Teenagers have real brains

Aadolescents have mental capacity sufficient to enable them to make important choices, but might lack the social and emotional maturity to control their impulses, and resist the pressure of a group in a tense situation.

Laurence Steinberg, professor of psychology at Temple University in Philadelphia, assessed the cognitive and emotional adolescents. He and his colleagues studied 935 people aged between 10 and 30 years to observe the differences in cognitive and psychological capacities of different ages.

They observed no differences in psychological maturity at ages between 10 and 11, 12 and 13, and 16 and 17 years. However, they observed significant differences in maturity between those aged 16-17 and those of 22 years or older, and between 18 to 21 years and those of 26 years or more.

"It is very difficult for someone of 16 years to resist the pressure of a group in a tense situation," said Steinberg. The reason is that a teenager did not have enough time to get advice from an adult.

Some cognitive abilities increase between 11 and 16 years, no more progress is made after the age of 16 years. Some capabilities, such as reasoning logically, reach the same level as adults long before the youth shows evidence of psychological maturity.

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