Autonomy in Adolescence: Developmental Tasks

For most adolescents, establishing a sense of autonomy is as important a part of becoming an adult as is establishing a sense of identity. Becoming an autonomous person—a self-governing person—is one of the fundamental developmental tasks of adolescence. Although we often use the words autonomy and...

For most adolescents, establishing a sense of autonomy is as important a part of becoming an adult as is establishing a sense of identity. Becoming an autonomous person—a self-governing person—is one of the fundamental developmental tasks of adolescence. Although we often use the words autonomy and independence interchangeably, in the study of adolescence, they mean slightly different things. Independence refers to individuals’ capacity to behave on their own. The growth of independence is surely a part of becoming autonomous during adolescence, but autonomy has emotional and cognitive as well as behavioral components. In other words, autonomy is not just about acting independently; it is also about feeling independent and thinking for oneself. During adolescence, there is a movement away from the dependency typical of childhood and toward the autonomy typical of adulthood—not only among human adolescents but also among mammals more generally (all mammals go through puberty and therefore experience something analogous to human adolescence) (Casey, Duhoux, & Cohen, 2010). But the growth of autonomy during adolescence is frequently misunderstood. Autonomy is often confused with rebellion, and becoming an independent person is often equated with breaking away from the family. Just as the view that adolescence is a period of storm and stress has been questioned repeatedly by scientific research, experts on adolescence have changed the way they think about the development of autonomy. Rather than viewing autonomy in adolescence as an abrupt rebellion against parental authority, researchers now see it as gradual, progressive, and—although important— relatively undramatic (McElhaney et al., 2009; Zimmer-Gembeck, Ducat, & Collins, 2011). Many writers have pointed to the adaptive nature of adolescents’ desire for autonomy, arguing that the adolescents’ need to distance themselves from their parents has an evolutionary basis, allowing an increase in novelty-seeking and exploration that facilitates reproduction outside of the family (Casey, Duhoux, & Cohen, 2010; Steinberg, 2010). Because today’s adolescents spend so much time away from the supervision of adults, either by themselves or with their peers, learning how to govern their own behavior in a responsible fashion is crucial. Given the large numbers of single-parent and two- career households in many industrialized countries, many young people are expected to care for themselves for a good part of the day. Many feel pressured—by parents, by friends, and by the media—to grow up quickly and to act like adults at an earlier age. Many adolescents who grow up in poverty feel a different sort of pressure to grow up: They are expected to take on adult responsibilities to assist their families during times of need (Burton, 2007). There is a curious paradox in all of this, though. Although adolescents have been asked to become more autonomous psychologically and socially, they have become less autonomous economically. Because of the extension of schooling well into the 20s for most people and the difficulty many young adults have had finding satisfying employment during several recent recessions, financial independence may not come until long after psychological independence. Many young people who are emotionally independent from their parents find it frustrating to have to abide by their rules as long as their parents are supporting them economically. They may believe that the ability to make their own decisions has nothing to do with financial dependence. An 18-year-old college freshman who has a part-time job, a full load of classes, and a serious relationship with his girlfriend may be independent in these respects, but he may still be living at home because he can’t afford to do otherwise. His parents may feel that as long as their son lives in their home, they should decide how late he can stay out at night. But he may feel that his parents have no right to tell him when he can come and go. This sort of difference of opinion can be a source of problems and confusion for teenagers and their parents, particularly when they have difficulty agreeing on an appropriate level of independence for the adolescent (Steinberg, 2011). Disagreements over autonomy-related concerns are at the top of the list of things that provoke quarrels between adolescents and parents (Laursen & Collins, 2009). Autonomy as an Adolescent Issue Like identity, autonomy is a psychosocial concern that surfaces and resurfaces during the entire life cycle. Toddlers try to establish an initial sense of autonomy when they begin to explore their surroundings on their own and assert their desire to do as they please —a stage of development so frustrating to parents that it is often called “the terrible twos.” The toddler who insists on saying “No!” and the young adolescent who insists on keeping her whereabouts secret are both demonstrating their growing sense of independence and autonomy. And just as psychologists see toddlers’ oppositional behavior as normal, they also see adolescents’ interest in privacy as normal, too—however frustrating that might be to parents (McElhaney et al., 2009). Moreover, issues of autonomy are not resolved once and for all upon reaching young adulthood. Questions about being able to function independently arise whenever individuals find themselves in positions that demand a new degree of self-reliance. Following a divorce, someone who has depended on a spouse for economic support, guidance, or nurturance must find a way to function more independently. During late adulthood, autonomy may become a significant concern of someone who, after losing a spouse, suddenly finds it necessary to depend on others for assistance. Page 238 If establishing and maintaining a healthy sense of autonomy is a lifelong concern, why has it attracted so much attention among scholars interested in adolescence? When we look at the development of autonomy in relation to the biological, cognitive, and social changes of adolescence, it’s easy to see why. Puberty and the Development of Autonomy Some theorists have suggested that puberty triggers changes in the young person’s emotional relationships at home (Laursen & Collins, 2009; Zimmer-Gembeck, Ducat, & Collins, 2011). Adolescents’ interest in turning away from parents and toward peers for emotional support—part of establishing adult independence—may be stimulated by their emerging interest in sexual relationships and concerns over dating and intimate friendships. From an evolutionary perspective, adolescent independence-seeking is a natural consequence of sexual and physical maturation, and “leaving the home” after puberty is something that is observed not just in humans but in other primates as well (Casey, Duhoux, & Cohen, 2010; Steinberg, 2014a). Puberty drives the adolescent away from exclusive emotional dependence on the family. In addition, changes in stature and physical appearance at puberty may provoke changes in how much autonomy the young person is granted by parents and teachers. Children may be given more responsibility simply because they look older. Cognitive Change and the Development of Autonomy The cognitive changes of adolescence also play an important role in the development of autonomy (Albert & Steinberg, 2011a; Zimmer-Gembeck, Ducat, & Collins, 2011). Part of being autonomous involves being able to make independent decisions. When individuals turn to others for advice, they often receive conflicting opinions; if you are trying to decide between staying home to study for an exam and going to a party with your roommate, your professor and your friend may give you different advice. As an adult, you are able to see that each person’s perspective influences his or her advice. The ability to see this, however, calls for a level of intellectual abstraction that is not available until adolescence. Being able to take other people’s perspectives into account, to reason in more sophisticated ways, and to foresee the future consequences of alternative courses of action all help the adolescent weigh the opinions and suggestions of others more effectively and reach independent decisions. The cognitive changes of adolescence are important prerequisites to the development of a system of values based on one’s own sense of right and wrong, not just on rules and regulations handed down by parents or other authority figures (Eisenberg et al., 2009; Morris, Eisenberg, & Houltberg, 2011; Smetana & Villalobos, 2009). Social Roles and the Development of Autonomy Finally, changes in social roles and activities during adolescence are bound to raise concerns related to independence, as the adolescent moves into new positions that demand increasing degrees of responsibility and self-reliance (Coatsworth & Conroy, 2009; Halpern-Felsher, 2011). Becoming involved in new roles and taking on new responsibilities, such as having a job or a driver’s license, place the adolescent in situations that require and stimulate the development of independent decision making. A teenager might not really think much about the responsibilities associated with taking a job until she actually ends up in one (Wood, Larson, & Brown, 2009). Choosing whether to drink does not become an important question until the adolescent begins to approach the legal drinking age. And deciding what his political beliefs are becomes a more pressing concern when the young person realizes that he will soon have the right to vote. Three Types of Autonomy Psychologists have described autonomy in three ways (McElhaney et al., 2009; Zimmer-Gembeck, Ducat, & Collins, 2011). The first is emotional autonomy—that aspect of independence related to changes in the individual’s close relationships, especially with parents. The second is behavioral autonomy—the capacity to make independent decisions and follow through on them. And the third is cognitive autonomy (sometimes called “value autonomy”), which involves having independent values, opinions, and beliefs. The Development of Emotional Autonomy The relationship between children and their parents changes repeatedly over the life cycle. Changes in the expression of affection, the distribution of power, and patterns of interaction are likely to occur whenever important transformations take place in the child’s or parents’ competencies, concerns, and social roles. By the end of adolescence, people are far less emotionally dependent on their parents than they were as children. We can see this in several ways. First, older adolescents do not generally rush to their parents when they are upset, worried, or in need of assistance. Second, they do not see their parents as all-knowing or all-powerful. Third, they often have a great deal of emotional energy wrapped up in relationships outside the family; they may feel more attached to a boyfriend or girlfriend than to their parents. And finally, older adolescents are able to see and interact with their parents as people—not just as their parents. Many parents find that they can confide in their adolescent children, which was not possible when their children were younger, or that their adolescent children can sympathize with them when they have had a hard day at work. These sorts of changes in the adolescent-parent relationship all reflect the development of emotional autonomy (McElhaney et al., 2009; Zimmer-Gembeck, Ducat, & Collins, 2011). Emotional Autonomy: Detachment or Individuation? Early writings about emotional autonomy were influenced by psychoanalytic thinkers such as Anna Freud (1958), who argued that the physical changes of puberty cause disruption and conflict inside the family, conflicts that are often expressed as increased tension, arguments, and discomfort in the family. As a consequence, early adolescents are driven to separate themselves from their parents emotionally, and they turn their emotional energies to relationships with peers—in particular, peers of the opposite sex. Psychoanalytic theorists call this process of separation detachment because to them it appears as though the adolescent is attempting to sever the attachments that were formed during infancy and strengthened throughout childhood. emotional autonomy The establishment of more adultlike and less childish close relationships with family members and peers. behavioral autonomy The capacity to make independent decisions and to follow through with them. cognitive autonomy The establishment of an independent set of values, opinions, and beliefs. detachment In psychoanalytic theory, the process through which adolescents sever emotional attachments to their parents or other authority figures. Detachment Freud and her followers viewed detachment and the accompanying storm and stress inside the family as normal, healthy, and inevitable aspects of emotional development during adolescence. In fact, Freud believed that the absence of conflict between an adolescent and his or her parents signified that the young person was having problems growing up. Page 240 Studies of adolescents’ family relationships have not supported Freud’s view, however. In contrast to predictions that high levels of adolescent-parent tension are the norm, that adolescents detach themselves from relationships with their parents, and that adolescents are driven out of the household by unbearable levels of family conflict, every major study done to date of teenagers’ relations with their parents has shown that most families get along well during the adolescent years (McElhaney et al., 2009; Zimmer-Gembeck, Ducat, & Collins, 2011). Although parents and adolescents may bicker more often than they did during earlier periods of development, there is no evidence that this bickering diminishes closeness between them in any lasting way (Collins & Steinberg, 2006; Laursen & Collins, 2009). In fact, most individuals report becoming closer to their parents in late adolescence, especially after they have made the transition into college (Lefkowitz, 2005; McElhaney et al., 2009). In contrast to the view that tension between adolescents and their parents is the norm, every major study done to date of family relations in adolescence has shown that most teenagers and their parents get along quite well. Hero/age fotostock In other words, although teenagers and their parents modify their relationships during adolescence, their emotional bonds aren’t severed. Emotional autonomy during adolescence involves a transformation, not a breaking off, of family relationships. Adolescents can become emotionally autonomous from their parents without becoming detached from them (Laursen & Collins, 2009; Van Petegem, Vansteenkiste, et al., 2015). Individuation As an alternative to the classic psychoanalytic perspective on adolescent detachment, some theorists have suggested that we view the development of emotional autonomy in terms of the adolescent’s developing sense of individuation (Blos, 1979). Individuation, which begins during infancy and continues into late adolescence, involves a gradual, progressive sharpening of one’s sense of self as autonomous, competent, and separate from one’s parents. individuation The progressive sharpening of an individual’s sense of being an autonomous, independent person. Individuation entails relinquishing childish dependencies on parents in favor of a more mature, more responsible, and less dependent relationship (McElhaney et al., 2009). Adolescents who establish a healthy sense of autonomy accept responsibility for their choices and actions (Van Petegem et al., 2012). Rather than rebelling against her parents’ midnight curfew by deliberately staying out later, a girl who has a healthy sense of individuation might take her parents aside before going out and say, “This party tonight is going to go later than midnight. If it does, I’d like to stay a bit longer. Why don’t I call you at 11 and let you know when I’ll be home?” Research on Emotional Autonomy The development of emotional autonomy is a long process, beginning early in adolescence and continuing into young adulthood (McElhaney et al., 2009). There are many indicators of this. Adolescents start to see their parents’ flaws. They depend less on them to fix things that have gone wrong. As they individuate, teenagers realize that there are things about themselves that their parents aren’t aware of (Steinberg & Silverberg, 1986). There often is a drop in the number of their friends whom their parents know, reflecting an increase in the size of teenagers’ social networks and in their need for privacy (Feiring & Lewis, 1993). Adolescents’ willingness to express negative emotions in front of their parents, such as anger or sadness, is lower during early adolescence than before or after because keeping some emotional distance from one’s parents is a part of the individuation process (Zeman & Shipman, 1997). Adolescents also become less likely to say that they have the same opinions as their parents or that they always agree with them (McElhaney et al., 2009; Zhang & Fuligni, 2006). This, in turn, is associated with changes in adolescents’ beliefs about their parents’ authority over them. Adolescents become increasingly likely to draw distinctions between aspects of their life that their parents have the right to regulate and those that they think are not really their parents’ business (Chan, Brown, & Von Bank, 2015; Laird & Marrero, 2011; Perkins & Turiel, 2007). De-Idealization Children place their parents on a pedestal; adolescents knock them off it. Psychologists believe that this “de- idealization” of parents may be one of the first aspects of emotional autonomy to develop because adolescents shed their childish images of their parents before replacing them with more mature ones. Even during the high school years, adolescents have some difficulty in seeing their parents as individuals beyond their roles as parents. This aspect of emotional autonomy may not develop until much later—perhaps not until young adulthood. Seeing one’s parents as people, and not just as parents, typically develops later in adolescents’ relations with their fathers than with their mothers because fathers interact less often with their adolescents in ways that permit them to be seen as individuals (Smollar & Youniss, 1985). The Importance of Maintaining the Connection The development of emotional autonomy, and individuation in particular, may have different psychological effects on adolescents, depending on whether the parent-child relationship is a close one. Adolescents who become emotionally autonomous but who also feel distant from their parents score poorly on measures of psychological adjustment, whereas adolescents who demonstrate the same degree of emotional autonomy but who still feel close and attached to their parents are psychologically healthier than their peers (Allen et al., 2007; Vrolijk et al., 2020). In other words, it is important to distinguish between separating from one’s parents in a way that maintains emotional closeness in the relationship (which is healthy) and breaking away from one’s parents in a fashion that involves alienation, conflict, and hostility (which is not) (Jager et al., 2015; Parra, Oliva, & Sánchez-Queija, 2015). For example, lying to one’s parents and concealing undesirable things from them, which may be more an indicator of detachment than healthy individuation, is associated with psychological problems (Ahmad, Smetana, & Klimstra, 2015; Laird et al., 2013; Rote & Smetana, 2015; Tilton-Weaver, 2014). As individuals make the transition from adolescence into adulthood and work through much of the individuation process, they increasingly see lying to their parents as unacceptable (Jensen et al., 2004). The Process of Individuation What triggers individuation? Two different models have been suggested (Laursen & Collins, 2009). According to some researchers, puberty is the main catalyst (e.g., Holmbeck, 1996; Steinberg, 2000). Changes in the adolescent’s physical appearance provoke changes in the way that adolescents are viewed—by themselves and by their parents—which, in turn, provoke changes in the ways in which parents and children interact. Shortly after puberty, most families experience an increase in bickering and squabbling. Adolescents’ feelings of connectedness to their parents often decline in early adolescence, when bickering is more frequent, but increase in late adolescence after this temporary period of heightened squabbling is over (Pinquart & Silbereisen, 2002). Other authors believe that adolescents’ movement toward higher levels of individuation is stimulated by their cognitive development (Smetana, 1995a). The development of emotional autonomy in adolescence may be provoked by young people’s development of more sophisticated understandings of themselves and their parents. Prior to adolescence, individuals accept their parents’ views of themselves as accurate (“My parents think I am a good girl, so I must be”). But as individuals develop more differentiated self- conceptions in early and middle adolescence, they come to see that their parents’ view is but one of many—and one that may not be entirely correct (“My parents think I am a good girl, but they don’t know what I am really like”). By late adolescence, individuals are able to see that these discrepancies between their self-conceptions and their parents’ views are perfectly understandable (“There are sides of me that my parents know and sides of me that they don’t”) (Harter, 2011). Separating from one’s parents is not always turbulent, but it often has its difficult moments. Even though the images children have of their parents as all-knowing and all-powerful may be naïve, these idealized pictures still provide emotional comfort. Leaving such images behind can be both liberating and frightening, for parents as well as teenagers. The development of emotional autonomy is associated not only with insecurity among adolescents but also with increased feelings of anxiety and rejection in their parents (Hock et al., 2001). Difficulties in the process of individuation also arise when adolescents push for independence at an earlier age than parents are willing to grant it. Adolescents usually believe that teenagers should be granted autonomy earlier than parents do (Ruck, Peterson-Badali, & Day, 2002). Parenting and Emotional Autonomy In Asian and Western countries alike, adolescents whose parents impede the individuation process are more likely to show signs of psychological distress (Campione-Barr, Bassett Greer, & Kruse, 2013; Kouros & Garber, 2014; Weltkamp & Seiffge-Krenke, 2019). Adolescents who do not feel good about themselves and who have very intrusive parents are especially vulnerable to depression (Pomerantz, 2001). psychological control Parenting that attempts to control the adolescent’s emotions and opinions. Page 242 In contrast, around the world and across ethnic groups, adolescents whose parents provide support for their growing interest in autonomy report better mental health than those whose parents do not (Kiang & Bhattacharjee, 2019; Nalipay, King, & Cai, 2020; Tran & Raffaeli, 2020). Teenagers who are provided sufficient support for their autonomy are more likely to disclose information about their social lives to their parents, which allows parents to be better at monitoring their children’s behavior. This, in turn, may positively affect parents’ own mental health (Wuyts et al., 2018). It’s especially important that parents use positive reinforcement and praise, rather than punishment, to shape their teenagers’ behavior (Fosco & LoBraico, 2019). In contrast, adolescents whose parents use a lot of psychological control—parents who are emotionally close to the point of being intrusive or overprotective, who try to control their child by withdrawing love or making their child feel guilty or ashamed—may have difficulty individuating from them, which may lead to depression, anxiety, aggression, and feelings of incompetence and dependence (Brauer, 2017; A. Rogers et al., 2020; Van Petegem et al., 2020; Yu et al., 2019) (see Figure 9.1). This may be especially true when teenagers see these attempts at control as not in their best interests (Cheah et al., 2019). The effects of psychological control during early adolescence even persist into adulthood. People whose parents were very controlling were less psychologically mature and well-liked during mid-adolescence, which led to their being were less successful in school and less likely to be in romantic relationships in their 30s (Loeb et al., 2020). Adolescents whose parents use a lot of psychological control also show patterns of behavior and brain activity that suggest potential problems in self-regulation (Marusak et al., 2017; Rogers et al., 2019). In some families, adolescents respond to excessive parental control by actively rebelling (Van Petegem et al., 2019) or lying (Gingo, Roded, & Turiel, 2017), which may lead to problems in the - parent-adolescent relationship (Flamant et al., 2020; Weymouth & Buehler, 2016). Helping parents to become more mindful about the way they parent may help them become less controlling, which may improve the quality of their relationship with their child as well as their child’s mental health and feelings of competence (Bullock et al., 2018; Lippold et al., 2015). Keep in mind, of course, that parents are also influenced by their teenagers: Adolescents who are anxious, timid, and withdrawn are more likely to elicit psychological control from their parents (Lin et al., 2020; Nelemans et al., 2020). Although parents’ failure to support their teenager’s developing sense of autonomy can lead to adolescent depression, the reverse is true as well (Duineveld et al., 2017; Werner et al., 2016) (see Figure 9.2). Similarly, adolescents with psychological problems are more likely to provoke conflict with their parents, which makes some parents more controlling (Steeger & Gondoli, 2013). Emotional Autonomy and Parenting Style Responsibility, self-esteem, and positive mental health are all fostered by parents who are authoritative (friendly, fair, and firm) rather than authoritarian (excessively harsh), indulgent (excessively lenient), or indifferent (aloof to the point of being neglectful). As a result, the development of emotional autonomy follows different patterns in different types of households. In authoritative families, guidelines are established for the adolescent’s behavior, and standards are upheld, but they are flexible and open to discussion; parents are actively involved in monitoring their teenagers’ behavior but in a way that supports the development of autonomy (Rodríguez-Meirinhos et al., 2020) Although parents may have the final say when it comes to their child’s behavior, the decision that is reached usually comes after consultation and discussion—with the child included (Benish-Weisman, Levy, & Knafo, 2013; Mauras, Grolnick, & Friendly, 2013). In discussing an adolescent’s curfew, for example, authoritative parents will sit down with their child and explain how they arrived at their decision and why they picked the hour they did. They will also ask the adolescent for his or her suggestions and consider them carefully in making a final decision. It is not difficult to see why the sort of give-and-take found in authoritative families is well suited to the healthy development of emotional autonomy. Because standards and guidelines are flexible and adequately explained, it is not hard for the family to adjust and modify them as the child matures (Smetana & Asquith, 1994). Gradual changes in family relations that permit the young person more independence and encourage more responsibility but that do not threaten the emotional bond between parent and child—in other words, changes that promote increasing emotional autonomy—are relatively easy to make in a family that has been flexible all along (Vuchinich, Angeletti, & Gatherum, 1996). Plus, having a close relationship with one parent protects against the adverse effects of the other parent’s psychological control (Murray et al., 2014). In authoritarian households, where rules are rigidly enforced but rarely explained, adjusting to adolescence is more difficult. Authoritarian parents see the child’s emotional independence as rebellious or disrespectful, and they resist their adolescent’s growing need for independence, rather than accepting it. Seeing that their daughter is becoming interested in boys, an authoritarian parent may implement a rigid curfew in order to restrict the teenager’s social life. Authoritarian parents may inadvertently maintain the dependencies of childhood by failing to give their children sufficient practice in making decisions and being responsible for their actions. In essence, authoritarian parenting may interfere with adolescent individuation. When closeness, as well as support for autonomy, is absent, the problems are compounded. In families in which excessive parental control is accompanied by extreme coldness and punitiveness, adolescents may rebel against their parents’ standards explicitly, in an attempt to assert their independence in a visible and demonstrable fashion (Kakihara et al., 2010). Today’s technologies make it easier for parents to stay in touch with their teenagers. But a little monitoring goes a long way. Adolescents are more likely to “act out”—to misbehave—when their parents are intrusive (van den Akker, Deković, & Prinzie, 2010); one study found that the more frequently parents called their adolescent’s cell phone, the more dishonest the adolescent was (Weisskirch, 2009). Such rebellion is not indicative of genuine emotional autonomy; it’s a demonstration of the adolescent’s frustration with his or her parents’ rigidity and lack of understanding. In both indulgent and indifferent families, a different sort of problem arises. These parents do not provide sufficient guidance for their children, and as a result, the youngsters do not acquire adequate standards for behavior. In the absence of parental guidance and rules, permissively reared teenagers often turn to their peers for advice and emotional support—a practice that can be problematic when the peers are themselves still young and inexperienced. Adolescents whose parents have failed to provide sufficient guidance are likely to become psychologically dependent on their friends—emotionally detached from their parents, perhaps, but not genuinely autonomous. Some parents who have raised their children permissively until adolescence are caught off guard by the consequences of not having been stricter earlier on. The greater orientation toward the peer group of permissively raised adolescents may involve the young person in behavior that his or her parents disapprove of. As a consequence, some parents who have been permissive throughout a youngster’s childhood shift gears when he or she enters adolescence, becoming autocratic in an attempt to control a youngster over whom they feel they have lost their authority. Parents who have never placed any restrictions on their child’s out-of- school activities during elementary school may suddenly begin monitoring her social life once she enters junior high school. Shifts like these can be extremely hard on adolescents. Just at the time when they are seeking greater autonomy, their parents become more restrictive. Having become accustomed to relative leniency, adolescents whose parents change the rules in the middle of the game may find it difficult to accept standards that are being strictly enforced for the first time. The Development of Behavioral Autonomy Page 244 Whereas the development of emotional autonomy is played out mainly in adolescents’ relationships with their parents, the development of behavioral autonomy—the ability to act independently—is seen both inside and outside the family, in relationships with peers as well as parents. Broadly speaking, behavioral autonomy refers to the capacity for independent decision making. Researchers who have studied behavioral autonomy have looked at changes in decision-making abilities and in susceptibility to the influence of others. Changes in Decision-Making Abilities The more sophisticated reasoning processes used by adolescents permit them to hold multiple viewpoints in mind simultaneously, allowing them to compare people’s different perspectives, which is crucial for weighing the opinions and advice of others. Because adolescents are better able than children to think in hypothetical terms, they also are more likely to contemplate the long-term consequences of their choices. With age, adolescents become more likely to consider both the risks and benefits associated with the decisions they make and more likely to weigh the long-term consequences of their choices, not just the immediate ones (Crone & van der Molen, 2007; Steinberg, Graham, et al., 2009). Moreover, the enhanced role-taking capabilities of adolescence permit teenagers to consider another person’s opinion while taking into account that person’s point of view. This is important in determining whether someone who has given advice has special areas of expertise, particular biases, or vested interests that the teenager should keep in mind. Taken together, these cognitive changes result in improved decision-making skills and, consequently, in the individual’s enhanced ability to behave independently. Improvements in Self-Regulation Many studies have documented important improvements in decision-making abilities during middle and late adolescence that are linked to gains in self-regulation (Allemand, Job, & Mroczek, 2019; Christakou, 2014). Across many different cultural contexts, strong self-regulation is one of the most robust predictors of success in life, whereas weak self-regulation is linked to all sorts of emotional and behavioral problems (Allemand, Job, & Mroczek, 2019; Galla & Duckworth, 2015; Memmott- Elison, Moilanen, & Padilla-Walker, 2020; Moffitt et al., 2011). For instance, adolescents with strong self-regulation are more likely to be engaged in school, which contributes not only to academic achievement but also to further improvements in self-regulation (Stefansson et al., 2018) On the other hand, adolescents with problems in self-regulation are more prone to extremes in negative emotions, such as anger or sadness, as well as a wide range of behavioral and emotional problems (Laceulle et al., 2017; Rothenberg et al., 2019). Not surprisingly, teenagers who have poor self-regulation are more likely to become juvenile delinquents (Fosco et al., 2019), and those who are delinquent and have poor self-control are more likely to reoffend (Rocque, Beckley, & Piquero, 2019). Improvements in self-regulation appear to be due to two separate but related developments (Duckworth & Steinberg, 2015; Shulman, Harden, et al., 2016). First, there is a decline over the course of adolescence in the extent to which decisions are influenced by their potential immediate rewards (de Water, Cillessen, & Scheres, 2014). Most situations in which we have to decide among alternative choices (Should I wear a protective face mask to my friend’s party? Should I sleep with my girlfriend right now or wait until tomorrow night, when I’ll make sure to have a condom?) present a combination of potential rewards and potential costs. What we decide to do is often the result of how strong those rewards and costs are. Someone who is just thinking about having fun with his friends or how good unprotected sex is going to feel will act differently than someone who is thinking about possible exposure to the coronavirus or the possibility of getting his girlfriend pregnant. During early adolescence, individuals are much more drawn to the potential benefits of a decision than the potential costs. As they mature, the relative balance of reward and cost changes so that by late adolescence, these factors are weighed about evenly (Cauffman et al., 2010). Psychologists have now mapped this development onto changes in patterns of brain activation, showing that the regions of the brain that are especially sensitive to reward are more intensely activated during early and middle adolescence than in childhood or adulthood, especially when rewards are being anticipated, as they might be when adolescents are thinking about how much fun they are going to have before they head out for an evening (Galván, 2013; Van Leijenhorst, Zanolie, et al., 2010). Some of the heightened “reward sensitivity” seen among adolescents is not even conscious (Cauffman et al., 2010). In fact, adolescents are just as consciously aware as adults of the potential rewards and costs of a decision; they are just influenced more by the anticipated rewards (Van Leijenhorst, Westenberg, & Crone, 2008). Not only are younger adolescents more drawn to rewards than are adults, but they also seem especially drawn to immediate rewards (Steinberg, Graham, et al., 2009). A second influence on changes in decision making concerns individuals’ ability to control their impulses (Steinberg, Albert, et al., 2008; van Duijvenvoorde et al., 2012; Weiser & Reynolds, 2011). Regions of the brain that govern self-regulation are still developing during adolescence and early adulthood, as are connections between brain regions that control impulses and those that respond to rewards (Luna et al., 2013; Peper et al., 2013; van den Bos et al., 2015). There is strong evidence, from studies all over the world, that adolescents are more likely to develop strong self-control if their parents engage in authoritative parenting—parenting that is both warm and firm (Li et al., 2019; Li et al., 2020). Page 245 This improvement in self-control has important implications for decision making. With age, individuals are better at thinking ahead, imagining and analyzing the consequences of their decisions, seeking and evaluating the advice of others, and making decisions that aren’t hasty or excessively influenced by their emotions (Munakata, Snyder, & Chatham, 2012). The combination of heightened reward sensitivity and immature impulse control may lead adolescents to make a lot of risky—even dangerous—decisions. Some writers have suggested that one way to diminish adolescent risk taking is to encourage them to do things such as mindfulness meditation, which has been shown to increase self-regulation (Steinberg, 2014). When Do Adolescents Make Decisions as Well as Adults? The recognition that individuals’ decision-making skills improve over the course of adolescence has prompted numerous debates about young people’s abilities to make decisions in the real world; for example, with regard to having access to medical care without their parents’ approval or functioning as competent defendants in court. Many such debates revolve around where we should draw the legal boundary between adolescence and adulthood for such things as driving, purchasing alcohol or cigarettes, or being tried in adult court (Steinberg & Icenogle, 2019). One relevant line of research has examined adolescents’ legal decision making (Grisso et al., 2003; Kambam & Thompson, 2009). In the typical study, adolescents and adults are presented with vignettes involving an individual who had gotten into trouble with the law and then are asked how the individual should handle different situations: being interrogated by the police, consulting with an attorney, deciding whether to plead guilty in return for a lesser sentence versus going to trial, or taking her or his chances on the outcome. In these studies, adolescents are less likely than adults to think about the long-term implications of their decisions, more likely to focus on the immediate consequences, and less able to understand the ways in which other people’s positions might bias their interests. For example, when asked what a guilty individual should do when being interrogated by the police, younger adolescents are more likely than adults to say that they should confess (which is not what most attorneys would recommend) rather than remain silent (the most advisable thing to do). Younger adolescents are more inclined to think about the immediate consequences of their actions (“If I tell the police the truth, they’ll let me go home”), not the longer-term implications (“If I confess, this information can be used against me in court”). One difficulty in making decisions about where to draw legal lines between adolescents and adults is that mature decision making is the product of both cognitive abilities (such as being able to reason logically) and emotional factors (such as being able to control one’s impulses), aspects of development that proceed along somewhat different timetables (Icenogle et al., 2019; Steinberg, Cauffman, et al., 2009). The maturation of basic cognitive abilities is complete at around age 16. Many writers have argued that adolescents who have reached this age reason well enough to have the right to vote or to seek health care services (including abortions, contraception, substance abuse counseling, and vaccinations) without parental knowledge or consent. But because there are improvements in such things as impulse control, planning ahead, and risk assessment well into early adulthood, there is a period during which adolescents may think like adults but behave in a much more immature way. One study found that young adults were just as able as people in their mid-20s to exercise self-control under calm conditions but not when they were emotionally aroused (Cohen et al., 2016). Individuals who are opposed to trying juvenile offenders as adults use this evidence to argue in favor of treating juveniles who have committed crimes less harshly than adults because of their emotional immaturity (Scott & Steinberg, 2008). One way of resolving this problem is to make sure our treatment of adolescents is consistent with what we know about psychological development in ways that are specific to the legal matters in question (Steinberg & Icenogle, 2019). In other words, if the skills necessary for making one type of decision mature earlier than those necessary for another, it would make sense to have a different age boundary for each. Page 246 making the practical connection Based on what you have read about changes in decision-making abilities in adolescence, should adolescents be treated like adults under the law? If you were a lawmaker, where would you draw the line for issues concerning access to health care? For violations of the law? Changes in Susceptibility to Influence As adolescents come to spend more time outside the family, the opinions and advice of others—not only peers but adults as well— become more important. A variety of situations arise in which adolescents may feel that their parents’ advice may be less valid than the opinions of others. Adolescents might seek the advice of friends, rather than their parents, about how to dress. They may turn to a teacher or guidance counselor for advice about what courses to take in school. Or they might talk something over with more than one person. A teenage girl who is trying to decide whether to take a part-time job after school might discuss the pros and cons with her parents but also ask friends for their advice. When different “advisors” disagree, adolescents must reconcile the differences of opinion and reach their own independent conclusions. In situations in which parents and peers give conflicting advice, do teenagers tend to follow one group more often than the other? Adolescents are often portrayed as being extremely susceptible to the influence of peer pressure—more so than children or young adults—and as being stubbornly resistant to the influence of their parents. But is peer pressure really more potent during adolescence than at other times? The Influence of Parents and Peers Some researchers have studied conformity and peer pressure during adolescence by putting adolescents in situations in which they must choose between the wishes of their parents and those of their peers. An adolescent might be told to imagine that he and his friends discover the answer sheet to an upcoming test on the floor outside the teachers’ lounge. His friends tell him that they should keep it a secret. But the adolescent tells his mother about it, and she advises him to tell the teacher. He then would be asked by the researcher to say what he would do. Adolescents turn for advice to different people in different situations (Halpern-Felsher, 2011). In some situations, peers’ opinions are more influential, but in others, parents’ views are more powerful. Adolescents are more likely to conform to peers’ opinions when it comes to short-term, day-to-day, and social matters—styles of dress, tastes in music, choices among leisure activities, and so on. This is particularly true during the junior high school and early high school years. When it comes to long-term questions concerning educational or occupational plans, however, or to issues concerning values, religious beliefs, or ethics, teenagers are primarily influenced by their parents (Collins & Steinberg, 2006). When adolescents’ problems center on a relationship with a friend, they usually turn to a peer, a preference that becomes stronger with age. But adolescents’ willingness to turn to an adult, such as a teacher or mentor, for advice with problems—especially those that involve getting along with their parents—remains very strong and increases as individuals move toward late adolescence. In one study in which the researchers compared the effect of advice given by a peer or an adult during a challenging gambling task, both teenagers and adults were more likely to follow the adult’s recommendations (Lourenco et al., 2015). Responding to Peer Pressure Studies that contrast the influence of peers and adults do not really reveal all there is to know about peer pressure. Most peer pressure operates when adults are absent—when adolescents are at a party, driving home from school, or hanging out with their friends. To get closer to this issue, researchers have studied how adolescents respond when they must choose between pressure from their friends and their own opinions of what to do. For example, an adolescent might be asked whether he would go along with his friends’ plans to vandalize some property even though he did not want to do so (e.g., Bámaca & Umaña-Taylor, 2006). Most studies using this approach show that conformity to peers is higher during the first half of adolescence than later (Steinberg & Monahan, 2007). Susceptibility to peer pressure around age 14 is most often seen when the behavior in question is antisocial—such as cheating, stealing, or trespassing—especially in studies of boys (Erickson, Crosnoe, & Dornbusch, 2000). These findings are in line with studies of delinquent behavior, which is often committed by boys in groups, often during middle adolescence (Farrington, 2009), as well as experimental studies of peer influence, which have found that the impact of peers on adolescents’ risky decision making is stronger among boys than girls (Defoe et al., 2020). Adolescents who are more susceptible to peer pressure to engage in delinquent activity actually are more likely to misbehave (Monahan et al., 2009; Walters, 2018). Page 247 The consequences of being especially susceptible to one’s peers depend on who those peers are, though, as well as the context in which the peers are encountered (Ahmed et al., 2020; Ragan, 2020). For instance, whereas high susceptibility to peer influence predicts adolescents’ antisocial behavior if their friends are antisocial, the same level of susceptibility is not predictive of problem behavior if their friends are not (Hofmann & Müller & 2018; Monahan, Steinberg, & Cauffman, 2009; Paternoster et al., 2013). And, of course, many adolescents have friends who pressure them not to get involved in questionable, illegal, or risky activities (Kam & Wang, 2015). Although we know that conformity to peer pressure is high during early and middle adolescence, it isn’t clear why. One possibility is that individuals’ susceptibility to peer pressure doesn’t change but that peer pressure may be especially strong around the time individuals are 14. In other words, adolescent peer groups may exert more pressure on their members to conform than do groups of younger or older individuals, and the pressure may be strong enough to make even the most autonomous teenagers comply. Another possibility is that young adolescents are more susceptible to peer influence because of their heightened orientation toward other people in general (Nelson, Lau, & Jarcho, 2014; Somerville, 2013; Wolf et al., 2015) and toward peers in particular (Conson et al., 2017). In one experiment, people of different ages were asked to rate how risky various activities were, were then told how either a teenager or an adult had rated the same activities, and then were asked to re-rate them. All groups except the young adolescents were likely to change their ratings to be more consistent with what they were told the adult had said; the young adolescents were more likely to change their ratings to match what they thought other teenagers had said (Knoll et al., 2017; Knoll et al., 2015). Keep in mind that not all peer influence is bad, however: When adolescents are actively discouraged from taking risks by their peers, they are likely to listen to them (de Boer & Harakeh, 2017), and in the presence of peers, adolescents engage in more prosocial behavior (Van Hoorn, Van Dijk, Güroglu, & Crone, 2016) and learn faster (Silva et al., 2016). During the COVID-19 pandemic, while many (including myself) worried that peer influences would lead adolescents to ignore guidelines for social distancing (Steinberg, 2020), others have suggested that we try to harness adolescents’ susceptibility to peer influence to encourage safe behavior (Andrews, Foulkes, & Blakemore, 2020). The data are quite clear: In counties with universities where instruction continued in person after the pandemic had been identified, COVID cases rose immediately, but in counties in which universities switched to remote instruction, COVID cases were about as frequent as they were in counties without universities at all (Leidner et al., 2021) (see Figure 9.3). Yet a third account is that being around other teenagers changes the way the adolescent brain functions. During adolescence, the mere presence of friends activates brain regions associated with the experience of reward, but no such effect is found when adolescents are with their parents, when adolescents are with a mix of peers and adults, or when adults are with their friends, as shown in Figure 9.4 (Chein et al., 2011; Silva, Chein, & Steinberg, 2016; Smith et al., 2015; Telzer, Ichien, & Qu, 2015). Even adolescent mice show an increase in sensitivity to rewards when with their “peers,” something that isn’t seen in adult mice (Logue et al., 2014). Peer influence does not have to take the form of active peer pressure, however (Harakeh & de Boer, 2019). When adolescents are with their friends, they may be especially likely to pay attention to the potential rewards of a risky choice and less likely to notice the potential costs (Haddad et al., 2014; Smith, Chein, & Steinberg, 2014; Weigard et al., 2014). One study of adolescents’ responses to Instagram posts found that when high school students were presented with photographs depicting risky activities, they showed decreased activation in brain regions known to govern self-control; this effect was not seen in college students, though (Sherman et al., 2018). Because adolescents usually experience pleasure when they are with their peers, they are more likely to go along with the crowd to avoid being rejected (Blakemore, 2018). In experiments, adolescents who are led to believe they are interacting in a chat room with either high-status or low-status peers (which is manipulated by the researchers in the way the peers are described) about the acceptability of various illegal or risky behaviors are more influenced by the opinions of high-status peers, an effect that is especially strong among adolescents who are particularly susceptible to peer influence (Choukas-Bradley et al., 2014). This creates a dilemma: Teenagers must strike a balance between asserting their independence and fitting in (Allen, Chango, & Szwedo, 2014). One of the difficult challenges of adolescence is that being popular with peers often requires a willingness to engage in behaviors that adults disapprove of, such as drinking. When adolescents view Instagram photos of other teenagers engaging in risky behavior, looking at photos with a large number of “likes” activates their brain’s reward regions (Sherman et al., 2016). Individual Differences in Susceptibility to Peer Influence Within a group of teenagers who are the same age, some are highly autonomous, others are easily influenced by their peers, others are oriented toward their parents, and still others are swayed by both peers and parents, depending on the situation and the behavior in question (Prinstein, Brechwald, & Cohen, 2011; Sijtsema & Lindenberg, 2018). Girls are less susceptible to peer pressure than boys, as are Black adolescents in comparison to adolescents from other ethnic groups. Asian American adolescents, in contrast, seem especially susceptible to peer pressure, perhaps consistent with the greater emphasis placed on the importance of the group over the individual in Asian cultures (Steinberg & Monahan, 2007). Susceptibility to peer pressure is also higher among relatively more acculturated Latinx adolescents than their less acculturated peers and higher among Latinx adolescents who were born in the United States than those who were born abroad (Bámaca & Umaña-Taylor, 2006; Umaña-Taylor & Bámaca-Gómez, 2003). Adolescents from single-parent families, as well as those with less supportive or more controlling parents, appear especially susceptible to peer pressure (Chan & Chan, 2013). There also is evidence that adolescents with a particular genetic profile are relatively more susceptible than others to peer influence (Schlomer et al., 2021). Studies of adolescent brain development have added to our growing understanding of differences among adolescents in their susceptibility to peer influence (Brechwald & Prinstein, 2011). Individuals who show a pattern of brain activity indicating heightened sensitivity to social evaluation are less able to resist peer influence (Falk et al., 2014; Guyer et al., 2014; Telzer et al., 2020), as are adolescents who are in the midst of puberty, perhaps because pubertal hormones make adolescents more sensitive to social influence (Kretsch & Harden, 2014), and those who are high in sensation seeking (Segalowitz et al., 2012) or fun seeking (Blankenstein et al., 2020). Being able to resist peer pressure is associated with stronger connections between areas of the brain active during decision making and other brain regions, perhaps because individuals who are more likely to stand up to their friends are better able to better control the impulsive, emotional decision making that often occurs in the peer group (Grosbras et al., 2007). Similarly, adolescents whose neural activity is indicative of better emotion regulation also report more resistance to peer influence (Pfeifer et al., 2011). This brain research is consistent with the idea that a key aspect of psychological maturation in adolescence, including resistance to peer influence, involves the development of self-regulation (Hinnant & Forman-Alberti, 2019; Monahan et al., 2009). Parenting and Behavioral Autonomy Like emotional autonomy, behavioral autonomy appears to be associated with authoritative rather than permissive, authoritarian, or neglectful parenting (Collins & Steinberg, 2006). The impact of having authoritative parents on adolescents’ susceptibility to peer pressure depends on the nature of the peer pressure, however. Adolescents from authoritative homes are less susceptible to antisocial peer pressure, but they may be more susceptible to the influence of positive peers. Adolescents from authoritative homes are less likely to be influenced by having drug-using friends, but they are more likely to be influenced by having friends who perform well in school (Mounts & Steinberg, 1995). It is also important to distinguish between adolescents who are excessively dependent on their peers (and who forgo their parents’ rules and pay less attention to their schoolwork for the sake of being popular with peers) and those who turn to peers for counsel but do not ignore their parents’ guidance (Fuligni et al., 2001). Substituting peers for parents leads to problem behavior; adding peers to the list of persons one turns to for advice, so long as that list also includes parents, does not. In other words, the problem is being distant from one’s parents, rather than being close to one’s peers, something that parents who worry about the power of the peer group would do well to remember. The ways in which parents and adolescents negotiate changes in behavioral autonomy have implications for adolescents’ adjustment (Chen-Gaddini, 2012; Roche et al., 2014). Adolescents who have less positive relationships with their parents are more likely to be especially peer oriented, to affiliate with antisocial peers, and to spend time with friends in unsupervised settings, all of which heighten the risk for problem behavior. But parents need to maintain a healthy balance between asserting control and granting autonomy. Granting too much autonomy before adolescents are ready for it or granting too little autonomy once adolescents are mature enough to handle it creates adolescents who are the most strongly peer oriented. Adolescents whose parents become more authoritarian over time (stricter and less likely to permit the adolescent to make decisions) are the most peer oriented of all. Although many parents clamp down on their teenagers’ independence out of fear that not doing so will allow the youngsters to fall under the “evil” influence of the peer group, this strategy often backfires. Having parents limit their autonomy at just the time when more independence is desired and expected makes adolescents turn away from the family and toward their friends. Ethnic and Cultural Differences in Expectations for Autonomy The development of behavioral autonomy varies across cultures because of differences in the age expectations that adolescents and parents have for independent behavior. Adolescents’ mental health is best when their desire for autonomy matches their expectations for what their parents are willing to grant (Pérez, Cumsille, & Martínez, 2016). For example, within the same countries, White adolescents and their parents have earlier expectations for adolescent autonomy than do Asian adolescents and their parents. Because of this, Asian adolescents may be less likely to seek autonomy from their parents than White adolescents, White adolescents are less likely than Asian adolescents to define themselves in terms of their relationship with their parents (Pomerantz et al., 2009), and discrepancies between adolescents’ and parents’ expectations for autonomy don’t cause the same degree of conflict in Asian homes as they do in Western ones (Jensen & Dost-Gözkan, 2015). Not surprisingly, increased autonomy is strongly associated with better emotional functioning among American youth (where being an independent person is highly valued) but less so among Asian adolescents (Qin, Pomerantz, & Wang, 2009). In families that have immigrated to a new culture, parents and adolescents often have different expectations about granting autonomy (Romo, Mireles-Rios, & Lopez-Tello, 2014). As a rule, because adolescents generally acculturate more quickly to a new culture than do parents, a family that has moved from a culture in which it is normal to grant autonomy relatively later in adolescence (as in most Asian countries) to one in which it is normal to grant autonomy relatively earlier (as in the United States) may experience conflict as a result of differences in the expectations of adolescents and parents (Bámaca-Colbert et al., 2012). This is because adolescents’ expectations for autonomy are shaped to a great extent by their perceptions of how much independence their friends have (Daddis, 2011). The Development of Cognitive Autonomy The development of cognitive autonomy entails changes in the adolescent’s beliefs, opinions, and values. It has been studied mainly by looking at how adolescents think about moral, political, and religious issues. Three trends in the development of cognitive autonomy are especially noteworthy. First, adolescents become increasingly abstract in the way they think about moral, political, and religious issues. This leads to more complicated decisions about how to act when one’s beliefs about one issue conflict with one’s beliefs about another. Consider an 18-year-old who is deciding whether to participate in a deliberately disruptive demonstration against policies he believes support the interests of environmental polluters. Instead of looking at the situation only in terms of the environmental issues, he might also think about the implications of knowingly violating the law by being disruptive. Second, during adolescence, beliefs become increasingly rooted in general principles. An 18-year-old might say that demonstrating against pollution is acceptable because protecting the environment is more important than living in accord with the law, and so breaking a law is legitimate when the status quo leads to environmental degradation. Finally, beliefs become increasingly founded in the young person’s own values, not merely in a system of values passed on by parents or other authority figures. Thus, an 18-year-old may look at the issue of environmental protection in terms of what he himself believes, rather than in terms of what his parents think. Much of the growth in cognitive autonomy can be traced to the cognitive changes characteristic of the period. With adolescents’ enhanced reasoning capabilities and the further development of hypothetical thinking come a heightened interest in ideological and philosophical matters and a more sophisticated way of looking at them. The ability to consider alternate possibilities and to engage in thinking about thinking allows for the exploration of differing value systems, political ideologies, personal ethics, and religious beliefs. It also may permit the development of curiosity and open-mindedness (Baeher, 2017). The growth of cognitive autonomy is a relatively late development; it follows and is encouraged by the development of emotional and behavioral autonomy, which typically mature earlier in adolescence (Collins & Steinberg, 2006). prosocial behavior Behaviors intended to help others. Why is cognitive autonomy stimulated by the development of emotional and behavioral autonomy? The establishment of emotional autonomy provides adolescents with the ability to look at their parents more objectively. When adolescents no longer see their parents as omnipotent and infallible, they may reevaluate the ideas and values that they accepted without question as children. And as adolescents begin to test the waters of independence behaviorally, they may experience a variety of cognitive conflicts caused by having to deal with competing pressures to behave in different ways. These conflicts may prompt young people to consider in more serious and thoughtful terms what they really believe. For example, during adolescence, individuals become increasingly likely to say that it is permissible to lie to one’s parents about disobeying them when they think their parents’ advice is immoral (for instance, if the parents had forbidden their teenager to date someone from another race) (Perkins & Turiel, 2007). This struggle to clarify values, provoked in part by the exercise of behavioral autonomy, is a key component of the process of developing a sense of cognitive autonomy. Moral Development During Adolescence Moral development has been the most widely studied aspect of cognitive autonomy during adolescence. The study of moral development involves both reasoning (how individuals think about moral dilemmas) and behavior (how they behave in situations that call for moral judgments). Related to this is the study of prosocial behavior, acts people engage in to help others (Morris, Eisenberg, & Houltberg, 2011). Assessing Moral Reasoning The dominant theoretical viewpoint in the study of moral reasoning is grounded in Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. Cognitive-developmental theories of morality that stem from this viewpoint emphasize shifts in the type of reasoning that individuals use in making moral decisions, rather than changes in the content of the decisions they reach or the actions they take as a result (Eisenberg et al., 2009; Smetana & Villalobos, 2009). Page 251 Researchers assess individuals’ moral reasoning by examining their responses to hypothetical dilemmas about difficult, real-world situations, such as the following (Gibbs et al., 2007): The best-known dilemma used by researchers who study moral reasoning involves a man who had to choose between stealing a drug to save his wife or letting his wife remain mortally ill: In Europe, a woman was near death from a very bad disease, a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging 10 times what the drug cost him to make. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman’s husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together about $1,000, which was half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said, “No, I discovered the drug and I’m going to make money from it.” Heinz got desperate and broke into the man’s store to steal the drug for his wife. Should the husband have done that? Was it right or wrong? Stages of Moral Reasoning Whether or not you think that Heinz should have stolen the drug is less important than the reasoning behind your answers. According to the cognitive-developmental perspective, there are three levels of moral reasoning: preconventional moral reasoning, which is dominant during most of childhood; conventional moral reasoning, which is usually dominant during late childhood and early adolescence; and postconventional moral reasoning (sometimes called principled moral reasoning), which emerges sometime during the adolescent or young adult years. Preconventional thinking is characterized by reference to external and physical events. Preconventional moral decisions are not based on society’s standards, rules, or conventions (hence the label preconventional). Children at this stage approach moral dilemmas in ways that focus on the rewards and punishments associated with different courses of action. One preconventional child might say that Heinz should not have stolen the drug because he could have been caught and sent to jail. Another might say that Heinz was right to steal the drug because people would have been angry with him if he had let his wife die. In either case, the chief concern to the preconventional thinker is what would happen to Heinz as a result of his choice. preconventional moral reasoning The first level of moral reasoning, which is typical of children and is characterized by reasoning that is based on rewards and punishments associated with different courses of action. conventional moral reasoning The second level of moral development, which occurs during late childhood and early adolescence and is characterized by reasoning that is based on the rules and conventions of society. postconventional moral reasoning The level of moral reasoning during which society’s rules and conventions are seen as relative and subjective rather than as authoritative; also called principled moral reasoning. Conventional thinking about moral issues focuses not so much on tangible rewards and punishments as on how an individual’s behavior will be judged by others. In conventional moral reasoning, special importance is given to the roles people are expected to play and to society’s rules, institutions, and conventions. Individuals behave properly because in so doing, they receive the approval of others and help to maintain the social order. The correctness of society’s rules is not questioned, however; individuals do their duty by upholding and respecting the rules that people are supposed to follow. A conventional thinker might say that Heinz should not have stolen the drug because stealing is against the law. But another might counter that Heinz was right to steal the drug because it is what a good husband is expected to do. According to most studies of moral reasoning, the majority of adolescents and adults think primarily in conventional terms: They evaluate moral decisions in terms of a set of socially accepted rules that people are supposed to abide by. Postconventional reasoning is relatively rare. At this level of reasoning, society’s rules and conventions are seen as relative and subjective rather than as absolute and definitive. Individuals may have a moral duty to abide by society’s standards for behavior— but only insofar as those standards support and serve moral ends. Occasions arise in which conventions ought to be questioned and when more important principles—such as justice, fairness, or the sanctity of human life—take precedence over established social norms. For instance, a postconventional response might be that Heinz should not have stolen the drug because in doing so he violated an implicit agreement among members of society—an agreement that gives each person the freedom to pursue his or her livelihood. However, another principled thinker might respond that Heinz was right to steal the drug because someone’s life was at stake and because preserving human life is more important than respecting individual freedoms. Whereas conventional thinking is oriented toward society’s rules, postconventional thinking is founded on more broadly based, abstract moral principles. For this reason, the development of postconventional reasoning is especially relevant to the discussion of cognitive autonomy. Moral reasoning becomes more principled over the course of childhood and adolescence (Eisenberg et al., 2009). Preconventional reasoning dominates the responses of children; conventional responses begin to appear during preadolescence and continue into middle adolescence; and postconventional reasoning does not appear until late adolescence, if at all. Movement into higher stages of moral reasoning occurs when children are developmentally “ready”—when their reasoning is predominantly at one stage but partially at the next higher one—and when they are exposed to the more advanced type of reasoning by other people, such as parents or peers (Eisenberg et al., 2009). The development of moral reasoning tends to follow a pattern in which individuals move from periods of consolidation (in which their reasoning is consistently at a particular stage of development), into periods of transition (in which there is more variability in their stages of reasoning), into new periods of consolidation (in which their reasoning is consistent but at a higher stage than during the previous period of consolidation) (Walker, Gustafson, & Hennig, 2001). These gains in moral reasoning are accompanied by changes in brain systems that permit us to behave less selfishly (Crone, 2013). Page 252 Although not all individuals enter a stage of consistent postconventional thinking during adolescence, many begin to place greater emphasis on abstract values and moral principles and to look inward (being moral is important because it reflects the sort of person you want to be), rather than outward (being moral is important because of what others will think of you), to define their moral identity (Krettenauer & Victor, 2017) (see Figure 9.5). Moreover, if individuals of different ages are presented with other peoples’ moral arguments, older individuals are more often persuaded by justifications that are more advanced. Thus, the appeal of postconventional moral reasoning increases over the course of adolescence, whereas the appeals of preconventional and of conventional reasoning both decline. The attractiveness of postconventional thinking appears to increase both with age and with schooling; most adults reach a plateau in moral reasoning after completing their formal education. Although for many years psychologists debated whether there were sex differences in the way that individuals approach moral problems and many popular books were based on the idea that men and women think differently about ethical issues, studies have not found this to be true (Smetana & Villalobos, 2009). Moral Reasoning and Moral Behavior It is one thing to reason about hypothetical moral problems in an advanced way; it is quite another to behave consistently with one’s reasoning. After all, it is common for people to say one thing (cheating on a test is immoral) but do another (sneak a peek at a classmate’s test when running out of time during an exam). Although individuals do not always behave in ways that are absolutely consistent with their moral reasoning, on average, people who reason at higher stages are more ethical in their day-to-day behavior (Eisenberg et al., 2009). Adolescents who are capable of reasoning at higher stages are less likely to commit antisocial acts, less likely to cheat, and less likely to bow to the pressures of others, as well as be more tolerant of diversity, more likely to engage in political protests, more likely to volunteer their time, and more likely to assist others in need of help. They are also more likely to be influential over their friends in group decisions about moral problems (Gummerum et al., 2008). Conversely, those who reason at lower stages of moral thought are more aggressive, delinquent, accepting of violence, and accepting of others’ misbehavior (Eisenberg et al., 2009). Most of us have found ourselves in situations in which we behaved less morally than we would have liked to, often because of circumstances. For example, you probably realize in the abstract that complying with highway speed limits is important because such limits prevent accidents, and you likely obey these limits most of the time. But you may have found yourself in a situation in which you weighed your need to get somewhere in a hurry (maybe you were late for a job interview) against your belief in the importance of obeying speeding laws, and you decided that in this instance, you would knowingly behave in a way inconsistent with your belief. The correlation between adolescents’ moral reasoning and their moral behavior is especially likely to break down when they define issues as personal choices rather than ethical dilemmas (e.g., when using drugs is seen as a personal matter rather than a moral issue). This helps explain why adolescents’ moral reasoning and risk taking are unrelated; people can be very advanced in their reasoning but still engage in risky behavior (Eisenberg et al., 2009). If people consider various risky behaviors (e.g., experimenting with drugs or having unprotected sex) to be personal decisions rather than ethical ones, their moral reasoning will be relatively unimportant in predicting how they will act. It is not clear, however, whether viewing risk taking as a personal choice is likely to lead to more risk taking or whether individuals who’ve engaged in a risky activity are likely to redefine the issue as a personal rather than moral one as a way of justifying their behavior after the fact. In either case, this suggests that interventions designed to stimulate moral reasoning will have little impact on adolescents’ risk taking if they fail to convince adolescents that the behavior in question involves a moral choice and not just a personal one. This is also why delinquency and aggression are more common among adolescents who score higher on measures of moral disengagement (the tendency to rationalize immoral behavior as legitimate, as when one justifies stealing from someone as a way of retaliating) (Bao et al., 2015). Prosocial Reasoning, Prosocial Behavior, and Volunteerism Although most research on the development of morality has focused on what adolescents do under circumstances in which a law might be broken or a rule violated, researchers have also studied reasoning and behavior in prosocial situations. In general, the ways in which individuals think about prosocial phenomena, such as honesty or kindness, become more sophisticated during late adolescence, just like their moral reasoning (Morris, Eisenberg, & Houltberg, 2011). Over the course of adolescence, individuals come to devalue prosocial acts that are done for self-serving reasons (to receive a reward, return a favor, or improve their image) and value those that are done out of genuine empathy, a pattern that has been observed across a variety of cultures (Eisenberg et al., 2009). During late adolescence, prosocial reasoning continues to become more advanced, leveling off sometime in the early 20s (Eisenberg et al., 2005). Some research connects these changes in reasoning to developments in regions of the brain that govern our ability to look at things from other people’s perspectives (Crone, 2013). During adolescence, individuals become more likely to incorporate insights about their helpful behavior into their views of themselves, as this passage from an interview with a 16-year-old girl, about her helping a classmate, illustrates: She has depression problems and she didn’t have any friends in seventh grade—well she had friends but then they all like abandoned her or whatever. And I befriended her and... um she, she said, she had thoughts of suicide and she was cutting herself and all this crazy stuff and she was like “And now I don’t think I would be here if it wasn’t for you befriending me back then.”... And... she told me that I was like a really good example to her and stuff. (Recchia et al., 2015, p. 874) making the personal connection Did you grow up in a family that engaged in the sorts of discussions thought to promote more advanced levels of moral reasoning? What are some examples of the ways in which your family did (or did not) do this? Generally, the same type of parenting that facilitates the growth of healthy emotional autonomy also contributes to the development of moral and prosocial reasoning. Adolescents whose parents engage them in discussion, elicit their point of view, and practice authoritative parenting display more advanced moral reasoning and prosocial behavior than their peers (Carlo et al., 2018; Recchia et al., 2015). It appears that authoritative parenting makes adolescents more likely to feel sympathy toward others, which in turn prompts prosocial behavior (Eisenberg, VanSchyndel, & Hofer, 2015; Shen, Carlo, & Knight, 2013). Growing up in a home that stresses familism (the importance of fulfilling one’s obligations to the family) also leads adolescents to become more prosocial toward others (Knight, 2015). In addition, positive parenting helps facilitate the development of empathy and emotion regulation, both of which contribute to prosocial development (Padilla-Walker & Christensen, 2011; Wray-Lake & Flanagan, 2012). Prosocial Reasoning and Prosocial Behavior Adolescents who show more advanced prosocial reasoning and who place a high value on prosocial behavior behave in ways that are consistent with this (Hardy, Carlo, & Roesch, 2010). Adolescents who have volunteered considerable amounts of time in service activities score higher on measures of moral reasoning than their peers, are more committed to the betterment of society, and, as children, were made aware of the suffering of those who are less fortunate (Matsuba & Walker, 2005). Individuals who score high on measures of prosocial moral reasoning are more sympathetic and empathic (Carlo, Padilla-Walker, & Nielson, 2015; Van der Graaff et al., 2018), engage in more prosocial behavior (Eisenberg, Zhou, & Koller, 2001), and are less likely to behave violently after having witnessed violence themselves (Brookmeyer, Henrich, & Schwab-Stone, 2005). In general, adolescent girls score higher on measures of prosocial moral reasoning than do boys, as do both males and females who are relatively more feminine, consistent with the notion that helpfulness is a trait associated more with femininity than masculinity (Morris, Eisenberg, & Houltberg, 2011). Page 254 moral disengagement Rationalizing immoral behavior as legitimate, as a way of justifying one’s own bad acts. Although prosocial reasoning becomes more advanced over the course of adolescence, changes in prosocial behavior during adolescence are not as consistent. Some researchers have suggested that how adolescents think about behaving prosocially is less important than how they feel when they see others in need of help, and they have argued that fostering prosocial behavior may be more effectively done by encouraging the development of empathy rather than more advanced moral reasoning (Van der Graff et al., 2018). Encouraging the development of emotional intelligence may also be helpful. Given recent increases in immigration, for example, it is important to know that adolescents who are more empathic and skilled at perspective-taking are less likely to develop anti-immigrant attitudes (Miklikowska, 2018). As a result, while some studies find that individuals become more empathic, sympathetic, and helpful as they move into and through adolescence (Padilla-Walker, Carlo, & Memmott-Elison, 2017), but many do not (Eisenberg et al., 2009). One reason for this inconsistency is that researchers have defined and measured prosocial behavior in many different ways, including helping, sharing, comforting, volunteering, and even etiquette (El Mallah, 2020). Being willing to comfort someone who needs it, volunteering for a community organization, and displaying good manners are entirely different things, but all have been used as measures of “prosocial” activities. emotional intelligence The ability of individuals to accurately recognize and label their own emotions and those of others. civic engagement Involvement in political and community affairs, as reflected in knowledge about politics and current affairs, participation in conventional and alternative political activities, and engaging in community service. In fact, some studies even have found that teenagers become less helpful toward others as they get older and, especially during middle school, are markedly less likely to say that it is important to them to “help those who are less fortunate,” “help my society,” “help people in my community,” “serve my country,” “help other students in school,” or “make new students feel welcome” (Wray- Lake, Syvertsen, & Flanagan, 2016) (see Figure 9.6). (This is consistent with other observations that early adolescence appears to be the height of meanness, laziness, and close-mindedness, at least in studies of American teens; Soto & Tackett, 2015). In experiments in which individuals are given money and must choose between keeping it all for themselves or giving half to an anonymous peer, older teenagers are less likely to share things equitably (Meuwese et al., 2015; van de Groep et al., 2020). More consistent are research findings indicating that prosocial behavior is fairly stable with age (prosocial children grow up to be prosocial teenagers) and across different contexts (adolescents who are helpful to classmates in school are more likely to be helpful to strangers in the mall) (Padilla-Walker, Carlo, & Memmott-Elison, 2017). Also, girls are generally more caring and prosocial than boys, perhaps because parents emphasize prosocial development more in raising daughters than sons (Eisenberg et al., 2009). Encouraging adolescents to spend time thinking about what’s important to them seems to increase their tendency to act prosocially (Thomaes et al., 2012). And having prosocial friends and classmates, as well as higher-quality friendships, leads to more prosocial behavior (Busching & Krahé, 2020; Stotsky, Bowker, & Etkin, 2020; Van Hoorn, Van Dijk, Meuwese, et al., 2016). Whereas children’s prosocial behavior is influenced by the adult role models they have, by early adolescence, seeing peers behave prosocially is a more important influence (Ruggeri, et al., 2018). Civic Engagement One of the most obvious ways in which adolescents can demonstrate prosocial behavior is through various types of civic engagement (Metzger, Ferris, & Oosterhoff, 2019). Civic engagement is a broad term for a category of activities that reflect involvement in political and community affairs, including staying knowledgeable about politics and current affairs, participating in conventional political activities (e.g., contacting a political representative about an issue, campaigning for a candidate, or voting in an election), participating in alternative political activities (e.g., being part of a demonstration or a boycott), and engaging in community service. Page 255 Because the minimum age for voting in most countries is 18 or older, little research has been conducted on adolescents’ involvement in political activities, although a number of surveys have been conducted to measure students’ knowledge and attitudes on a range of political issues. Most of these studies have found that only a small proportion of young people are politically engaged, not just in the United States but around the world. Nor does this change once people become old enough to vote. In the United States, election turnouts continue to be lower among young people than among adults, and, with the exception of a temporary spark in interest following major political and world events (such as the horrific 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida), adolescents’ interest in and knowledge of political issues are meager (Sherrod & Lauckhardt, 2009). Experts attribute this apathy in part to the widespread absence of civics education in American high schools, the absence of opportunities to become politically active in their communities, and the tendency of adolescents to focus their civic energies on organizations that they are more directly involved with, such as their schools, religious institutions, and extracurricular clubs, rather than local politics (Wray-Lake, 2019). Some writers, like me, believe that adolescents’ participation in elections might be increased by lowering the voting age to 16 so that it becomes a habit at a time when it is easy to do (Steinberg, 2018). Voting at 18 may be more difficult because people this age often live out of the state in which they are registered. Most research on civic engagement in adolescence has focused on community service. Volunteering in community service activities, sometimes referred to as service learning, is more common in the United States than in most other countries. Researchers have been interested in both the antecedents of volunteering (what leads adolescents to become involved in volunteer activities) and its consequences (how adolescents are affected by volunteering). Apart from attending a school in which some sort of community service is required, the best predictors of volunteerism in adolescence are being actively involved in religion (most probably because many volunteer activities are organized through religious institutions) and having parents who are active as volunteers in the community (Oosterhoff & Metzger, 2016; Rossi et al., 2016). Volunteers also tend to be female, more socially mature, more extraverted, and more altruistic (Eisenberg et al., 2009). Many experts have noted that adolescents have a strong need to contribute to their communities and that doing so helps young people find purpose in their lives; simply put, adolescents need to feel that they matter to other people and to the community (Schmidt et al., 2020). Numerous writers have argued that involvement in local organizations, especially when the tasks assigned to adolescents are meaningful, can have a positive impact on the development of autonomy, identity, prosocial attitudes, and social competence. Unfortunately, society does not provide enough opportunities for teenagers to contribute to the well-being others, and even when such opportunities exist, they vary considerably in their quality (Fuligni, 2019). Studies of volunteering indicate that engaging in community service leads to short-term gains in mental health and social responsibility; increases in the importance individuals place on helping others; and increased commitment to tolerance, equal opportunity, and cultural diversity (Ballard, Hoyt, & Pachuki, 2019; Eisenberg et al., 2009; Flanagan et al., 2015). There also is some evidence that volunteering in adolescence predicts volunteering in adulthood (Chan, Ou, & Reynolds, 2014). The extent to which these effects persist over time depends, in part, on how long the volunteer activity lasts; the shorter the activity, the more short-lived the effects (Horn, 2012). Page 256 Many school districts require community service of all students, a graduation requirement that has prompted both praise and criticism. Proponents argue that service activities help develop concern for the community and facilitate adolescents’ prosocial development. Opponents counter that forcing adolescents to do something they don’t want to do will make them even more negative about community service and less likely to volunteer at later ages. Some worry that turning an activity that adolescents may want to do into a school requirement makes the activity less intrinsically rewarding. service learning The process of learning through involvement in community service. Several studies have compared students who have volunteered for community service with those who have had it forced on them. It does not seem that requiring community service makes students develop negative attitudes about volunteering, regardless of whether they had been volunteers previously. But the evidence is mixed with regard to whether the effects of volunteering are different between adolescents who willingly participate and those who do it only because it is a requirement. Some studies find that participating in community service activities has positive effects regardless of whether the participation is voluntary or required (Hart et al., 2007; J. Schmidt, Shumow, & Kackar, 2007), but others do not (Horn, 2012), and still others find that participation has little effect regardless of whether it is mandatory or optional (Henderson et al., 2007). One reason for these discrepancies is that students’ volunteer experiences vary considerably in quality, ranging from ones that engage adolescents in helping others directly to those that occupy them in tedious clerical work (Ferreira, Azevedo, & Menezes, 2012; Henderson, Pancer, & Brown, 2014). Another is that community service only may be beneficial if adolescents are required to reflect on their experience, perhaps in classes that encourage this (van Goethem, van Hoof, Orobio de Castro, et al., 2014). One important difference between students who are forced into community service and those who volunteer is that volunteers are more likely to continue their service work after graduation. In other words, whatever the positive effects of participation, they are not enough to turn adolescents who aren’t especially interested in community work into adults who are (Planty, Bozick, & Regnier, 2006). The potential benefits to the recipients of the adolescents’ service (the children they tutor, the elderly they visit, or residents of the neighborhoods whose parks they clean up) may be greater than those to the volunteers. Political Thinking During Adolescence Less is known about the development of political thinking during adolescence than about moral development, but the way adolescents think about politics becomes more principled, more abstract, and more independent during the adolescent years, just as moral reasoning does. This pattern is linked both to the general cognitive developments of adolescence and to the growth of specific expertise, as the adolescent is exposed to more political information and ideas (Flanagan, 2004). Changes in Political Thinking Political thinking changes during adolescence in several important ways (Flanagan, 2004). First, it becomes more abstract. In response to the question “What is the purpose of laws?” for example, 12- and 13-year-olds are likely to reply with concrete answers: “So people don’t kill or steal,” “So people don’t get hurt,” and so on. Older adolescents are likely to respond with more abstract and more general statements: “To ensure safety and enforce the government” or “They are basically guidelines for people. I mean, like this is wrong and this is right and to help them understand” (Adelson, 1972, p. 108). Individuals’ understanding of various rights—for example, their beliefs about whether children and adolescents have the right to have some control over their lives—also becomes more abstract with age (Ruck, Abramovitch, & Keating, 1998). With age, individuals are more likely to judge the appropriateness of having certain rights (e.g., freedom of speech) in light of characteristics of the individual (e.g., whether the individual is mature enough to act responsibly) and the context within which the right is expressed (e.g., whether the authority who is regulating speech is a parent or a government official) (Tenenbaum & Ruck, 2012). There is strong support among adolescents for fundamental democratic principles such as representation and majority rule, even in countries whose governments do not operate on these principles (Helwig et al., 2007; Smetana & Villalobos, 2009). Second, political thinking during adolescence becomes less authoritarian and less rigid (Flanagan & Galay, 1995). Young adolescents are inclined toward obedience, authority, and an uncritical, trusting, and acquiescent stance toward government. For example, when asked what might be done in response to a law that is not working out as planned, an older teenager may suggest that the law needs to be reexamined and perhaps amended. A young adolescent, in contrast, will “propose that it be enforced more rigorously.” Unlike older adolescents, younger adolescents are “more likely to favor one-man rule as [opposed to] representative democracy”; show “little sensitivity to individual or minority rights”; and be “indifferent to the claims of personal freedom” (Adelson, 1972, p. 108). Living under the rule of a young adolescent would likely be unpleasant. A few years ago, I was a guest lecturer in a local 7th-grade social studies class, where we were discussing juvenile justice. When I presented the students with hypothetical situations about a crime committed by a young teenager, their suggestions for how the adolescent should be punished were far more harsh than those allowed under the law. Page 257 Finally, during late adolescence, people often develop a roughly coherent and consistent set of attitudes—a sort of ideology—that does not appear before this age and that is based on a set of overarching principles. These principles may concern a wide range of issues, including civil liberties, freedom of speech, and social equality (Flanagan & Galay, 1995; Helwig, 1995). As is the case among adults, adolescents’ views about political matters—the causes of unemployment, poverty, or homelessness, for example—are strongly linked to their social upbringing (Barreiro, Arsenio, & Wainryb, 2019). Adolescents from higher social classes tend to attribute unemployment, poverty, and homelessness to societal factors (“People are poor because not everyone receives the same skills or training and encouragement when they are young”), whereas adolescents from lower-class backgrounds are more likely to attribute these problems to individual factors (“People are poor because they are lazy and don’t want to work hard”). As a consequence, adolescents from higher-socioeconomic-status (SES) backgrounds tend to want society to distribute resources on the basis of need, whereas those from lower-SES backgrounds favor distributing resources on the basis of merit (Kornbluh, Pykett, & Flanagan, 2019). Socioeconomic differences in explanations of why some people are wealthy are not as striking, but they follow a similar pattern, with adolescents from lower-class backgrounds more likely to favor individual explanations (“People are rich because they stayed in school”) than societal ones (“Some people are rich because they inherited money or a big business”) (Flanagan et al., 2014). There also predictable socioeconomic differences in the extent to which U.S. adolescents perceive American society to be inequitable or egalitarian, with those from poorer backgrounds more likely to endorse the former and those from wealthier ones more likely to endorse the latter (Flanagan & Kornbluh, 2019) (see Figure 9.7). Shifts in all three of these directions—increasing abstraction, decreasing authoritarianism, and increasing use of principles—are similar to the shifts observed in studies of moral development and consistent with the idea that cognitive autonomy emerges during late adolescence. The movement away from authoritarianism, obedience, and unquestioning acceptance of the rulings of authority indicates that an important psychological concern for older adolescents involves questioning the values and beliefs emanating from parents and other authority figures as they begin to establish their own priorities. Political Thinking and Political Behavior As is the case with moral development, there often are gaps between adolescents’ political thinking in hypothetical situations and their actual attitudes and behavior. The most important influence on the political behavior of young people tends to be the experiences they’ve had growing up, such as having political discussions with parents and friends, discussing politics in classes, and being exposed to the news (Kim & Stattin, 2019; Quintelier, 2015). There is also evidence that adolescents who are victimized frequently expressed more discontent with government and are more likely to become politically engaged (Oosterhoff et al., 2018). Minority adolescents, especially those living in environments in which there are limited economic opportunities, tend to be more cynical about politics than their White counterparts.