By Kathleen Mazor, EdD, MS
Contributing Writer

As adolescents encounter new challenges and experiences, their developing brains are especially able to absorb information and acquire new skills. For instance, adolescence is a great time to learn a new language, learn to play an instrument, or get involved in local or global activism. During adolescence, young people develop the ability to think abstractly and hold different perspectives and so become good at innovation and problem-solving.

One area of the brain that undergoes substantial changes during adolescence is the prefrontal cortex, which is located at the front of the brain and responsible for executive functions and emotional regulation. Executive functions encompass a range of cognitive processes, including decision-making, planning, problem-solving, and impulse control. The development of these executive functions is crucial as adolescents navigate academic challenges, peer relationships, and increasingly complex social dynamics.

Emotional regulation, another critical function of the prefrontal cortex, involves managing and responding to emotions effectively. Adolescents often experience intense emotional highs and lows as their brains become more reactive to social and environmental stimuli. The prefrontal cortex helps regulate these emotions by integrating emotional responses with cognitive processes, such as evaluating consequences and considering alternative actions. This integration is essential for making sound decisions and adapting to social norms and expectations.

While the prefrontal cortex is developing, the limbic system, which governs emotions and sensitivity to rewards, is undergoing change at an even more rapid rate. This system becomes more reactive to social stimuli, contributing to heightened emotional responses. These neurological transformations not only influence behavior but also impact learning, memory, and the ability to manage stress. A recent report, The Promise of Adolescence from the National Academies of Sciences, notes:

The heightened sensitivity to rewards, willingness to take risks, and the salience of social status—propensities that are critical for exploring new environments and building nonfamilial relationships—help adolescents build the cognitive, social, and emotional skills necessary for productivity in adulthood.

Adolescent Risk-Taking

Is risk-taking in adolescence inherently maladaptive? We often focus solely on the potential downsides of risk, overlooking its crucial role in learning, growth and development. Exploration—whether it involves new ideas, behaviors, places, people, or identities—inevitably entails risk. Adolescents are particularly driven to explore and experiment, and this exploratory behavior can be beneficial. The interplay between risk-taking and social learning is particularly intriguing; individuals, including adolescents, tend to rely on observing others when navigating uncertain situations. Risky behaviors have inherently uncertain outcomes (that’s what makes them risky) and so sensitivity to peers and social learning can actually be helpful to adolescents. As teens encounter new challenges, new situations, new people, new classes and new expectations, paying attention to how others react can help. This is called vicarious learning; in vicarious learning we observe what others do, and the consequences, and make the link to our own behavior and likely outcomes.  

Jonathan Haidt, in his book The Anxious Generation, argues that Western society has developed a “culture of safetyism” which he believes is detrimental to children and adolescents. According to Haidt, today’s adolescents have fewer opportunities to take risks and consequently fewer opportunities to learn from them. Risk-taking can foster resilience, enhance problem-solving and decision-making skills, and build self-confidence, so missing out on these opportunities can impede development. While risky behaviors can indeed lead to harm, Haidt and others contend that an overemphasis on safety can also be detrimental.

Other experts agree. Dr. Joseph Allen, a distinguished professor of psychology at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, suggests that the opposite of risk-taking is not necessarily safety, but rather anxiety and avoidance. Risk aversion is often linked with anxiety and depression. Allen argues that what might seem like poor decision-making linked to excessive risk-taking could stem from a lack of experience. As Allen writes, “Adolescence may also require some degree of risk taking simply to learn to develop competence in judging when risks do and do not make sense. Even risks that lead to substantial losses may provide information that is quite useful going forward.” He also highlights that avoiding perceived risks—such asking someone for a date, declining to smoke, trying out for a sports team, or making a comment in class—can be problematic. While these actions carry the potential for rejection or embarrassment, they are likely risks worth taking.