0:08 there are very strong stereotypes of
0:09 adolescents often quite negative
0:12 stereotypes you see them in the media
0:14 now you also see them back in in in
0:16 Shakespeare and even in Plato and
0:17 Aristotle these stereotypes that
0:19 adolescents being badly behaved making
0:21 silly decisions taking lots of risks
0:25 lazy irresponsible antisocial rude
0:29 disrespectful high-maintenance those
0:31 stereotypes are based partly in some
0:33 reality there is some evidence that
0:35 adolescents take more risks than other
0:43 age groups Ravel years one of the kind
0:46 of nuances that the stereotype misses
0:49 out is the context that risk-taking
0:51 tends to take place in so if you think
0:54 about adolescent typical risk-taking
0:57 ones like smoking and drinking alcohol
0:59 and experimenting with drugs dangerous
1:03 driving those kinds of risks don't tend
1:04 to take place when their young person is
1:05 on their own
1:06 it's normally when they're with their
1:08 friends and there's a lot of evidence
1:10 from many different labs around the
1:12 world that adolescents are particularly
1:14 influenced by their peers I don't think
1:17 I particularly take risks although I
1:19 have done small things like drunk a lot
1:22 of ketchup before I didn't know how much
1:23 to take so I didn't want like always
1:24 taking too little too much so I just
1:27 took oh if I wasn't my own I wouldn't
1:30 also be no need to I don't like ketchup
1:33 so for example sticking with the example
1:35 of driving risks a classic experiment
1:37 which has now been replicated several
1:40 times by Larry Steinberg and his
1:43 colleagues has shown that if you bring
1:45 people into the lab you get them to play
1:47 a driving video game we have to get
1:49 around a circuit as quickly as possible
1:51 you find that actually interestingly the
1:53 number of risks that different age
1:57 groups take is around the same number
1:59 when they're on their own but if the
2:01 participant has a couple of friends
2:04 standing behind them that significantly
2:06 increases the number of driving risks
2:08 adolescents take and young adults take
2:10 under the age of twenty five
2:12 but it has no effect on the number of
2:14 risks that adults over the age of 25
2:20 take in terms of the experiments we've
2:24 done in my lab we often look at things
2:25 like social influence and one of one of
2:27 the experiments we did looked at social
2:30 influence on risk perception so here
2:32 were here we were asking participants to
2:35 rate how risky they think different
2:37 everyday situations are so things like
2:40 driving without a seatbelt or crossing a
2:42 street on a red light or cycling without
2:45 helmet the critical finding in this
2:47 experiment was that young adolescents
2:50 aged 12 to 14 are more influenced by
2:52 people their own age by other teenagers
2:54 and that wasn't true for any other age
2:56 groups her children and older
2:59 adolescents and adults are more likely
3:01 to be influenced by adults than by
3:04 teenagers my friends are very important
3:07 to me because they they're like I see
3:09 them almost every single day and like
3:12 they just they make me feel safe as well
3:14 if I don't have my friends sometimes I
3:16 look a little bit lost one of the things
3:18 that matters in adolescents is to be
3:21 accepted by your peer group and not to
3:24 be excluded by your peers so we know
3:26 from work by kat sebastian and other
3:28 people that adolescents are
3:31 hypersensitive to social exclusion
3:33 people aren't being accepted for who
3:35 they are and they're being forced to
3:36 change in like big things like social
3:38 media affecting this like you don't have
3:40 social media people are going to exclude
3:42 you who you are even though they
3:44 shouldn't so people change who they are
3:47 to fit in what it means is that they're
3:49 going to pay more attention to their own
3:51 peers than they are to adults so if
3:55 you're if you're organizing say a health
3:57 campaign aimed at young people what
4:00 seems to matter most is changing social
4:02 norms and educating young people
4:05 themselves to run campaigns anti smoking
4:09 or anti-bullying campaigns that has a
4:11 much bigger impact on young people's
4:13 attitudes towards things like smoking
4:15 and bullying than adults running the
4:17 same kind of campaigns that absolutely
4:19 fits with the new neuroscience
4:21 showing that social influence has the
4:23 biggest effect on adolescent
4:24 making a mistaken bigger than other
4:28 other influences I think one thing I
4:31 would have really appreciated knowing
4:33 about during my teenage years was how
4:36 the brain develops during adolescence
4:38 and how this is a period of life where
4:40 everything is quite unstable both in
4:42 terms of your social world and your
4:45 biology or your hormones and your and
4:47 your brain and that's a very natural
4:50 adaptive developmental period where
4:52 things are changing and where you'll
4:53 come out the other end of Earth
4:55 independent adult [Music]
4:59 you [Music]
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