Adolescent risk taking Flashcards
What are some of the negative consequences of adolescent risk taking?
Increased injury and morbidity
Teenage pregnancy
Substance misuse
Delinquency
Violence
Dropout
What are some of the positives of adolescent risk taking?
Exploration
Identity and personality development
Civic engagement and societal change
Innovation focused
What is the anthropology persepective on why teenagers take risks?
Exploring the world around them to find meaning and values
Resistance against society’s limitation leading to societal progress
Fosters independence
Create identity
What is the developmental psychology approach to why adolescents take risks?
High intelligence and logical reasoning, still able to interpret and appraise risk similar to adults
Do not have a sense of invulnerability
Lack self regulation - make risky decision regardless
How does having low self regulation increase the likelihood of teenagers engaging in risky behaviour?
Without external reminders teenagers value short term rewards over long term consequences.
This influences their behaviour as try to seek out these rewards. Pursue sensation and novelty seeking.
What is psychosocial maturity?
The ability to interact with other
The ability to act on their own
The ability to cooperate with social social cohesion
How does the pace of logical reasoning and psychosocial development influence risk taking behaviour in teenagers?
Logical reasoning is fully developed by 16yrs
Psychosocial maturity is not fully developed until 25yrs.
Leads to week impulse control, more influenced by trends and behaviours of friends, fomo.
How does self identify link to teenagers taking more risky vehaviour?
Still discovering their sense of self
Identity is not solidified until 20s
Sensation seeking - financial, physical and social risks help a person build their sense of self by trying and reacting to different types of experience
What are the four key characteristics of sensation seeking?
Thrill and adventure seeking
Experience seeking
Disinhibition - willing to take social/health risks
Boredome susceptibility (wont do thing because find them boring)
What are socio-cultural factors influencing how teenagers take risks?
Peers promote a change or reinforcement of behaviour
More likley to engage in risky behaviour when with peers then with alone.
Experiences with freinds increase signalling in the brain reward pathway
How does risk taking influence the health and wellbeing of young people?
Suicide is the biggest killer of people aged 5 to 49yrs
In 5-19yrs olds the next biggest killers are transport accidents and homicide
Accidental poisoning is another common death
Less deaths from natural causes, most are from external risks - suggest engage more with risky behaviour
How do young people report that risky behaviour?
Yes - majority are truthful about what they have done themselves
May overreport hearing or knowing of a drug, but not actually doing it - fear of being univolved or appearing out of trends
What are the main patterns of risky behaviour that affect young people in England?
Risky driving (often alcohol associated) - high proportion of car crash fatalities despite being only a small proportion of drivers
Drug related deaths - more common with a criminal history, more common in men (although women are at a higher risk of addicition and worse sideffects), influence to not follow safe behaviour.
How have the patterns of risky behaviour in teenagers changed over time?
Proportion taking drugs, alcohol and cigarrets is decreasing.
More avoidant of illegal behaviour but legal substances such as alcohol were more popular
How do adults patterns of substance use vary from teenagers?
Teenagers - cafeteria use, try everything in small amounts, no addicition yet, still determing what they enjoy most and what ‘group’ they want to belong to
Adults - addiction, repetitive use of one particular type of substance, groups of people have developed ‘druggy’ and ‘alcys’
