Adolescents are increasingly capable of making meaningful contributions to others. Contributing in substantive ways promotes the autonomy, identity, and relationship skills adolescents are developing. This article from Perspectives on Psychological Science looks at the neural and biological foundations of the need to contribute, and how social environments can provide opportunities for young people to help others.
STUDY: The Need to Contribute During Adolescence
STUDY: The Need to Contribute During Adolescence
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This fact sheet gives an overview of adolescent brain development and explains how access to resources, opportunities, and meaningful relationships during adolescence can build connections within our brains and with the world around us that support us into adulthood.
Brain development during adolescence is fundamentally a story of connections.
Around age 9 or 10, hormonal changes kick off a period of intense learning and development, when brain cells form, strengthen, and streamline connections in response to our experiences more rapidly than in any period of life after early childhood.
Activity increases especially in the brain networks that propel us to explore the world, learn from our mistakes, and connect with others in new ways. In turn, these new experiences prompt our brain cells to connect with other neurons in ways that help us adapt to new events and new information. These neural connections become stronger the more we use them, while unused connections are pruned away, helping the brain become more efficient at acquiring and mastering new skills and new ways of thinking.
This brain-building learning happens through direct experiences in our environments and interactive, responsive relationships—with our families and peers, in our classrooms and neighborhoods, in community activities, and even online. The resources, opportunities, and experiences we as adults provide in and out of school can help young people’s brains build the extensive networks of connections that will manage the complex knowledge and behaviors needed to navigate adulthood.
Learning by Exploring the World Around Us
One of the networks that changes significantly with the increase in hormones and dopamine at the beginning of puberty is the “reward system” in our brain. Heightened activity in this system increases the feeling of reward we get from exploring the world, taking risks, and learning from the results.
Meanwhile, the network of brain regions that make up the “social brain” also changes during adolescence. These changes help us tune into social and emotional cues, like facial expressions or social rejection and approval, and increase our desire to earn respect and contribute to others. It also enables us to learn the nuances of changing social contexts in ways that help prepare us for adult relationships.
The prefrontal cortex (the region of the brain that orchestrates critical thinking and behavioral control) undergoes its most rapid period of development during adolescence. It builds on many other systems within the brain to manage our responses to the flood of new information and intensifying emotions. Engaging with other people and our environment and learning from our successes and our mistakes, known as “action-based learning,” helps shape the prefrontal cortex by strengthening the connections within it and between it and other brain networks. We learn through repeated practice—which includes trying and sometimes failing—what is adaptive and appropriate in different situations and how to guide our behavior accordingly, in ways that equip us to pursue new forward-looking goals.
When adults provide youth with opportunities to try new things, to practice navigating emotions, and to learn from failures along the way, it helps build the brain connections that we all need to grow into healthy, thriving adults.
Policies, Experiences, and Mindsets Shape the Connecting Brain
Although we can continue to learn new skills and behaviors as adults, the adaptability of the brain during adolescence means that these connections are much more likely to form quickly in response to experiences. The extent of these changes make the adolescent years a critical window when investments in the right policies and programs for youth can shape long-term positive development.
Likewise, this makes the adolescent years a time when negative experiences including racism, other forms of discrimination, poverty, or abuse can create steeper hills for young people to climb toward a healthy adulthood. When adults ensure that all young people, especially those who have experienced earlier adversity, have what they need along their journey, they can build the skills and capacities they need to thrive as adults. This includes opportunities to explore and take healthy risks, to connect with and contribute to those around us, to make decisions and learn from the outcomes, to develop a healthy sense of identity, and to rely on support from parents or other caring adults.
Understanding how and why the brain develops during adolescence lets us provide the support young people need to build healthy connections—in their world and within their brains—that will help our youth and our communities thrive.
This council report from the National Scientific Council on Adolescence offers research-based suggestions for policymakers and technology companies to ensure that digital tech used by middle-school-aged youth promotes positive development and keeps young users safe online.
Early adolescence—roughly ages 10 to 13—is a key time of exploration, discovery, rapid learning, and social and emotional change. It is also the point when many young people begin spending time in a larger online world.
Digital technology is not all good or all bad, but during early adolescence, its effects can be amplified. We now know enough from research on brain and social development and about the impacts of technology during these years that we can recommend standards and regulations for digital tech used by this age group that can support and protect our young people.
A new report from the National Scientific Council on Adolescence (NSCA) outlines the benefits and risks of digital technology during these years and offers specific suggestions for ways digital tech used by early adolescents can:
- Support healthy development and wellbeing
- Keep young users safe
- Incorporate and advance the best available research
- Provide access to positive learning to all young adolescents
To learn more, download the full report, Engaging, Safe, and Evidence-Based: What Science Tells Us About How to Promote Positive Development and Decrease Risk in Online Spaces for Early Adolescents.
Report authors Nick Allen, Ron Dahl, Jacqueline Nesi, and Candice Odgers talk with report lead Jennifer Pfeifer about the benefits and risks of digital technology during early adolescence, and how research-informed standards and regulations could support and protect youth online.
When Adolescents Contribute to Others it Supports their Well-Being and Their Communities
Fact sheet | Education | Community Engagement | Out-of-School Time
This fact sheet explains how opportunities to contribute to others can build our autonomy, agency, and identity and can support our sense of purpose during adolescence.
Adolescence is a time of remarkable opportunity and growth. In the years between ages 10 and 25, changes in our brains and social environments increase both our ability to contribute to others and the positive feelings we get from kind and helpful behaviors toward others.
When policies and programs support adolescents to find ways to contribute and cultivate their sense of purpose, it leads to healthier, more connected communities.
Adolescence is an important time for contributing to others. During the developmental period between childhood and adulthood, we forge our sense of who we are and how we want to contribute to the world. Throughout our adolescent years, our physical, cognitive, and emotional capabilities mature in ways that allow us to contribute to our friends, family, schools, and broader community in deeper, more meaningful ways than when we were younger.
Opportunities to not only contribute, but to reflect on the meaning of our contributions and to have our contributions recognized, build our autonomy, agency, and identity and can support our sense of purpose—the forward-looking feeling that our lives are directed and significant. All of these are important to positive development during adolescence, helping us navigate adversity and achieve goals throughout adulthood.
Research on adolescent development helps explain how opportunities to contribute to others support well-being.
Brain development during adolescence supports our ability and motivation to contribute to others. The network of areas in our brain that activates in social interactions matures rapidly during our adolescent years, deepening our understanding of the complex feelings, perspectives, and needs of other people. We become better able to determine who needs our help and what kind of help they might need. In addition, brain regions associated with our sensitivity to rewards become more reactive during and after puberty, increasing the positive feelings we get from novel experiences as well as kind and helpful behaviors, such as contributing to others. Connections between these regions also improve during adolescence.
Our social environments—including families and peers—can motivate us to contribute to others. Socially, we become more motivated to find a valued place and role among our peers. Contributing is one way to feel valued: studies have shown that students who are helpful, cooperative, and sharing tend to be more appreciated and liked than those who use fear or intimidation to gain status. Young people from families and communities where contributing is a particular value seem to feel more of a sense of reward when helping.,
The right support can help young people who have been marginalized. Being marginalized as a result of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or religion can also motivate adolescents toward a sense of purpose to help others in their families, schools, or communities through activism or civic engagement. Family engagement, adult role models, connections through religious or other community groups, and support to process our experiences can all help young people cultivate a positive sense of purpose.
- Learn more about the cultivation of meaning and purpose during adolescence in the National Scientific Council on Adolescence’s Report 3: Cultivating Purpose in Adolescence.
Contributing to others provides adolescents the experiences they need to succeed as adults. Supporting friends and family builds the intimacy we need to form positive, long-lasting relationships in adulthood. Seeing that our actions can have a positive effect on the world can help us build a sense of autonomy, agency, and identity. Contributing to others also supports a sense of meaning and purpose, which are associated with greater emotional well-being, academic success, and resilience, all of which can be powerful assets as we navigate adversity and achieve goals throughout adulthood.
The opportunity to reflect on the experience of volunteering might be essential to ensuring positive developmental impacts from the activity. Reflecting on service we perform during our adolescent years—which can take place through journaling, art, essay writing, or group discussion—can help us consider the broader impacts of our contribution and attach meaning to the experience.
➢ Provide opportunities for young people to make meaningful contributions to their social groups and communities. Programs that support youth to contribute can have positive effects on their mental and physical health, support their academic success, and give them opportunities to explore ways they can be a force for good in our society, now and in the future.
➢ Policies and programs should address inequities in adolescents’ opportunities to make meaningful contributions in their everyday lives by ensuring that all young people have a range of options to contribute and to have their contributions recognized.
➢ Families are typically the first context where youth can contribute to others through common household chores such as cooking or taking care of siblings. Youth from many lower-income, ethnic-minority, and immigrant families play significant instrumental roles in their families, and the value of these contributions and the skills they require should be recognized by colleges and employers.
➢ While helping family is a type of contribution that can benefit youth, time-intensive caregiving can sometimes be a source of stress that negatively impacts mental health. Schools can support caregiving youth by offering flexibility in course schedules, awarding community service hours for their caregiving, and educating teachers and counselors about the experience of these youth. Learn more about how to support caregiving youth here.
➢ Involving middle and high school students in decision making around classroom and school policies like seating arrangements, learning activities, or grading practices has been shown to increase students’ motivation and connection to the school community.