The Role Of Nature And Nurture In Adolescent Risk Taking

If you know William Shakespeare you know the play “ The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet”, a tragic story that proves that love makes teens do crazy things. I have found evidence that teens make lots of risky discussions. Parents also affect the way teens act based on how they treat the kids. This story has many people wondering if they treat their kids bad how will the outcome turn out.

Others who don’t agree with with the idea that teens are incapable of making good decisions may say teenagers actually overestimate risks. In “Why the Teen Brain Is Drawn to Risk”, a researcher named Valerie Reyna’s data,” has shown how excessively teens tend to overestimate the risk: for example when asked about the risk of AIDS in one study, adolescents estimated that a teenage girl who is sexually active has a 60% chance of contracting HIV. (The actual odds are miniscule for most Americans.)” (qtd. in Szalavitz); basically saying teens overestimate risks they are aware of. While this data has scientific approval, a weakness in this statement is that other data has proven that adolescents engage in risky behavior when a risk is unknown (Szalavitz).

What do you think when you hear the word “teenager”? Most people think of teenagers as pugnacious and restless human beings. Their rebellious and rambunctious behavior usually leads people to believe this. Teens tend to participate in jeopardous activities such as dangerous driving, binge-drinking, or fighting that could land them in serious trouble, the ER or the police station. Although engaging in these exercises is strongly frowned upon, some studies show that most of these actions cannot be controlled. Adolescents are drawn to risky acts due to specific messengers in the brain, peer pressure and their odd methods of apprehending the outcomes of a situation.

Violence take multiple forms, many of which are covered in the nightly news. Murder, rape, familial abuse, bullying, workplace hostility, armed robbery—all of these are societal problems with far-reaching repercussions. There have long debates and discussions regarding whether nature or nurture influences individual violent behavior. People are concerned about what makes an individual to engage in violent behavior such murder or burglary among other types of crimes. They are also concerned about what makes people stop such behavior. However, there is no precise conception whether nature, nurture or both influence violence. Some people assume that, violent behavior results from individual’s life experiences or upbringing also known as nurture. Others feel that violent behavior is more complex and results from individual’s genetic character or nature. In other words, it is not clear whether violent behavior is inborn or occurs at some point in persons’ lives, but even it’s hard, emphasizing one and ignoring other influences is always an unwise way to go.

I gather this because evidence has been shown that teenager’s brains are impetuous and impulsive. In the article “Teenage Brains are Malleable and Vulnerable, Researchers Say”, by Jon Hamilton, readers can see that in paragraph 4 it states, “studies suggest that adolescent brains are ‘wired’ to engage in risky behavior”. These activities include drugs, unsafe sex, and drinking. Obviously, teenagers are drawn towards these acts while knowing that they are morally and ethically wrong. In “Romeo and Juliet”, the readers see actions of “love” between the two star-crossed soulmates. The audience

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.

Researchers can look at the brain of a teen to examine their behavioral decisions.Teenage brains these years are more active and dynamic which means it’s still developing.Processing in the Limbic system is a result of risky behavior.The construction of a teenage thinking brain is not cable of fully processing necessary to make responsible decisions.At this stage the brain is still developing.The brain changes depending on interactions, helpimg the teen make changes. At this time the brain will need focused and support for a healthy connection.Surrounding impacts the child faces such as challenging situations is an effective technique.Parents need to consider the teens emotional

The article “Inside the Teen Brain’ by Marty Wolner, states that the human brain provides parents with shocking new evidence to possibly explain the sometimes irrational, illogical, and impulsive behavior of teenagers. Teenage years are radically more active and dynamic than they previously thought. So teenagers are left with most of the information reaching their brains being processed in the emotional part (limbic system). Information processed in the limbic system without benefit increases the processing in the prefrontal cortex. It may result in impulsive, egocentric, and maybe even risky behavior choices. The prefrontal cortex of the teenage brain does not excuse inappropriate or irresponsible behavior from the teen. The brain is not yet

I decided to agree with Robert Epstein because adolescence, make decisions that are different from adults. Adolescence has a brain that is still developing and growing which make adolescence take a risk, but as for an adult, they already did their time and learn to not to make any risks. I feel as though people may not see adults, making a risk, but they do and they are smart choices because their brain has matured. Robert Epstein argues that we blame teen turmoil on the immature brains. But did the brain cause the turmoil, or did the turmoil shape the brain? He thinks that its a myth about the teen brain. Teens tend to make risk taking inevitable, by making poor decisions, having bad behavior, and teens also to make risk by their culture environment. First I was debating with myself If did not choose No because Robert Epstein argues that we blame teen turmoil on the immature brain, but did the brains cause turmoil, or did the turmoil shape the brain? which he thinks it is "The Myth of Teen Brains." I agreed with that fact, I do believe that culture has a big effect on the brain development. Only reason I agree on this statement because of how I was raised in a cultural environment that has an effect on my brain as teen and now as an adult my brain has expanded and analyze things a little different.

No one can be certain whether nature or nurture is the cause for criminal behavior. However, research has stated that it is more often an interaction between genes and the environment that predicts criminal behavior (Jones, 2005). Through a biological perspective, it is determined that criminal behavior is due to genetics and/or neurological conducts. It concludes that criminals are born due to their criminal traits being passed down through genetic or chromosomal mutation. Another explanation of criminal behavior within the biological perspective are the neurochemicals within our brains and body. There many regulated chemicals in the brain that determines thought process, perception and action. Like the arguments for genetic and chromosomal mutation, any abnormal anomalies or chemical imbalance can heavily impact behavior (Schram, 2018). This goes for any damages to some parts of the brain that controls emotions, reason and logic. Problems with the biological perspective are the following: 1. It provide little explanations for a small of minority of offenders with specific conditions (Levitt, 2013). 2. Disregard the effect of environmental influences and life experiences that also impact behavior. 3. Since criminality is based on biology, it is unchangeable, therefore, no one is to be blamed for their actions. Lastly, 4. Famous studies on biological factors of criminality (ex: the twin, family and adoption studies) maintained an intertwined relationship with social

The objective of this study is to examine whether it is nature or nurture who plays the most vital role in a human’s behavior, specifically an individual’s criminal behavior. Criminal behavior is defined as an act or failure to act in a way that violates public law. Some believe that criminal behavior can be identified as early as conception, meaning that criminal behavior is because of your genes. While others believe that one’s upbringing and social learning environment directly contributes to the individual’s criminal behavior. This paper will provide the history on the ongoing debate of nature vs. nurture and answer the question of whether it is

     Some causes for conduct in adolescents are no discipline, unstructured discipline and a broken home. A broken home is one of the factors that can produce a delinquent child. A broken home reduces the opportunity for creating a strong attachment between child and parents and that reduces the parent’s ability to condition the child. Many theories concerning the causes of juvenile crime focus either on the individual or on society as the major contributing influence. Theories centering on the individual suggest that children engage in criminal behavior because they were not sufficiently penalized for previous delinquent acts or that they have learned criminal behavior through interaction with others.

What variables influence the adolescent developmental process? Does biology outweigh the effect of environment? Do teenagers mature in a continuous or discontinuous fashion? What effect do early verse later experience influence the young people’s maturity into adulthood? Through the ages, researches have investigated these questions to better understand the growth adolescent experience between the ages of ten to twenty-one. The intermingling of the biological, cognitive, and socioemotional process constitutes the development of an adolescent. By examining the effects of nature verse nurture, continuous verse discontinuous development, and early verse later experiences, we will conclude that the developmental process in an adolescent is the intertwining of all these variables and not a result of one over the other.

Psychology is saying that risk-taking are in our Genes. If that being the case that would mean that it is part of our evolutionary string. Should we eat this meat, plant, or fruit. This is the same as should we climb that rock, build that building, or go in that cave. It all plays a role in how we became us as humans, but is it actually in our genes. Risk-taking is something that we do under our own thought process in our head. Not necessarily in our genes, but if you look at something and your brain like that’s not safe is that from your genes or driven outside or internal forces if you do it. It is hard to say for the reason that your brain receives signals telling you to do or not do. You can override that thought and do it anyways. As

Have you ever witnessed a teenager taking a risk? Adolescents are taking more risks than ever, such as drinking, vaping, texting while driving, having unprotected sex, and participating in extreme sports. Research suggests that there are, in fact, specific reasons why teens take risks. Three important effects of the drive to take risks in young people include dopamine, peer pressure, and a parents influence on their children.