FEATURE
"THINK LIKE A TEENAGER!?" What We Can All Learn From Adolescents Interview With Adriana Galván, PhD
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dolescents are constantly adapting to new technologies, clothing trends, music genres, and more—making their behaviors difficult for older adults to “pin down.” Because of this, it is little wonder that adults often see young people as bigger risk takers than older adults. And not surprisingly, psychology studies have confirmed these suspicions as well. To adults, this willingness to take risks makes adolescents seem vulnerable to negative outcomes such as unplanned pregnancy and drug addiction. And yes, this is true in some ways, but it is also an oversimplified view. Although often
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overlooked, there are important benefits of adolescents’ fearlessness. In this interview, Dr. Adriana Galván shares how thinking like an adolescent can teach you to try new things and even improve your ability to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic.
Inside a Teenager’s Brain First things first! How do adolescent brains make decisions? And how is this process different from how adults make decisions? Who better to ask than Dr. Galván, who is a professor in psychology and Dean of Undergraduate Education at the University of California, Los Angeles? Her research has focused on identifying how the neural changes in the developing
adolescent brain relate to adolescent decision-making and motivation. To do this, she has used brain imaging, survey methods, cognitive tests, interviews, and physiological assays to characterize the psychological, neurobiological, and biological changes across the transition into and out of adolescence. Dr. Galván begins to break down the development of the brain like this: “What we’ve learned over the past decade or so is that the brain in general doesn’t develop all at once. Certain brain regions develop or become more engaged earlier than others.” The peak time for engagement in what are called motivational systems and emotional systems occurs during adolescence,
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