In the January 2009 issue of this journal, Males argues that adolescent brain science perpetuates the “myth of adolescent risk taking.” He contends that those who study adolescent neuromaturation are biological determinists who ignore the profound social and environmental forces that influence adolescent behavior to further their own agendas. Males mischaracterizes developmental research and misinterprets public health data. This article analyzes his argument and provides a response based on the evidence. There is significant cross-species evidence that adolescence serves an important developmental function on the road to full maturation and is not merely an oppressive social construction. Research on neuromaturation can help elucidate both the vulnerabilities and tremendous potential of the adolescent brain. It also provides the opportunity to examine the role of social environments in shaping developmental processes and to explore how reasoned understandings of adolescent brain and biological development are being used to inform interventions that scaffold adolescent vulnerabilities.
Allen, M.T., & Matthews, K.A. (1997). Hemodynamic responses to laboratory stressors in children and adolescents: The influences of age, race, and gender. Psychophysiology, 34, 329-339.
2.
Anderson, V.A., Anderson, P., Northam, E., Jacobs, R., & Catroppa, C. ( 2001). Development of executive functions through late childhood and adolescence in anAustralian sample. Developmental Neuropsychology , 20, 385-406.
3.
Arnett, J.J. ( 1992). Reckless behavior in adolescence: A developmental perspective . Developmental Review, 12, 339-373.
4.
Badanich, K.A., Maldonado, A.M., & Kirstein, C.L. (2007). Chronic ethanol exposure during adolescence increases basal dopamine in the nucleus accumbens septi during adulthood. Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, 31, 895-900.
5.
Barr, R.G., Rivara, F.P., Barr, M., Cummings, P., Taylor, J., Lengua, L.J., et al. (2009). Effectiveness of educational materials designed to change knowledge and behaviors regarding crying and shaken-baby syndrome in mothers of newborns: A randomized, controlled trial. Pediatrics, 123, 972-980.
6.
Battro, A., Fischer, K., & Lena, P. ( 2008). The educated brain: Essays in neuroeducation. New York: Cambrdige University Press.
7.
Baumrind, D. ( 1987). A developmental perspective on adolescent risk taking in contemporary America. New Directions for Child Development , 37, 93-125.
8.
Blakemore, S., & Chhoudhury, S. (2006). Development of the adolescent brain: Implications for executive function and social cognition. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 47, 296-312.
9.
Bright, W. ( 1982). The legal rights of children and youth. In R. Blum (Ed.), Adolescent health care . New York: Academic Press. 47-56.
10.
Brown, S.A., McGue, M., Maggs, J., Schulenberg, J., Hingson, R., Swartzwelder, S., et al. (2008). A developmental perspective on alcohol and youths 16 to 20 years of age. Pediatrics, 121, S290-S310.
11.
Carskadon, M.A., Wolfson, A.R., Acebo, C., Tzischinsky, O., & Seifer, R. ( 1998). Adolescent sleep patterns, circadian timing, and sleepiness at a transition to early school days. Sleep, 21, 871-881.
12.
Caspi, A., Lyman, D., Moffitt, T.E., & Silva, P.A. ( 2003). Unraveling girls’ delinquency: Biological, dispositional, and contextual contributions to adolescent misbehavior. Developmental Psychology, 29, 19-30.
13.
Chen, L.H., Baker, S.P., & Li, G. ( 2006). Graduated driver licensing programs and fatal crashes of 16-year-old drivers: A national evaluation. Pediatrics , 118, 56-62.
14.
Crone, E.A., Bullens, L., van der Plas, E.A., Kijkuit, E.J., & Zelazo, P.D. ( 2008). Developmental changes and individual differences in risk and perspective taking in adolescence. Development and Psychopathology , 20, 1213-1229.
15.
Dahl, R.E. ( 1996). The impact of inadequate sleep on children’s daytime cognitive function. Seminars in Pediatric Neurology, 3, 44-50.
16.
Dahl, R.E. ( 2004). Adolescent brain development: A period of vulnerabilities and opportunities. Keynote address. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1021, 1-22.
17.
Dahl, R.E. ( 2008). Biological, developmental, and neurobehavioral factors relevant to adolescent driving risks. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 35, S278-284.
18.
Daigneault, G., Joly, P., & Frigon, J.Y. ( 2002). Executive functions in the evaluation of accident risk of older drivers. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology , 24, 221-238.
19.
Dee, T.S., Grabowski, D.C., & Morrisey, M.A. (2005). Graduated driver licensing and teen traffic fatalities. Journal of Health Economics, 24, 571-589.
20.
Ernst, M., Romeo, R.D., & Andersen, S.L. (2009). Neurobiology of the development of motivated behaviors in adolescence: A window into a neural systems model . Pharmacology, Biochemistry, and Behavior, 93, 199-211.
21.
Fareri, D.S., Martin, L.N., & Delgado, M.R. ( 2008). Reward-related processing in the human brain: Developmental considerations. Development and Psychopathology, 20, 1191-1211.
22.
Fell, J.C., Fisher, D.A., Voas, R.B., Blackman, K., & Tippetts, A.S. (2007). The relationship of 16 underage drinking laws to reductions in underage drinking drivers in fatal crashes in the United States. Annual Proceedings: Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine, 51, 537-557.
23.
Ferguson, S.A., Teoh, E.R., & McCartt, A.T. ( 2007). Progress in teenage crash risk during the last decade . Journal of Safety Research, 38, 137-145.
24.
Foss, R., Masten, S., & Goodwin, A. ( 2007). Long-term effects of graduated driver licensing in North Carolina. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Highway Research Center.
25.
French, M.T., & Maclean, J.C. ( 2006). Underage alcohol use, delinquency, and criminal activity . Health Economics, 15, 1261-1281.
26.
Galvan, A., Hare, T., Voss, H., Glover, G., & Casey, B.J. ( 2007). Risk-taking and the adolescent brain: Who is at risk? Developmental Science, 10(2), F8-F14.
27.
Gardner, W. ( 1993). A life-span rational choice theory of risk taking. In N. Bell & R. Bell (Eds.), Adolescent risk taking (pp. 66-83). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
28.
Giedd, J.N. ( 2008). The teen brain: Insights from neuroimaging. Journal of Adolescent Health, 42, 335-343.
29.
Giedd, J.N., Lenroot, R.K., Shaw, P., Lalonde, F., Celano, M., White, S., et al. (2008). Trajectories of anatomic brain development as a phenotype. Novartis Foundation Symposium, 289, 101-112.
30.
Gunnar, M.R., & Quevedo, K. ( 2007). The neurobiology of stress and development. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 145-173.
31.
Gunnar, M.R., Wewerka, S., Frenn, K., Long, J.D., & Griggs, C. ( 2009). Developmental changes in hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal activity over the transition to adolescence: Normative changes and associations with puberty. Development and Psychopathology, 21, 69-85.
32.
Hine, T. ( 1999). The rise and fall of the American teenager. New York: Harper Collins.
33.
Irwin, C.E., Jr., & Millstein, S.G. (1992). Risk-taking behaviors and biopsychosocial development during adolescence. In E. J. Susman, L. V. Feagans, & W. J. Ray (Eds.), Emotion, cognition, health, and development in children and adolescents (pp. 75-102). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
34.
Johnson, S.B., Blum, R.W., & Giedd, J.N. ( 2009). Adolescent maturity and the brain: The promise and pitfalls of neuroscience research in adolescent health policy. Journal of Adolescent Health, 45, 216-221.
35.
Kaminski, J.W., Valle, L.A., Filene, J.H., & Boyle, C.L. ( 2008). A meta-analytic review of components associated with parent training program effectiveness. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 36, 567-589.
36.
Keating, D.P. ( 1990). Adolescent thinking. In S. S. Feldman & G. R. Elliot (Eds.), At the threshold: The developing adolescent (pp. 54-89). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
37.
Kett, J. ( 1977). Rites of passage: Adolescence in American 1790 to the present. New York: Basic Books.
38.
Kindelberger, J. ( 2005). Traffic safety facts: Calculating lives saved due to minimum drinking age laws. Washington, DC: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
39.
Males, M. ( 2007). California’s graduated driver license law: Effect on teenage drivers’ deaths through 2005. Journal of Safety Research, 38, 651-659.
40.
Males, M. ( 2009). Does the adolescent brain make risk taking inevitable? A skepitcal appraisal. Journal of Adolescent Research, 24, 3-20.
Mayhew, D., Simpson, H., & Pak, A. ( 2002). Ontario graduated licensing system evaluation-2002. Toronto, Canada: Ministry of Transportation.
43.
Medina, K.L., Schweinsburg, A.D., Cohen-Zion, M., Nagel, B.J., & Tapert, S.F. ( 2007). Effects of alcohol and combined marijuana and alcohol use during adolescence on hippocampal volume and asymmetry. Neurotoxicology and Teratology, 29, 141-152.
44.
Moffitt, T.E., & Caspi, A. ( 2001). Childhood predictors differentiate life-course persistent and adolescence-limited antisocial pathways among males and females. Development and Psychopathology, 13, 355-375.
45.
National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. ( 2009). Teen drivers: Fact sheet. Retrieved March 30, 2009, from http://www.cdc.gov/MotorVehicleSafety/Teen_Drivers/teendrivers_factsheet.html
46.
National Scientific Council on the Developing Child. ( 2005). Excessive stress disrupts the architecture of the developing brain (Working Paper No. 3): Cambridge, MA: Author.
47.
O’Malley, P.M., & Wagenaar, A.C. (1991). Effects of minimum drinking age laws on alcohol use, related behaviors and traffic crash involvement among American youth: 1976-1987. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 52, 478-491.
48.
Quevedo, K.M., Benning, S.D., Gunnar, M.R., & Dahl, R.E. ( 2009). The onset of puberty: Effects on the psychophysiology of defensive and appetitive motivation. Development and Psychopathology , 21, 27-45.
49.
Reyna, V.F., & Farley, F. ( 2006). Risk and rationality in adolescent decision-making. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 7, 1-44.
50.
Rubia, K., Overmeyer, S., Taylor, E., Brammer, M., Williams, S.C., Simmons, A., et al. (2000). Functional frontalisation with age: Mapping neurodevelopmental trajectories with fMRI. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 24, 13-19.
51.
Scott, E. ( 2002). The legal construction of childhood. In M. Rosenheim, B. Dohrn , D. Tanenhaus, & F. Zimring (Eds.), A century of juvenile justice . Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 113-141.
52.
Shope, J.T. ( 2007). Graduated driver licensing: Review of evaluation results since 2002. Journal of Safety Research, 38, 165-175.
53.
Sowell, E.R., Petersen, B.S., Thompson, P.M., Welcome, S.E., Henkenius, A.L., & Toga, A.W. ( 2003). Mapping cortical change across the human life span. Nature Neuroscience, 6, 309-315.
54.
Spear, L.P. ( 2000a). The adolescent brain and age-related behavioral manifestations . Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 24, 417-463.
55.
Spear, L.P. ( 2000b). Neurobehavioral changes in adolescence. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 9, 111-114.
56.
Stanton, B.F., Li, X., Galbraith, J., Cornick, G., Feigelman, S., Kaljee, L., et al. (2000). Parental underestimates of adolescent risk behavior: A randomized, controlled trial of a parental monitoring intervention . Journal of Adolescent Health, 26, 18-26.
57.
Stroud, L.R., Foster, E., Papandonatos, G.D., Handwerger, K., Granger, D.A., Kivlighan, K.T., et al. (2009). Stress response and the adolescent transition: Performance versus peer rejection stressors. Development and Psychopathology , 21, 47-68.
58.
Van Leijenhorst, L., Westenberg, P.M., & Crone, E.A. ( 2008). A developmental study of risky decisions on the cake gambling task: Age and gender analyses of probability estimation and reward evaluation. Developmental Neuropsychology, 33, 179-196.
59.
Wagenaar, A.C., & Toomey, T.L. ( 2002). Effects of minimum drinking age laws: Review and analyses of the literature from 1960 to 2000. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, Supplement14, 206-225.
60.
Wahlstrom, K. ( 1999). The prickly politics of school starting times. Phi Delta Kappan, 80, 344-347.
61.
Wahlstrom, K. ( 2001). Minneapolis Public Schools Start Time Longitudinal Study 1995-2001: Executive summary. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis: Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement (CAREI).
62.
Walker, E.F., Sabuwalla, Z., & Huot, R. ( 2004). Pubertal neuromaturation, stress sensitivity, and psychopathology . Development and Psychopathology, 16, 807-824.
63.
Williams, A.F. ( 2003). Teenage drivers: Patterns of risk. Journal of Safety Research, 34, 5-15.
