The body changes just reviewed are dramatic, but even more life-changing are cognitive advances. Teenagers no longer think like children, but they do not yet think like adults. We begin our discussion with the neurological changes of adolescence and then explore the intellectual ones.

Like the rest of the body, parts of the brain grow at various rates. Myelination and maturation occur in sequence, proceeding from the lower and inner parts of the brain to the cortex, and from the back to the frontal and then the prefrontal cortex (Sowell et al., 2007). That means that the limbic system (site of fear and anxiety) matures before regions where planning, emotional regulation, and impulse control occur (see Figure 9.3).

Furthermore, hormones directly target the amygdala (a key component of the limbic system) (Romeo, 2013), but full functioning of the cortex requires time more than hormones, which means that the prefrontal cortex is not mature until years of experience beyond the teen years.

This developmental mismatch is a particular problem in the twenty-first century when the hormones of puberty begin much earlier than social maturation. Teenagers are fully grown a decade before they are ready for adult roles. The result: Emotional rushes are unchecked by caution, reflection, or planning.

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Teens seek excitement and pleasure, especially the joy of a peer’s admiration (Galván, 2013). In fact, when others are watching, teens find it thrilling to take daredevil risks that produce social acclaim (Albert et al., 2013). Especially when they are with friends, the thrill of new experiences and sensations can overpower the caution that their parents have tried to instill. Fatal car accidents, with many passengers, are one result.

The normal sequence of brain maturation (limbic system at puberty, prefrontal cortex sometime in the early 20s) combined with the earlier onset of puberty means that, for contemporary teenagers, emotions rule behavior for a decade.

When stress, arousal, passion, sensory bombardment, drug intoxication, or depri-vation occur, the adolescent brain is flooded with impulses that might shame adults. Teenagers brag about being so drunk that they were “wasted,” “bombed,” “smashed”—a state most adults try to avoid and would be ashamed to admit.

The parts of the brain dedicated to analysis are immature until long after the first hormonal rushes and sexual urges. Sadly, teenagers have access to fast cars, lethal weapons, and dangerous drugs before their brains are mature. My friend said to his neighbor, who gave his son a red convertible for high school graduation, “Why didn’t you just give him a loaded gun?” The mother of the 20-year-old who killed 20 children and 7 adults in Newtown, Connecticut, did just that. He killed her.

A more common example comes from teens sending text messages while they are driving. In one survey, among U.S. high school seniors who have their driver’s license, 60 percent texted while driving within the past month, although that is illegal almost everywhere (MMWR, June 13, 2014). More generally, despite quick reflexes and better vision, far more teenagers die in motor-vehicle accidents than older drivers do. Thoughtless impulses and poor decisions are to blame.

Any decision, from whether to eat a peach to where to go to college, requires balancing risk and reward, caution and attraction. Experiences, memories, emotions, and the prefrontal cortex help people choose to avoid some actions and perform others. Since the reward parts of adolescents’ brains are stronger than the inhibition parts (Luna et al., 2013), many adolescents act in ways that seem foolhardy to adults.

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BENEFITS OF ADOLESCENT BRAIN DEVELOPMENT It is easy for adults to be critical of adolescent behavior and blame it on hormones, peers, culture, or the latest chosen culprit, brains. Exaggerated metaphors have changed from blaming puberty as the cause of “storm and stress” to blaming brains for “all gas and no brakes” (Payne, 2012).

Yet remember that difference is not always deficit. Gains as well as losses are part of every developmental period, and continuity from one life period to another is evident even as each stage includes specific problems. What might be the benefits of the adolescent brain?

Increasing myelination and slower inhibition allows lightning fast reactions, making adolescent athletes quick and fearless as they steal a base, tackle a fullback, or sprint when their lungs feel about to burst. Ideally, coaches channel such bravery.

Furthermore, as the brain’s reward areas activate positive neurotransmitters, teenagers become happy. A new love, a first job, a college acceptance, or even an A on a term paper can produce a rush of joy, to be remembered and cherished lifelong.

Teenagers need to take risks and learn new things, because “[t]he fundamental task of adolescence—to achieve adult levels of social competence—requires a great deal of learning about the complexities of human social interactions” (Peper & Dahl, 2013, p. 135). That is exactly what their brains enable adolescents to do.

Synaptic growth enhances moral development as well. Adolescents question their elders and forge their own standards. This is an asset if adolescent values are less self-centered and more relevant to current conditions than those of older generations. Values embraced during adolescence are more likely to endure than those acquired later, after brain connections are firmly established.

Thus, the developing prefrontal cortex “confers benefits as well as risks. It helps explain the creativity of adolescence and early adulthood, before the brain becomes set in its ways” (Monastersky, 2007, p. A17). The emotional intensity of adolescents “intertwines with the highest levels of human endeavor: passion for ideas and ideals, passion for beauty, passion to create music and art” (Dahl, 2004, p. 21).

Adolescents move past concrete operational thinking (discussed in Chapter 7) and consider abstractions. Jean Piaget described a shift to formal operational thought, including “assumptions that have no necessary relation to reality” (Piaget, 1950/2010, p. 148).

EGOCENTRISM For many adolescents, the first step toward abstract thought is very personal, although unrealistic, thought. They think deeply about themselves. One reason adolescents spend so much time talking on the phone, e-mailing, and texting is that they like to ruminate about each nuance of whatever they have done, might have done, and could do.

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They also imagine what others—teachers, parents, friends, even classmates who seem to ignore them—think of them. Together these two aspects of thought are called adolescent egocentrism, first described by David Elkind (1967).

Egocentrism leads adolescents to interpret everyone else’s behavior as if it were a judgment on them. A stranger’s frown or a teacher’s critique could make a teenager conclude that “No one likes me” and then deduce that “I am unlovable” or even claim that “I can’t leave the house.”

More positive casual reactions—a smile from a barista or an extra-big hug from a younger brother—could lead to “I am great” or “Everyone loves me” or similarly distorted self-perception. Given the rapid mood changes of adolescence, such conclusions are usually short-lived, susceptible to reversal with another offhand remark.

Several aspects of adolescent egocentrism are named, among them the personal fable and the invincibility fable, which often appear together (Alberts et al., 2007). The personal fable is the belief that one is unique, destined to have a heroic, fabled, legendary life. Some 12-year-olds expect to play in the NBA, or become billionaires, or cure cancer. Invincible means impervious to harm.

Some adolescents see no contradiction between the personal fable and invincibility. Some believe that they will not be hurt by fast driving, unprotected sex, or addictive drugs unless fate wills it. If they survive unscathed from a dangerous risk, they may feel invincible, not relieved; special, not unlucky.

Egocentrism creates an imaginary audience in the minds of many adolescents. They believe they are at center stage, with all eyes on them, and they imagine how others might react to their appearance and behavior.

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The imaginary audience can cause teenagers to enter a crowded room as if they are the most attractive human beings alive. They might put studs in their lips or blast music for all to hear, calling attention to themselves. The reverse is sometimes evident: Many a 12-year-old refuses to leave the house with a bad haircut or the wrong shoes.

PIAGET’S EXPERIMENTS Egocentrism can coexist with more logical and abstract intelligence. Piaget and his colleagues devised tasks to assess formal operational thought (Inhelder & Piaget, 1958/2013b).

In one experiment (diagrammed in Figure 9.5), children of many ages balance a scale by hooking weights onto the scale’s arms. To master this task, they must realize that the weights’ heaviness and distance from the center interact reciprocally to affect balance.

The concept of balancing was completely beyond the 3- to 5-year-olds. By age 7, children could balance the scale by putting the same amount of weight on each arm, but they didn’t realize that the distance from the center mattered.

By age 10, children thought about location but used trial and error, not logic. Finally, by about age 13 or 14, some children hypothesized and tested the reciprocal relationship between weight and distance and developed the correct formula (Piaget & Inhelder, 1972).

In balancing, as in all of Piaget’s experiments, “in contrast to concrete operational children, formal operational adolescents imagine all possible determinants . . . [and] systematically vary the factors one by one, observe the results correctly, keep track of the results, and draw the appropriate conclusions” (P. Miller, 2011, p. 57).

HYPOTHETICAL-DEDUCTIVE REASONING One hallmark of formal operational thought is the capacity to think of possibility, not just reality. “Here and now” is only one of many alternatives, including “there and then,” “long, long ago,” “nowhere,” “not yet,” and “never.” As Piaget said:

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The adolescent . . . thinks beyond the present and forms theories about everything, delighting especially in considerations of that which is not. . . .

[Piaget, 1950/2010, p. 147]

Adolescents are primed to engage in hypothetical thought, reasoning about if–then propositions that do not reflect reality. For example, consider this question (adapted from De Neys & Van Gelder, 2009):

If all mammals can walk,

And whales are mammals,

Can whales walk?

Younger adolescents often answer “No!” They know that whales swim, not walk, so the logic escapes them. Some adolescents answer “Yes.” They understand if.

Possibility no longer appears merely as an extension of an empirical situation or of actions actually performed. Instead, it is reality that is now secondary to possibility.

[Inhelder & Piaget, 1958/2013b, p. 251; emphasis in original]

Because of this new ability, many adolescents sharply criticize their parents, their school, their society. They “naively underestimate the practical problems involved in achieving an ideal future for themselves or for society” (P. Miller, 2011, p. 59). Why doesn’t everyone get good health care; why don’t the Palestinians and Israelis agree; why doesn’t the teacher realize that my question is brilliant; why doesn’t Dad let me stay out past midnight?

In developing the capacity to think hypothetically, adolescents gradually become capable of deductive reasoning, or top-down reasoning. Deductive reasoning begins with an abstract idea or premise and then uses logic to draw specific conclusions. This ability improves during early adolescence (Markovits, 2014).

By contrast, during the primary school years, children accumulate facts and personal experiences (the knowledge base), asking what and why. The result is inductive reasoning, or bottom-up reasoning, with many specific examples leading to general conclusions (see Figure 9.6).

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One example of moving past personal experience in reasoning ability is the understanding of prejudice. Almost every adolescent knows that racism exists—and opposes it. However, children tend to think the core problem is the attitudes of individuals. Using inductive reasoning, they think that the remedy is to increase tolerance among individuals who are racist.

By contrast, adolescents begin to think, deductively, that policy solutions need to attack racism. That is formal operational thinking.

This interpretation arises from a study of adolescent agreement or disagreement with policies to reduce racial discrimination (Hughes & Bigler, 2011). Not surprisingly, most students in an interracial U.S. high school recognized disparities between African and European Americans and believed that racism was a major cause. What was surprising to the researchers is that age made a difference.

Among those who were aware of marked inequalities, more older adolescents (age 16 to 17) supported systemic solutions (e.g., affirmative action and desegregation) than did younger adolescents (age 14 to 15). The researchers wrote: “during adolescence, cognitive development facilitates the understanding that discrimination exists at the social-systemic level . . . racism awareness begins to inform views of race-conscious policies during middle adolescence” (Hughes & Bigler, 2011, p. 489).

In thinking about race and many other issues, neither adolescents nor adults necessarily reason at the formal operational level. Piaget probably overestimated the prevalence of this fourth period of intelligence. As now discussed, many contemporary scholars believe there are two modes of thinking, and that most people, most of the time, do not use formal operational thought (Barrouillet, 2011).

Advanced logic in adolescence is counterbalanced by the increasing power of intuitive thinking. A dual-process model of cognition has been formulated (Albert & Steinberg, 2011) (see Visualizing Development, p. 322). This echoes what you have learned about the brain: Sensation seeking temporarily outweighs impulse control (Duckworth & Steinberg, 2015).

INTUITION VERSUS ANALYSIS Cognitive psychologists use various terms for and descriptions of two modes of human cognition (Evans & Stanovich, 2013). The terms include: intuitive/analytic, implicit/explicit, creative/factual, contextualized/decontextualized, unconscious/conscious, gist/quantitative, emotional/intellectual, experiential/rational, personal/impersonal, hot/cold, systems 1 and 2. Although these two modes interact and can overlap, each mode is distinct (Kuhn, 2013).

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In describing adolescent cognition, here we use the terms intuitive and analytic.

The thinking described by the first half of each pair is easier and quicker, preferred in everyday life. We are all “predictably irrational” at times (Ariely, 2009). Sometimes, however, the second mode is needed, when deeper thought is demanded.

The discrepancy between the maturation of the limbic system and of the prefrontal cortex tilts adolescents toward the more emotional, personal, experiential mode. Adolescents tend to be “fast and furious” intuitive thinkers, unlike their teachers and parents, who prefer slower, more analytic thinking.

Experiences and role models influence choices, not only in deciding what to do but also in choosing which intellectual process to use in making a decision. Conversations, observations, and debate all advance cognition and lead to a deeper consideration of the facts (Kuhn, 2013). As they grow older, adolescents sometimes gain in logic and sometimes regress; the social context and training in statistics are major influences on adolescent cognition (Klaczynski & Felmban, 2014).

To test yourself on intuition and analysis, answer the following three problems:

[From Gervais & Norenzayan, 2012]

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Although many researchers find that logic gradually overcomes biased reasoning during adolescence, whether or not such analysis is used depends on specifics. One instance when being older did not improve logic occurred when adolescents were asked to decide how likely a hypothetical girl named Jennifer, described as lazy and not well liked, was to be obese. Among those teenagers who idealized thinness, the older ones more often jumped to the illogical conclusion that Jennifer was probably obese (Klaczynski & Felmban, 2014).

In dozens of studies, being smarter as measured by an intelligence test does not advance logic as much as having more experience, in school and in life. Students can learn to use statistics and to respect expert opinion, and that helps them think more rationally—but not always (Kail, 2013). Many parents of smart adolescents are surprised to realize this, as in the following.

PREFERRING EMOTIONS Why do high school students, well aware of the logic of the science, sometimes not use formal operational thinking? Dozens of experiments and extensive theorizing have found some answers (Albert & Steinberg, 2011).

Essentially, analysis is more difficult than intuition. It requires questioning ideas that are comforting and familiar. Once people of any age reach an emotional conclusion (sometimes called a “gut feeling”), they resist changing their minds.

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Furthermore, weighing alternatives and thinking of possibilities can be paralyzing. The systematic, analytic thought that Piaget called formal operational is slow and costly, not fast and frugal, wasting precious time when a young person wants to act.

One characteristic of adolescents—suspicion of authority—may advance analysis, because teenagers use logic to argue against tradition. But, the same trait may work in the opposite direction. One of my students used logic (quoting the U.S. Constitution) to argue with a police officer who was questioning her young cousin: When the officer grabbed the cousin, she impulsively bit his hand—and spent months in jail.

It is helpful to realize that, even when they are analytical, teenagers might analyze a situation and reach a conclusion other than the one their parents would. A 15-year-old who is offered a cigarette, for example, might rationally choose peer acceptance over the distant risk of cancer. How likely is a teenager who wants to be “cool” or “bad” to say, “No thank you, my mother wouldn’t approve”?

More generally, adults want adolescents to take care of their health, which means avoiding cigarettes, junk food, and promiscuity. But emotional thinking pushes in the opposite direction, and some analytic arguments (about the risk of cancer, for instance) are dismissed (Gibbons et al., 2012a). That is why effective messages to halt teen smoking discuss smelly breath, stained fingers, and yellow teeth.

Adults over age 40 grew up without the Internet, instant messaging, Twitter, Snapchat, blogs, cell phones, smartphones, MP3 players, tablets, or digital cameras. In contrast, today’s teenagers have been called digital natives, although if that term implies that they know everything about digital communication, it is a misnomer (boyd, 2014).

A huge gap between those with and without computers was bemoaned a decade ago; it divided boys from girls and rich from poor (Dijk, 2005; Norris, 2001). Now that digital divide is shrinking, and a new one is evident, between the old and the young.

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As costs tumble, the smartphone has been particularly important among low-SES adolescents of every ethnic group, used primarily to connect with friends (Madden et al., 2013). Connection to peers has always been important to teenagers, and that has always been feared by adults—who in earlier generations feared that the automobile, or the shopping mall, or rock and roll would lead their children astray.

TECHNOLOGY AND COGNITION In general, educators accept, even welcome, students’ facility with technology. There are “virtual” schools in which students earn all their credits online, never entering a school building, and in several school districts all the students have tablets.

Remember that research before the technology explosion found that direct instruction, practice, conversation, and experience advance adolescent thought. Social networking via technology may speed up this process, as teens communicate daily with dozens—perhaps hundreds or thousands—of “friends” via texting or instant messaging.

Most secondary students check facts, read explanations, view videos, and thus grasp concepts they would not have understood without technology. For some adolescents, the Internet is their only source of information about health and sex. Almost every high school student in the United States uses the Internet for research, finding it quicker and more extensive than books on library shelves.

Educators claim that the most difficult aspect of technology is teaching students how to evaluate sources, some reputable, some nonsensical. To this end, teachers explain the significance of .com, .org, .edu, and .gov (O’Hanlon, 2013).

ABUSE AND ADDICTION? Parents worry about sexual abuse via the Internet. Research is reassuring: Although sexual predators lurk online, most teens never encounter them. Sexual abuse is a serious problem, but if sexual abuse is defined as a perverted older stranger taking advantage of an innocent teenager met online, it is “extremely rare” (Mitchell et al., 2013, p. 1226).

The data show that the percent of teenagers who say that someone online tried to get them to talk about sex declined since 2000 from 10 to 1. Those 1 percent were almost always solicited by another young person whom the teenager already knew—a Facebook friend, for instance (Mitchell et al., 2013).

For some adolescents, chat rooms, video games, and Internet gambling may be considered addictive, taking time from active play, schoolwork, and friendship. Internet addiction is considered a problem in many nations (Tang et al., 2014; Y–H. Lee et al., 2015). For example, among high school students, 15 percent in Turkey and 12 percent in India are said to be addicted to computer use (S¸as¸maz et al., 2014; Yadav et al., 2013).

However, some scholars worry that adults tend to pathologize normal teen behavior, particularly in China, where rehabilitation centers are strict—some would say abusive—in keeping teenagers from Internet use (Bax, 2014). Parents may make the same mistake elsewhere (boyd, 2014).

The North American psychiatrists who wrote the new DSM-5 decided against including Internet use as an addiction. Instead, they wrote that further study was needed.

CYBER DANGER When a person is bullied via electronic devices, usually via social media, text messages, or smartphone videos, that is cyberbullying. The adolescents involved in cyberbullying are usually already bullies or victims or both, with bully-victims especially likely to engage in, and suffer from, cyberbullying. Technology does not create bullies; it gives them another means to act and a larger audience, which multiplies the harm (Kowalski et al., 2014).

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Texted and posted rumors and insults can “go viral,” reaching thousands, transmitted day and night. Some adolescents take videos of others drunk, naked, or crying and send them to dozens of others, who may send them to yet others, who may post them on YouTube or Vine. Since young adolescents are impulsive and low on judgment, cyberbullying is particularly prevalent and cruel between ages 11 and 14.

Although the causes of all forms of bullying are similar, each form has its own sting. Cyberbullying is most harmful if the victim believes in the imaginary audience, if sexual impulses are new, and if impulsive thoughts precede analytic ones. All that means that young adolescent victims of cyberbullying are likely to suffer from depression, even suicide (Bonanno & Hymel, 2013).

The vulnerability of adolescence was tragically evident for a California 15-year-old (Sulek, 2013). At a sleepover, Audrie Pott and her friends found alcohol. She got so drunk that she blacked out, or passed out. On the next school day, three boys in her school were bragging that they had had sex with her, showing cell-phone pictures to prove it. The next weekend, Audrie hanged herself. Only then did her parents learn what had happened.

One aspect of this tragedy will come as no surprise to adolescents: sexting, as sending sexual photographs is called. As many as 30 percent of adolescents report having received sext photos. Many teens send their own sexy “selfies” and are happy to receive sext messages (Temple et al., 2014). As with Internet addiction, researchers have yet to agree on how to measure sexting or how harmful it is.

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There are two dangers: (1) Pictures may be forwarded without the person’s knowledge, and (2) those who send erotic self-images risk serious depression if the reaction is negative (Temple et al., 2014). Many teens have distorted self-concepts—no wonder sexting is fraught with trouble.

The danger of all forms of technology lies not in the equipment but in the cognition of the user. That is the conclusion of a national survey which found that 7 percent of all teens willingly sent sext photos of themselves, yet sexting correlated with risky sex, depression, and low self-esteem (Ybarra & Mitchell, 2014).

As is true of many aspects of adolescence (puberty, eating disorders, brain development, egocentric thought, use of contraception, and so on), context, adults, peers, and the adolescent’s own personality and temperament “shape, mediate, and/or modify effects” of technology (Oakes, 2009, p. 1142).

One careful observer claims that instead of being native users of technology, many teenagers are naive users—believing they have privacy settings that they do not have, trusting sites that are markedly biased, misunderstanding how to search for and verify information (boyd, 2014).

Educators can help with all this—but only if they themselves understand technology and teens. Teens are intuitive, impulsive, and egocentric, often unaware of the impact of what they send or overestimating the validity of what they read. Adults should know better, but this discussion makes it apparent that people of all ages are sometimes illogical and emotional about technology.

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