s Mailings Review View Aav Hesding 2 Discuss some of the dificulties adolescents
ID: 3453759 • Letter: S
Question
s Mailings Review View Aav Hesding 2 Discuss some of the dificulties adolescents face in day to day decision making and how these difficulties are related to their basic cognitive abilities How might either Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development or Information Processing Theory explain difficulties you identified above? Use one of the theories above to describe how it would explain adolescent's collective risk for one of the following: early sexual activity, pregnancy, drug use, suicide, or delinquency MacBook AirExplanation / Answer
Longitudinal studies on cognitive development show that the human brain continues to mature and develop throughout childhood and adolescence and well into early adulthood. In particular, the amygdala that is responsible for immediate reactions including fear and aggressive behavior is found to be more predominantly active in adolescents during decision making propocesses. Thus, social situations (approach-avoidance conflicts, or approach-approach conflicts between two positive goals) which deman greater emotional costs or risks are likely to induce poorer decision-making and impede effective resolution of problems because adolescents are likely to experience more negative emotional consequences and may experience reduction in their ability to think rationally.
Moreover, the frontal cortex, the area of the brain that controls reasoning and helps us think before we act, develops later and is still changing and maturing well into adulthood. Other changes in the brain during adolescence include a rapid increase in the connections between the nerve cells in the brain and making the brain pathways more effective. Nerve cells develop myelin sheath that help the cells communicate. All these changes are established as essential for the development of coordinated thought, action, and behavior and occur at different rates in adolescents and adults.These developmental changes in the brain indicate that adolescents respond differently to situations which involve complex decision-making and problem-solving compared to adults.
Thus, such cognitive factors indicate that there is a greater chance of experiencing difficulties in the everyday decision making and problem solving abilities in adolescence.
adolescents are more likely to act on impulse, they are more prone to misinterpret social cues and emotions And therefore get involved in fights instead of seeking adaptive decisions that pacify a problem of conflict. Anothe4 major difficulty that they make face while solving a problem is to pause to think about the consequences of their actions. Instead, their action oriented-ness makes them take impulsive and hheuristic solutions and choices. Thus, their proneness towards more emotional decisions makes them more vulnerable to risk taking and dangerous behaviours.
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