INHE 2003 Week 5 Discussion Post Example

Week 5 Discussion: Why Do Teens Take More Risks With Friends?

Careful Alone, Reckless With Two Friends in the Car: A Discussion Post Explaining a Composite Teen Driver's Behavior Through the Dual-Systems Account of Adolescent Brain Development and Linking Peer Approval to Erikson's Identity Versus Role Confusion

The Case

A composite 17-year-old with a new license drives carefully when alone and when a parent is in the car: stopping fully at stop signs, keeping to the speed limit. With two friends in the car, the same teen speeds and runs yellow lights. The teen knows the rules and, when asked, says speeding is dangerous.

The Dual-Systems Account

The course reading describes a dual-systems account of adolescent risk-taking. Steinberg (2008) proposed that two brain networks mature at different speeds. One, tuned to rewards and social feeling, grows sharply more reactive near puberty; the other, which handles planning and holding back impulses, keeps developing until the mid-twenties. During adolescence, the gap between them is widest. Peers matter because their presence increases the reward value of risky choices. Gardner and Steinberg (2005), in an experiment using a driving game, found that adolescents took more risks when peers were watching than when alone, and that the effect of peers was larger for adolescents and youths than for adults. That fits this teen closely: the knowledge is there, and alone it guides behavior, but once friends ride along, wanting their approval wins out.

Identity and Peer Approval

Erikson (1968) described adolescence as the period of identity versus role confusion, when young people work out who they are, often by trying on roles and testing how others respond. Friends' approval carries special weight in that process, because peers are a main audience for the identity a teen is building. Speeding with friends may be partly a performance of a self, bold or fun or grown-up, for the audience whose reaction matters most. The two accounts fit together: the brain account explains why rewards feel stronger with peers, and Erikson explains why peer approval is such a powerful reward at this age.

What This Suggests

If the explanation is right, rules about passengers, like the graduated licensing limits many states place on new drivers, address the right condition, since they reduce the presence of peers rather than relying on knowledge alone.

What the Account Does Not Say

The account describes a tendency across adolescents, not a rule for every teen. Some teens drive carefully with friends, and some adults drive recklessly alone. Individual differences in impulsivity, the kind of friends in the car and what those friends approve of all matter. The account explains why peer presence raises risk on average; it does not excuse any particular driver.

Reply to Sam

Sam, you suggest the teen just needs more driver education. If the teen already knows the rules, as the case says, what would more education change? The dual-systems account suggests the problem is not knowing but acting with friends present.

Reply to Grace

Grace, your point about parents riding along is interesting. Do you think a parent's presence works because it adds control, or because it changes whose approval the teen is performing for?

References

Erikson, E. H. (1968). Identity: Youth and crisis. W. W. Norton.

Gardner, M., & Steinberg, L. (2005). Peer influence on risk taking, risk preference, and risky decision making in adolescence and adulthood: An experimental study. Developmental Psychology, 41(4), 625-635. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.41.4.625

Steinberg, L. (2008). A social neuroscience perspective on adolescent risk-taking. Developmental Review, 28(1), 78-106. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dr.2007.08.002