Robert Epstein, former editor-in-chief of Psychology Today and a contributing editor for Scientific American, offered this rebuttal to the brain-research claims:
Teenagers are as competent as adults across a wide range of adult abilities. Research has shown that they are actually superior to adults on tests of memory, intelligence, and perception. The assertion that teenagers have an "immature brain" that necessarily causes turmoil is completely invalidated when we look at anthropological research from around the world. Anthropologists have identified more than 100 contemporary societies in which teenage turmoil is completely absent; most of these societies don't even have terms for adolescence.
Even more compelling, long-term anthropological studies at Harvard in the 1980s show that teenage turmoil begins to appear in societies within a few years after those societies adopt Western schooling practices and are exposed to Western media. Finally, a wealth of data show that when young people are given meaningful responsibility and contact with adults, they quickly rise to the challenge, and their "inner adult" appears. from mercatornet.
Teenagers are as competent as adults across a wide range of adult abilities. Research has shown that they are actually superior to adults on tests of memory, intelligence, and perception. The assertion that teenagers have an "immature brain" that necessarily causes turmoil is completely invalidated when we look at anthropological research from around the world. Anthropologists have identified more than 100 contemporary societies in which teenage turmoil is completely absent; most of these societies don't even have terms for adolescence.
Even more compelling, long-term anthropological studies at Harvard in the 1980s show that teenage turmoil begins to appear in societies within a few years after those societies adopt Western schooling practices and are exposed to Western media. Finally, a wealth of data show that when young people are given meaningful responsibility and contact with adults, they quickly rise to the challenge, and their "inner adult" appears. from mercatornet.
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