The motivation and opportunity for positive risk taking is an adaptive feature of positive development during adolescence.
Young people have the capacity to make well-reasoned decisions as well as (and sometimes better than) adults, and can use this ability in combination with their passion to be involved in their communities.
The opportunity to be engaged in issues affecting communities supports many of the core developmental needs of the adolescent years.
Youth input is often missing in creating the policies that affect them.
Civic engagement, such as voting, can help adolescents learn about the world around them, take positive risks for the benefit of their communities, and find a sense of belonging and purpose.
The third discussion of our 2024 symposium focused on exploration and risk taking. Science journalist Lydia Denworth talked with Natasha Duell, assistant professor of Psychology and Child Development at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, LaJuan Allen, director of Vote16USA, and Audrey Rothenberg, a senior at Culver City High School and volunteer at Vote16 Culver City.
Natasha started by introducing the importance of risk taking during our adolescent years.
“It’s actually a very normal and adaptive aspect of development,” Natasha said. “Risk taking behavior is essential for establishing your independence from the family unit, for having the willingness to try new things, to potentially fail, to learn new skills, establish a personal sense of identity, and to start thinking about the things you believe in.”
Fortunately, she explained, the adolescent brain is designed to make young people want to take risks and try new things.
“The potential rewards of taking risks are more salient to you,” Natasha said.
The motivation to take risks is not the only feature of brain development during adolescence.
Natasha also explained that the prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain responsible for thinking about the future and regulating our behavior, is developing through our late 20s.
“By about age 15 or 16, adolescents are performing just as well as adults on tasks for ‘cold cognition,’” she said. “So if you are sitting and making decisions without external stimuli, like your friends egging you on, then you perform just as well as adults.”
“The capacity for things like voting is actually online by mid-adolescence,” she added.
LaJuan expanded on the idea of shifting the voting age to reflect this capacity.
“Lowering the voting age is really about harnessing that hypersensitivity that is happening during adolescence,” he said. “It’s about allowing young people who are seeking rewards not just for themselves but also for the betterment of those around them in their community.”
The opportunity to be engaged in issues affecting our communities supports many core developmental needs of adolescence besides exploration and risk taking, including the need to find meaning and purpose through contribution, learning to make decisions, building a sense of identity, and feeling respected.
“By expanding youth voting rights, we are not just talking about expanding democracy,” said LaJuan. “It’s also about ensuring that young people understand that they have a real role in society, a real voice.”
Audrey said she was inspired by this cause and got involved in her local Vote16 Culver City chapter as a freshman. She explained that it helped her take positive risks and find her voice.
“As soon as I started going to those meetings,” she said, “I thought, ‘Wow! I really want to be able to speak and to tell people what is going on inside of our schools, and inside of our cities, that is really negatively affecting youth.’”
Audrey said working with Vote16 pushed her to explore as she began to research what was going on in her city and school politics.
“It became really noticeable that all our school board really needed, and our city council, was to hear students,” she said.
Audrey said she had a chance to reflect on the value of risk taking as she and her peers worked to get signatures for a ballot measure to lower the voting age in Culver City for school board and municipal elections. They knocked on doors, she explained, hearing “no” over and over again, yet they continued to risk that rejection for a cause they believed in.
“Maybe risk comes before identity or belonging,” she said. “You have to take that initial jump to be able to find your community and find where you belong and find who you are as an individual.”
“Relating it to Vote16,” said LaJuan, “I think young people are trying to find their role, their purpose, and having a community that is receptive to that is important.”
In the second discussion of our 2024 brian development symposium, science journalist Lydia Denworth spoke with Veronica Terriquez, PhD, MEd, professor at UCLA, Jose Salvador Orellana, executive director and co-founder of LOUD for Tomorrow, and Jessa Bayudan, volunteer and alumni of LOUD for Tomorrow, about the importance of creating spaces for diverse communities where adolescents feel they belong and are empowered to become agents of change.
In the first discussion at our 2024 Adolescent Brain Development Symposium, science journalist Lydia Denworth spoke with Eva Telzer, associate professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Cheyenne Brady, associate director of youth programs at the Center for Native American Youth, and Jenna Makes Good, a fellow within the Center for Native American Youth, about the importance of helping young people develop their identity through culturally informed civic engagement organizations and opportunities.
