Why Adolescent Children may be Less Logical and more Emotional in their Decision-Making

Running head: PSYCHOLOGY 1
Psychology
Name
Institution

PSYCHOLOGY 2
Why Adolescent Children may be Less Logical and more Emotional in their Decision-Making
Human growth is not spontaneous because it occurs progressively right from conception
to adulthood, through infancy, adolescence, and childhood. Growth takes many forms including
cognitive, physical, and social. In this study, we are mainly focusing on the cognitive growth of
human being particularly during adolescence. The main point of discussion is, therefore, the
process of brain development. Unlike their adult counterparts, the adolescents tend to be less
logical, but more irrational, impulsive, emotional, and illogical in their decision-making process.
We would like to dig deeper into the changes that occur in the brain of adolescents that make
them behave in a different manner as compared to the adults.
Figure 1: Parts of Human Brain

PSYCHOLOGY 3
The biological explanation for the reason why the adolescents tend to be less logical, but
more irrational, impulsive, emotional, and illogical in their decision-making process is that
during this stage, the brain still undergoes some development. Research has established that the
process of human brain development does not end during childhood, but continue up to early
adulthood (Fuhrmann, Knoll & Blakemore, 2015). So, it is likely to observe adolescents engage
in irrational and illogical decision-making since their brain is not fully mature. During
adolescence, it is only the back cortex of the brain that is fully-developed. However, the frontal
cortex which is responsible for decision-making is not fully-developed at this time. The
immaturity of the frontal cortex makes it challenging for the adolescents to make rational and
logical decisions. Instead, what happens is that the adolescents end up becoming irrational and
illogical in their thoughts and decisions (Hodel, et al., 2015). This happens because they lack the
frontal cortex part of the brain which can make them t be critical, judgmental, and aware of the
implications of their actions long before they act. The same scenario does not apply to the adults
who are capable of making rational and logical decisions because of the maturity of the frontal
cortex of their brain.
Figure 2: Frontal Cortex of Brain