are obvious.

A teenagers risk taking is a crucial part of their brains development and can significantly benefit their growth as a person. Recent test have shown that in social situations, teenagers are more likely to take risks. In the article, Beautiful Brains, the author, David Dobbs, discussed a study in which teenagers played a game alone, then with people in the room. “When teens drive the course alone, in what Steinberg calls the emotionally ‘cool’ situation of an empty room, they take risks at the same rates that adults do.” (Pbs.org) This shows that teenagers are capable of making good decisions and taking the same amount of risks as a developed adult. So many parents assume that they take unnecessary risk, when really, the teenager knows exactly

"There are two main features that seem to distinguish teenagers from adults in their decision making, during early adolescence in particular, teenagers are drawn to the immediate rewards of a potential choice and are less attentive to the possible risks. Second, teenagers in general are still learning to control their impulses, to think ahead, and to resist pressure from others."- Laurence Steinberg

The control adolescents express over the choices they make, like the rise and fall of the tide, is fluid and dependant on multiple factors. These factors--biography, biology and current situation--are essential to the adolescent decision-making process as they manage to influence, but not control, the choices we make.

* Factors influencing risk taking – drugs and alcohol can reduce inhibition and lead to sexual activity, peer pressure and family value system

Teen agers take risks because they

There are so many examples of child and adolescent behaviour is reported in the media on a daily basis. Such behaviour can be linked to a variety of different developmental theories, learning styles and sociocultural influences in learning and development. I decided to examine the article ‘Is teenage risk-taking vital for our species?’ from the guardian website. As it mentioned in the article above there are some descriptions needs to be understood. I think that the description of adolescence in the opening paragraph can be linked to Erikson’s idea on adolescent development. Erik Erikson was a psychologist who was a pupil of Sigmund Freud. He believed there are eight psychosocial stages that a child or young adult passes through. For him adolescence is a period when a young person is trying

Early-developing adolescents are also more vulnerable to making risky decisions because their physical and brain changes are happening on widely divergent tracks. Their physical development may garner invitations and opportunities with older teens and young adults (parties, drinking, etc.) just as changes in the brain trigger the desire for thrill-seeking and risk-taking. However, their brains are not fully developed, so the urge to experiment is not balanced by the capacity to make sound judgments (p.10).

What is high risk behavior? “High-risk behaviors are those that can have adverse effects on the overall development and well-being of youth, or that might prevent them from future successes and development. This includes behaviors that cause immediate physical injury (e.g., fighting), as well as behaviors with cumulative negative effects (e.g., substance use).” (Maria Rosario). Young people often encounter disappointment in love relationships that cause them to adjust their life path. As we see from the movie when Allison and Emily decided to join the gang group they did not think first what is the consequences of that and they did not realized that. And this is the most problems that youth are facing which is doing unknown things and pretend

For example, if one adolescent participates in early sexual initiation, other adolescents from his/her peer group are then more likely to form the attitude this action is appropriate and then also participate in the same risky behavior. Therefore, if an adolescent is allowed the opportunity to interact with risk-taking peers, positive family factors may no longer be a protective factor against risk taking behaviors (Smith et al. 2005). However, if parents are aware that their adolescent’s peer group participates in risky behaviors and restrict their adolescent’s involvement in the peer group, this parental monitoring may buffer the negative impact of the peer group. On the other hand, if a parent is less involved, possibly due to parenting stress, maternal depression, etc., then an adolescent may continue engaging with the risk taking peer group. Continued exposure to a group of risk taking peers will in turn influence the adolescent’s own risk taking attitudes and behaviors (Galan, 2016).

Over 70% of adolescent deaths each year are caused by risk-taking behaviors, such as reckless driving. Even though parents allow their adolescent to be more independent, adolescents tend to engage in more maladaptive, risky behaviors when unsupervised. Due to the immaturity of their prefrontal cortex, adolescents may not yet have the cognitive resources to effectively avoid risky behaviors and so parents may play an important role, helping their children to regulate their behaviors and engage in more adaptive decision making. Each adolescent took a simulated driving course with stoplights had to decide on either to stop or go by pressing one of two buttons. The goal was to get through the course as fast as they could, which resulted in more

However, a research article published in 2017 has a different perspective about adolescent decision-making. Instead of focusing on the brain ‘faulty’ wiring during this stage, this article focused on the positivity a teen’s risky choices. Entitled “Adaptive Adolescent Flexibility: Neurodevelopment of Decision-making and Learning in a Risky Context,” the authors found that when engaged in a task that tested risk taking behavior, older teenagers showed greater learning during the task compared to their younger counter parts (McCormick & Telzer, 2017).

Raising young teenagers in today’s society is difficult at best. Although the majority of parents aim to raise their children the right way, outside influences and pressures play a role in their child’s decision-making. For instance, promiscuity among adolescents is a constant issues most parents worry about during this stage of development. Teens are learning about sex from friends, movies, and television shows where it is glamorized and seen as something fun and exciting. What they negate to show is the negative aspects of premarital sex, and what comes with making such an important decision before marriage or even prior to reaching the proper maturity level. As a result, instead of focusing on their high school education, they are instead dealing with teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and other negative consequences that follow risky sexual behavior at an early age. Kearney and Levine (as cited by Whalen & Loper, 2013) suggest that, “Despite recent decreases in the rate of teenage pregnancy and increased prevention efforts, the Unites States continues to have the highest rate of teenage births of any industrialized country” (p. 347).Educating teens early may not always prevent them from choosing to engage in sexual behaviors; however, they will be better informed of the risks that come along with making these decisions, and hopefully will cause them to think before they act.

Adolescence is a time period when a child is trying to become its own person and eventually an adult. It’s a time period when a lot of changes are occurring. Whether it’s through their education moving from middle school to high school or changes within their brain as they age. Adolescents are going through puberty, hormonal changes and experimenting with different social groups within their society. The culture and the social aspects of a society can shape an adolescent into an adult, whether it is to set the adolescent up to succeed or fail. Everyone has their own life path and changes can occur that affect the biological, cognitive, developmental and social aspects of a person.