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I'm aware the brain--especially the portion concerning planning and judgement--isn't matured until around the mid-20s and that the brain's structure is sensitive to environment. That said, let's assume a society with the knowledge of the adolescent brain being different from an adult brain educates adolescents early on personal and civic responsibility, and it's probably helpful to say the society doesn't stigmatize adolescent parenthood.

Would their brain maturation hasten in response to their upbringing, or would they at the least be more mindful of their thoughts and behaviors until they acquire the hardware some years later?

While I know of instances wherein mindfulness meditation have improved youth behavior, I didn't have any luck finding studies comparing the brains of adolescents with differing amounts of responsibility and mentoring. In addition, I know there will be individual differences, that some adolescents display better judgement than some adults, and that responsibility, mentoring, and judgement have a degree of subjectivity to them; let's say good judgement is the opposite of trolling and CZW Cage of Death.

Something else may also be said about the influence of collective and individualist societies.

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  • $\begingroup$ Some things have to be learned the hard way. Patience is only learned through experience, and that takes time. $\endgroup$
    – user458
    Jul 14, 2017 at 11:47
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    $\begingroup$ "educates adolescents early on personal and civic responsibility, and it's probably helpful to say the society doesn't stigmatize adolescent parenthood." - You mean, any time from ancient to about 17th century? Or later? It's pretty recent when we stopped teaching responsibility and started to frown at young parenthood, increase age of marriage and age of consent etc. It was 2013 when Vatican City raised age of consent from 12 years old... $\endgroup$
    – Mołot
    Jul 14, 2017 at 12:17
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    $\begingroup$ To the one who flagged: I do not believe it is opinion based. We may lack scientific knowledge to answer, but it is something that potentially can be known. And maybe is known? To th OP:consider adding science-based. $\endgroup$
    – Mołot
    Jul 14, 2017 at 12:20
  • $\begingroup$ Reminder to close-voters: The problem cannot be fixed if the OP is not made aware of it. $\endgroup$
    – Frostfyre
    Jul 14, 2017 at 12:20
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    $\begingroup$ There's a cognitive science SE that I suspect this would be far better placed on than here. $\endgroup$
    – Separatrix
    Jul 14, 2017 at 12:42

2 Answers 2

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I don't think it will, the brain maturation you are talking about is a biological phenomenon, not a training or learning phenomenon. Specifically, it is (at least one component of it is) coating the nerves in the brain with myelin, a physical process that improves accuracy of transmission and doubles the speed. This begins in puberty but does not proceed "brain wide" all at once; instead it seems to proceed in the order of evolutionary development. Since our large (comparatively to other animals) frontal cortex, responsible for planning and judgment and foresight, appeared late in human evolution, it is the last to be "optimized" in this way; and other structures related to emotion and sexual urges are the first. This is likely to be responsible for some of our teenage rebellious phase, driven by emotion and the desire to mate, taking lethal risks to do so (because earlier parts of the brain are working faster than our frontal cortex by a factor of two).

It isn't "hormones", as popularly described, it is just a competition within the brain in which rationality, caution, and foresight are at a severe disadvantage and losing out to physical attraction, impulsiveness, and other strengthened emotions (love, hate, jealousy, greed).

The brain just is not returned to balance until all parts are returned to equal footing, in the mid-20's, with some other physical developments as well. This is not a muscle; training will not hurry the growth of myelin, although severe punishments for "bad behavior" can still reduce the incidence of it; given enough fear of consequences, even adolescents will fall into line.

But that is not "maturity", it is a simulation of it. The emotional life is still raging and keenly felt, even if the actions are not taken.

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  • $\begingroup$ An interesting adjunct to this is how does the type of experience play into it? For example, one who experiences significant trauma or shock of the emotional kind well after what was considered "matured" age can be thrown back into a raging emotional "brainstorm", sometimes periodically as seen in PTSD or extended continuously as in severe grief. Biological also? Would that brain be considered "de"-matured, if there is such a concept? Or would there be something else in play that keeps maturity level glued together while the brain attempts to reorganize (chemical process??). $\endgroup$
    – N2ition
    Jul 14, 2017 at 14:34
  • $\begingroup$ @N2ition Once myelinization is complete, it is not undone (barring some diseases, I suppose, but I am not a neurologist). Severe and long-lasting trauma (physical, nutritional, perhaps even emotional) can halt the process as the body devotes all resources to recovery, and disrupts the myelinization process, which then does not pick up where it left off, it just doesn't happen -- leaving an emotional, impulsive, low rationality brain that is immature for life and forever poor at anticipating consequences or ramifications. I would not be surprised if this contributes to adult criminality. $\endgroup$
    – Amadeus
    Jul 14, 2017 at 15:11
  • $\begingroup$ @Amadeus Then it's adolescent absurdity until the mid-20s... sigh. I appreciate the response, and as for your inquiry about influences on adult criminality, I have the same suspicions. I know people who are otherwise clever, loving, and sometimes perceptive behave as though they're adolescents--just doing things that make no sense--and have suffered legal consequences. They also had traumatic experiences, some physical and some emotional, until adulthood. On a note, I read an article revealing children recovering quickly from PTSD. $\endgroup$
    – user39368
    Jul 14, 2017 at 16:23
  • $\begingroup$ @Amadeus sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/06/170629085311.htm Granted it's in Amsterdam, sometimes studies in one country aren't true in another, I find it interesting nonetheless; correction, it included adolescents too. $\endgroup$
    – user39368
    Jul 14, 2017 at 16:25
  • $\begingroup$ @X22T7V Interesting. I trust those studies. The problems with PTSD are not physical trauma to the brain, they are psychological. I do not mean to diminish the power of such terror, and it can bypass the rational part of the brain, cause hallucinatory experience (waking nightmares), and result in amygdala hijack (in which people are not aware of what they are doing, or react to imaginary threats as if they are real). Precisely how that works in the brain is unknown, but "brain hacks" (like they describe or hypnotism) can work. It's not about brain maturation (or reversing it), though. $\endgroup$
    – Amadeus
    Jul 15, 2017 at 11:51
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Having recently received a training on how to deal with youngsters, I can tell you that we were told that until about 20 years old the brain of humans simply does not respond as the one of an adult to the logical consequences of actions and it is more reactive to emotions. This is also what you point out in your reference.

Typical results of this unbalance is that you see teen agers doing actions which look "stupid" to an adult and that the adult attributes to the lack of experience.

So, I see no benefit in educating to "logic consequences" when the brain cannot process the concept. It's the same like teaching Calculus to a 6 years old. There still can be individual to individual variation, but mostly determined by the genome, not by the education.

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    $\begingroup$ I have my doubts that this answers the question. OP asks wether their upbringing could hasten this process, not wether or not it exists. $\endgroup$
    – Burki
    Jul 14, 2017 at 12:56
  • $\begingroup$ @Burki, is it not what the last period does? $\endgroup$
    – L.Dutch ♦
    Jul 14, 2017 at 13:01
  • $\begingroup$ I didn't read it as such (hence my comment), but that may be just me (and hence no flag). $\endgroup$
    – Burki
    Jul 14, 2017 at 13:12
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    $\begingroup$ I don't think this is accurate. At least part of the reason you can't teach calculus to the average 6 year old is that they don't have (and haven't had time to acquire) the necessary background. But there are a lot of adults who never learn calculus. Just as I could read all the words in adult books at that age, but didn't have the experience to know what a lot of them meant. $\endgroup$
    – jamesqf
    Jul 14, 2017 at 17:22

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