Question

Steinberg asks two fundamental questions about high risk taking teens. What are they? He supports resistance to peer influence and impulsive behavior to the socio-emotional system. What does he mean by this? How does this contribute to juvenille deliquency and developmental factors in the formation of criminal behavior.

Answer 1

Laurence Steinberg assumes that teen agers are more likely to engage in risk taking behaviours when compared to children and adults.

According to this assumption, he developed two fundamental questions, which were:

1. What are the cause that increases the risk taking behaviour between childhood to adolescence?

2. How does the risk taking behaviour reduces from adolescence to adulthood?

Steinberg reported that the answer lies in the developing brain structure of the adolescents. The two brain systems namely - The social emotional system and the cognitive control system are under going maturation during the adolescent period, but at different intervals. During adolescence, the socio emotional system is more active than the cognitive control sytem, that makes the teen to engage in more risk taking behaviours than the adults, who have more active cognitive control system that limits their risk taking behaviours.

Resistence to peer influence and impulsive behaviours:

It is not always the case where the socio emotional system is dominating over the cognitive control system during adolescence, where the teens could also have control over their peer influence and impulsive behaviours towards risk taking. This is possible where the socio emotional system is not highly aroused, in situations like, the teen ager being alone or amongst peers who are not provoking risk taking behaviours. In such cases, the cognitive control system regulates the behaviours of the teens where they rationally think of what is appropriate to the situation rather than being highly arroused to seek pleasure.

Consequences:

Though the cognitive control system may partially guide the behaviours of the teens, the socio emotional system influences most of the teen's behaviours. This may lead to high risk taking behaviours that includes, rash driving, drug usage, alcohol consumption, smoking, sex practices, engaging in violent behaviours such as getting in to physical fights or verbal abuses, damaging the public property, negligence towards rules or laws and disobidience towards authority.

This might lead to the development of inappropiate habits in the teens, which might make them to engage in criminal activities also. The teen might initially start these behaviour for feeling pleasurable and also to feel competent amongst his peers, but this might eventually develop in to a habit, where the teen keeps increasing such behaviours in to more and more vulnerable ones like breaking the rules, stealing, or harming people which might ultimately lead to juvenille deliquency.