Guiding teens through adolescence presents its own difficulties. The teen brain is known to undergo large structural changes, which seems to increase the sensitivity of their dopamine signalling – a neurotransmitter associated with pleasure. This was once thought to make teens much more impulsive than younger children, as they actively seek out risky situations that could give them a bigger dopamine hit.
Yet laboratory experiments, which have attempted to examine the cognitive processes involved in risk appraisal, suggests that this is doing teens a deep injustice. These studies often take the form of gambling tasks. They might be given a multi-coloured spinner with an arrow in the middle, for instance. If the spinner lands on the correct colour, they have the chance of winning $10 (£9) – but there is a 50% chance of not winning anything. Or they could opt to take a smaller, but guaranteed pay-out of $5 (£4.50).
Contrary to the expectation that adolescents are inevitably drawn to risk, such studies show that teens tend to be more cautious, opting more often for the small sums of guaranteed income, compared with their younger peers. “When we provide adolescents with the opportunity to avoid taking risks, they actually choose the safe option more often than children,” says Ivy Defoe, an assistant professor in the department of child development and education at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, who recently published a paper reviewing the scientific studies of adolescent risk-taking.
From these results, Defoe concludes that teens aren’t necessarily hardwired to rebel. It’s often simply a matter of the situations that they find themselves in. As they gain independence away from the watchful eyes of their parents, there are many more opportunities to act rashly – whether that’s attempting to shoplift, trying an illegal drug, joining a gang, having unprotected sex, or racing their friends on the motorway. “Access to risk-conducive situations increases dramatically during adolescence and during emerging adulthood,” Defoe explains – and sometimes, it is hard to resist the temptations that brings.
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