After one of her teen daughters was caught in a risky behavior Gerrard will be the first to admit that unraveling the adolescent mind is not an easy thing.
But now it's Gerrard an Iowa State University psychology professor who has tried to answer that question scientifically through analysis of research from the last 12 years on adolescent risk-taking. She was invited by the Association of Psychological Science to deliver a presentation titled "A Dual Process Approach to Adolescent Decision-Making: Applications to Cancer Risk and Prevention" at its annual convention last week in Washington, D.C.Her analysis included research she conducted with ISU colleagues on more than 10,000 youths from across the country regarding such things as smoking, use of alcohol and/or drugs, or practicing unsafe sex. She's found that one of the biggest reasons teens are so hard to figure out is because there is an impulsive element to their behavior.
"There's actually been a series of studies we've done over the last 10 or 12 years designed specifically to ask questions about what's going through their heads, or what's not going through their heads as they're making these decisions," she said. "And what's not going through their heads is a big part of the story. "What's novel about this research is that we've demonstrated that quite a bit of adolescent decision-making is not reasoned on -- on any level," she said.
"It's not because it's motivated behavior, or they've thought about how much they want to do it. It's because they just do it." Her presentation detailed two ways humans process information to make decisions -- a more reasoned path that leads to intention to engage in a behavior; or a more intuitive path that leads to an openness or willingness to engage in a behavior. These two modes are always active in everybody, but a situation may lead an adolescent in one direction or another.
Some people are more prone to operate in a more reasoned fashion, while others are more impulsive. According to Gerrard, prior research on adolescent risk-taking behavior has treated teens like adults and assumed that they make reasoned decisions that lead to intentions to engage in specific behaviors. But she's found that their decisions are often not planned or even premeditated. Instead, they're reactive to "risk-conducive" circumstances that usually involve friends and peers.
"Parents ask kids, 'What were you thinking?' and they say, 'I don't know.' And they really don't know what they were thinking," she said. Gerrard said that the initial risk-taking experience will influence an adolescent's intention to repeat the behavior in the future. They do consult their conscience over risk-taking, but not always in a classic "good vs. evil" way. "From a kid's perspective, if you're operating in this more reasoned, thoughtful [experienced] mode -- then you have the proverbial devil and the angel over your shoulder," she said.
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Source-Medindia
SPH