10 Ways We Get Risk Wrong
Psychology Today tells us 10 Ways We Get Risk Wrong (h/t Instructify) . One has some important information for those working with teens, similar to an earlier post. Teens
“primarily use rational regions of the brain—certain regions of cortex—while adults use emotional regions like the insula. When risky decisions are weighed in a rational calculus, benefits like fitting in and feeling good now can outweigh real risks. As a result, teaching reasoned decision-making to teens backfires, argues Reyna. Instead, she says, we should teach kids to rule out risks based on emotional responses—for example, by considering the worst-case scenario, as adults do. But research suggests there may be no way to speed up the development of mature decision-making. Repetition and practice are critical to emotional judgment—which means that it takes time to learn this skill.”
Who would have argued that teens are more rational than adults?
Thanks, Joe, for the ideas to help teen’s make thoughtful decisions. Would you agree there is a whole raft of wonderful brain insights we lacked even a decade ago — that could help immensely in this process. Too little of what we do for teens is really about teens!
Take secondary schools for instance. We know how to renew them — and we have the curriculum that will draw from all teens’ strengths and help them reach higher motivattion and achievement! We have prrofs.
Yet the vanguard at schools are tentured and policy people with a firm grip on the public purse. My question is… How can we help services for teens (such as secondary schools) become more about real benefits for our teens to prepare them for a wonderful life as community builders? Thoughts?
Great question Ellen. I think that your blog is a good start. People need to have access to the information, through a variety of media for it to take hold. Change is always hard for bureaucracies. Having trainings developed and getting the information to the right conferences and teaching schools matters as well. A series of one page fact sheets may also be helpful so information can be processed in bite sized pieces. Many people are a nervous about science (and the science of the brain is even more intimidating) and begin to tune out as soon as they hear the word. Being able to communicate these strategies in simple, layman’s terms is critical as well. Keep networking and sharing the information and hopefully it will begin to catch on.