Brain immaturity

This WaPo article about brain immaturity is pretty interesting:

A National Institutes of Health study suggests that the region of the brain that inhibits risky behavior is not fully formed until age 25, a finding with implications for a host of policies, including the nation's driving laws.

Actually, I don't see why it should cause the driving laws to be changed, because we've already known that younger people get into more accidents but society lets them drive anyway because the benefits outweigh the traffic accidents.

The findings imply that many life choices -- college and career, marriage and military service -- often are made before the brain's decision-making center comes fully online.

Now that's a very interesting comment. Young people make choices that affect their entire lives, choices that can't be reversed. This implies that young people will make impractical risky choices, like deciding to become an actor instead of pursuing a safe career in--I don't know, what's safe these days?

We also need to be cautious about using this research to treat young people differently, because people tend to behave in the way others expect them to behave. Expect people to be immature and they will behave immaturely to a greater extent than they otherwise would have if expectations had been higher.

Comments

[The Defeatist]

The Washington Post finds it newsworthy that young people make reckless and foolish decisions? Stop the presses.

[Outlaw3]

Interesting thought about this. What prompted the article out of the Post anyway? I wonder why the writer linked marriage and military service. College and career I understand, although they aren't absolutely linked. I wonder if this plays into how many college graduates now hold their first job 1-2 years and then make a switch into another job or another career track? Say, if this is really true, how come there was not this huge sort of change noticed previously (say the period 1900-1970) when people looked at a job with a company as more employment with a single company for their entire work life?

[Paul Snively]

It's interesting that there's no comment about the extent to which different cultures ascribe very different levels of responsibility to young people, with some cultures having teenagers gainfully employed, getting married, etc. But I think this just reinforces LG's point that people tend to live up or down to the expectations of the people closest to them. America, IMHO, has the most prolonged childhood in the world, which is probably correlated to being the wealthiest (i.e. being able to afford not to mature) nation in the world.

[Brad Warbiany]

I gotta agree with Paul on this one. I also think that America has a much prolonged "childhood" compared to other countries. And oddly enough, I also see it as a cultural thing. I've seen a lot of people who are 22-23 where I went to college (rural Indiana) who have acheived a level of maturity that a high percentage of the 28-year olds in LA haven't reached. Part of this is a simple cultural *expectation* to mature. In rural areas, you're supposed to have your life together after high school or college. In LA, you're not really expected to have your life together until your 30s.

[Old Blind Dog]

It is possible that this might explain some of the silliness that comes from California. A brain "grows" neurological connections during "critical periods" which were first identified by John Paul Scott. The indulgence of a wealthy society that doesn't expect an individual to mature until 30 may find that the whole of society has become a population of permanently narcissistic juveniles. In fact, this points a finger not just at California but most of the Left which is "in your face" about their indulgence of children.

[Old Blind Dog]

More about liberal indulgencehere.

[Ken]

The implication is that the adult brain is the standard. Why?

We excuse the old, insane (which we can't really define), young, those with certain religious views, or ethnicity, etc. from some or all laws. A bad childhood excuses violence and drug use but not mail fraud?

This mind-reading just leads to a mess. It is far better to let legislatures, juries and judges decide what is to be done than rely upon experts who make their living finding tiny supposed differences and complications explaining everything.

[A RICH ASIAN GUY]

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