Adolescent Decision Making Implications for Prevention Programs: Summary of a Workshop (1999) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
Adolescent Decision Making: Implications for Prevention Programs
Adolescent Decision Making: Implications for Prevention Programs
Pages 1-15
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 1... ...
teenagers reported initiation of sexual intercourse prior to high school graduation (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1996) , and they experience a high number of sexually transmitted diseases (Institute of Medicine, 1996)
|
From page 2... ...
highlight the implications of this research for interventions to reduce high-risk behavior among the nation's youth, particularly in the areas of substance abuse and sexuality. The workshop brought policy makers and service providers together with researchers studying adolescent decision making, individuals evaluating programs to prevent high-risk behaviors, and advertising professionals developing materials aimed at teenagers.
|
From page 3... ...
Workshop chair Baruch Fischhoff, professor of social and decision sciences and of engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University, explained some of the benefits to thinking about decision making from this perspective. Decision theory provides a common descriptive framework for describing how people actually make decisions, for comparing what people actually do with what they could conceivably do under ideal circumstances, and for uncovering ways to help people improve their decision-making skills.
|
From page 4... ...
. Teenagers are slightly more likely than adults to list social consequences of engaging in or avoiding a risky behavior (Beyth-Marom et al., 1993~.
|
From page 5... ...
IMPLICATIONS FOR PREVENTION PROGRAMS s of the likelihood of their experiencing negative consequences. Numerous studies have found that adults tend to see themselves as less likely than others to experience negative outcomes and more likely to experience positive ones (Baumhart, 1968; Finn and Bragg, 1986; Johnson and Tversky, 1983; Larwood and Whitaker, 1977; Perloff, 1983; Svenson, 1981; Weinstein, 1987; Whitely and Hern, 1991~.
|
From page 6... ...
Workshop presenter Lawrence Cohn, associate professor of psychology at the University of Texas at E1 Paso, discussed adolescent cognitive development and its potential implications for decision making. It is generally asserted that, during adolescence, there is an increasing capacity for abstract reasoning, counterfactual reasoning, reasoning from premises that are not true, systematic reasoning, and a growing capacity for probabilistic reasoning.
|
From page 7... ...
Cohn noted that adolescents may also overestimate their ability to recognize and avoid dangerous situations. Workshop presenter Reed Larson, professor of human and community development and psychology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, explained the role that emotions may play in adolescent decision making.
|
From page 8... ...
The popular notion of the reluctant teenager being pressured into trying a risky behavior by friends may be overly simplistic, reported workshop presenter Kathryn Urberg, associate professor of psychology at Wayne State University. It appears that adolescents select their closest friends on the basis of similar interests, as do adults; young people tend to have two to four best friends who are very similar to themselves.
|
From page 9... ...
Several workshop presenters emphasized the importance of the larger society when considering choices made by adolescents. A focus on individual adolescent choices can concentrate attention on the individual, blocking out the environmental constraints on behavior (Fischhoff, 1992a; Nisbett and Ross, 1980~.
|
From page 10... ...
MEDIA INFLUENCES The media television, radio, movies, music videos are part of the social environment in which today's young people grow up, and they can contribute to setting social norms. Presenter Sarah Brown, director of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, pointed out that young teenagers spend up to seven hours a day watching television and that older teenagers may spend more than seven hours a day listening to the radio and CDs or watching music videos.
|
From page 11... ...
Echoing a point made by presenter Robert Denniston, director of the Secretary's Initiative on Youth Substance Abuse Prevention in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Clarkin said the risks portrayed must be believable to the youngsters, must be concrete and immediate, and must focus on social risks, rather than health or legal risks.
|
From page 12... ...
Presenter Richard Catalano, professor and associate director of the Social Development Research Group at the University of Washington, stressed that programs should seek to encourage positive youth development through risk reduction and protective factor enhancement (see, for example, Catalano et al., 1998~. Both youth development practitioners and prevention scientists have called for a broader focus in youth programs because: · the same risk and protective factors may predict various problems, so it would seem to be more efficient to focus on common etiologies rather than individual problems; · risk and protective factors may be found in the environment as well as in the individual, but single-problem-focused programs have focused mainly on the individual;
|
From page 13... ...
Effective programs promoted positive social norms and provided both recognition for positive behavior and opportunities for prosocial involvement. Over half of these programs promoted bonding to prosocial adults in family and schools.
|
From page 14... ...
For example, some antismoking messages try to portray a social risk of smoking by likening kissing a smoker to licking an ashtray. Denniston noted that the Office of National Drug Control Policy planned to launch an $185 million antidrug media campaign in 1998.
|
From page 15... ...
In his closing comments, Baruch Fischhoff returned to the issue of looking at adolescent decision making through the lens of behavioral decision theory. He noted that this primarily cognitive approach needs to be supplemented with the sort of social and affective perspectives represented at the workshop.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.