Self-Control and Crime Over the Life Course by Carter H. Hay Ryan C. Meldrum

Author:Carter H. Hay, Ryan C. Meldrum [Carter H. Hay, Ryan C. Meldrum]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Criminology
ISBN: 9781483384498
Google: vNq5BgAAQBAJ
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Published: 2015-02-18T04:15:16+00:00

The Neuroscience of the Evolving Adolescent Brain

Recent decades have seen ever greater attention to the neurological nature of adolescent change (Albert, Chein, & Steinberg, 2013; Casey, Getz, & Galvan, 2008; Steinberg, 2010b). This research nicely complements the work just described on the psychological and attitudinal shifts experienced by adolescents—all the while that those shifts are occurring, notable changes are also under way in an adolescent’s brain. Modern brain-imaging technology has fueled new insights in this area, revealing that significant brain development continues through at least the early 20s. Most important for our purposes is the unmistakable relevance of this for self-control.

Developmental psychologist Laurence Steinberg has been a leading researcher on these issues, and his dual-systems model of development organizes much of what we know. That perspective begins with the idea that neurological development during the adolescent years is quite imbalanced, with some structures and functions leaping ahead of others, at least for a while. Specifically, Steinberg (2010b) emphasizes two neurobiological networks in the teenage brain: (1) the socioemotional network responsible for reward-seeking behavior and (2) the cognitive control network responsible for controlling impulses in favor of long-term goals. The socioemotional network that drives reward-seeking zooms forward during adolescence, largely as a result of surges in dopamine that are linked to puberty. This surge greatly enhances the positive sensations associated with reward-seeking behaviors, a pattern observed in several experimental studies (see Casey et al., 2008). Simply stated, the adolescent brain is programmed to better detect the rewards of illicit, forbidden risks. And adolescents often, of course, are surrounded by other adolescents experiencing the same neurological shifts. This is an environment in which risk itself comes to be valued.

Far from being entirely dysfunctional, these shifts have been evolutionarily necessary—they encourage the risk-seeking that has been an adaptive part of maturation over the course of human existence. The chief complication, however, is that the cognitive control network responsible for controlling impulses advances much more gradually. This network is governed in large part by changes in the prefrontal cortex (PFC), including synaptic pruning and myelination, that increase the speed and efficiency with which the PFC connects with and coordinates other parts of the brain. As this process advances, the cognitive control network strengthens, allowing the PFC to better play the regulatory role described above, especially with inhibiting impulses. When this process runs its course, an advanced cognitive control network provides a suitable self-control counterbalance to the surges in reward-seeking that come from an advancing socioemotional network.

But again, this does not happen immediately—improvements in the cognitive control network are gradual rather than extreme, advancing in a fairly linear fashion through late adolescence and early adulthood (Steinberg, 2010b). Thus, as individuals advance from early to middle adolescence (roughly age 15), there is a tendency (all else being equal) for reward-seeking to win over impulse control, and this encourages momentary or sustained lapses in self-control among adolescents. Their neurological ability to exercise self-control actually is increasing during this period, but it is doing so at a slower

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