I want to share an interesting research project on the teenage brain.
Researchers had teenagers play a driving simulation game inside an fMRI machine that scanned their brains. They also had adults do the same game.
The main task was to decide whether to stop at a traffic light when it turned yellow or to go through.
The teenagers played twice:
- Once alone.
- Once while they thought their friends were watching them play from another room. (They weren’t, but the teens didn’t know that).
When teens thought their friends were watching:
- They made 28% more risky decisions (drove through the yellow light).
- They had 52% more crashes in the driving simulation game.
In addition, their brain activity was different when they thought their friends were watching.
The parts of the brain around “rewards” were much more active.
It gets even more fascinating!
The adults also played twice (alone and then with friends watching). Guess what? Their decisions didn’t change based on whether their friends were watching. The adults:
- Made about the same amount of risky decisions.
- Had about the same number of crashes.
- Had virtually identical brain patterns whether they thought friends were watching or not.
Next week’s online training is part 3 in our series on Teens. It is all about “teenagers in groups.”
In next week’s email, I’ll share my favorite tool for dealing with teenagers in groups.
Have a great week!
Peace,
Ryan
p.s. If you want to see a lovely 4-minute explanation of this research (with Alan Alda!) you can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt9MyNo65eI&t=10s