Adolescents Are More Likely to Take Risks, and That’s a Good Thing
April 17, 2019
Filed in: Exploration & Risk Taking
It's true: adolescents are more likely to take risks and more sensitive to social feedback than adults. At the DIBS Center for Cognitive Neuroscience on April 5, Center board member Dr. Adriana Galván reviewed the neuroscience and explained how these qualities are, in fact, perfectly adaptive to the developmental tasks of adolescence. Medical Xpress reports.
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December 4, 2025
NSCA member Jacqueline Nesi was quoted in the New York Times discussing the recent Pediatrics article that suggests giving smartphones to adolescents before the age of 12 could pose health and well-being risks. “Giving a child a device with access to everything on the internet is going to be risky,” says Nesi, but “it’s incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to get that kind of causal evidence on this topic.” Caregivers “do not need to wait for perfect evidence to make these kinds of decisions,” she explains; they should feel empowered to trust their gut and to hold off on giving their child a smartphone until everyone is ready.
November 19, 2025
For the third time in her career, Candice L. Odgers, a member of the National Scientific Council on Adolescence, UC Irvine’s Chancellor’s Professor of psychology, and UC Irvine’s director of research and faculty development, has earned a spot on Clarivate’s 2025 “Highly Cited Researchers” list.
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