Trivia Junction

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Why teens do stupid things

Among well-reasoning adults, it's a common axiom that teens do dumb things – smoke, have unprotected sex, ride with drunken drivers – because they don't think about the consequences or consider themselves impervious to harm.

Quite the contrary, says Valerie F. Reyna, a professor of human development at Cornell University. She says teens are actually more likely to ponder the pros and cons of high-risk behavior than adults – about 170 milliseconds longer, in fact.

The difference is, according to Reyna, that teens are also more likely to decide that the benefits of doing something stupid – immediate gratification or peer acceptance – outweigh the risks.

Reyna and colleague Frank Farley of Temple University reviewed reams of scientific literature on why teens make bad decisions and what could be done about it. They concluded that adults intuitively grasp the consequences of high-risk behaviors, while teens must consciously take time to mull things over.

“In other words,” Reyna said, “more experienced decision-makers tend to rely more on fuzzy reasoning, processing situations and problems as gists (the essence of their actions) rather than weighing multiple factors.”

It's after weighing those factors that teens – being teens – often make the wrong choice.

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