Exploring Impulse Control and Teenage Behavior: Romeo and Juliet

This essay explores how the lack of impulse control in the play "Romeo and Juliet" motivates the characters' behavior, leading to their tragic end. It examines the irrational decision-making of teenagers, particularly focusing on the impulsive behavior of Romeo and Juliet and the neurological changes occurring in the teenage brain during adolescence. The essay highlights how teenagers often prioritize the potential benefits over the risks associated with their actions, underestimate responsibilities, and are highly influenced by social stimuli. It also uses examples from the play to illustrate how Romeo and Juliet's haste, passion, and tendency to act on impulse without considering the consequences ultimately contribute to their unfortunate deaths. The essay concludes by emphasizing that adolescence is a crucial learning and growing phase, and teenagers should not be judged harshly for their irrationality, with Desklib offering similar essays and resources for further study.

Running head: UNDERSTANDING THE TEENAGE BRAIN
Understanding the Teenage Brain
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1UNDERSTANDING THE TEENAGE BRAIN
Outline of the essay
Introduction
This essay mainly demonstrates the unreasonable behavior of the character Romeo and
Juliet in the play Romeo and Juliet that lead to their unfortunate deaths. In reality, the impulse
behavior and the inability to control enthusiasm motivated the characters to behave in such a
way.
Body
First topic
The main idea supporting this kind of behavior is that during adolescence, teen’s brains
undergo the process of maturation where they are less likely to take informed and matured
decisions compared to adults.
Second topic
They tend to notice the positivity in certain things rather than the risk associated with it.
Parents need to be understanding and supportive during this phase and guide their child.
Third topic
Their brains undergo certain neurological changes that have maximum sensitivity to
social stimuli. Therefore, they tend to underestimate responsibility and risk and go out to explore
the unreal. They just tend to do things at the hit of the moment, which makes them happy without
thinking about the consequences.

2UNDERSTANDING THE TEENAGE BRAIN
Conclusion
It is just learning and growing phase for them and they are judged for being irrational.
Therefore, haste and the lack of ability to control passion motivated Romeo and Juliet to behave
mysteriously in the play.

3UNDERSTANDING THE TEENAGE BRAIN
Essay
This research essay is based on how the lack of impulse control in the play Romeo and
Juliet lead to the motivation of Romeo and Juliet’s behavior. The aim of this paper is to critically
examine the mysterious behavior of the teenagers and their irrational decision-making (Jo &
Caudle).A lack of impulse control tends to be seen in teens with personality disorder. This kind
of impulse behavior can be related to the characters of Romeo and Juliet for their sacrifice and
irrational behavior without thinking about the consequences. This paper explains the teenager
behavior in a greater perspective, reason behind the behavior of Romeo and Juliet and
understanding their impulse decisions and intense feelings.
Passion and haste are the major flaws the characters of Romeo and Juliet. If they were
able to control the emotion and passion within them, unfortunate deaths could have been
avoided. They made decision out of haste, which led to negative outcomes. The reason behind
such kind of behavior is that they make less use of the brains. The period of adolescence is the
time where the teens like to try new and exciting things, the feeling of the unexpected and unreal
(Albert et al.,). An instance from the play is that one day Romeo decided to propose Juliet for
marriage by jumping into Capulet’s garden under her balcony, inspite the risk of being killed by
her relatives. Although, it can lead to negative consequences but it has positive ones also which
leads to happier and healthier relationships. Romeo after knowing that his life would be in the
hands of the enemy decided to go for Juliet. These examples explain the inconsistent and
irrational behavior of the teens due to lack of impulse control.
Teenagers tend to notice benefits more in certain things rather than seeing the risk
associated with it. This is the period when they required analyzing things and understanding the

4UNDERSTANDING THE TEENAGE BRAIN
limits of surviving in the society (Dobbs). Romeo's foolish decision to marry Juliet led to
disowning of the Montague family leading to financial crisis. It prevented Romeo from being a
Montague leader and leading a quiet life in Verona. Romeo’s haste of decisions before thinking
carefully led to drink poison and die before Juliet awakens. Romeo without hesitation drank the
poison after he saw Juliet’s body. The Montague family suffers severely after the unfortunate
death of Romeo leading to severe consequences (Shakespeare). The thing that actually motivates
them is the taste for taking risks and going out and exploring even though it is dangerous.
Studies have shown that the phase of adolescence has maximum neurobehavioral
sensitivity to different social stimulus. Therefore, teenagers tend to underestimate
responsibilities, risks because they do not approach the risk as big as adults approach, and tend to
ignore them (www.npr.org.) They also unconsciously tend to invest more in their peers rather
than adults, as they tend to invest in the future and not in the past. One of the instances for such
behavior is where Romeo forgets about Rosaline, his first love. He falls in love with Juliet all
over again. His rash decision also led to the death of Juliet’s cousin. Therefore, it shows that
Romeo himself is the reason behind the tragic end of the play.
Therefore, the above findings show the reason why Romeo and Juliet behaved in such a
way in the play and the reason behind their impatient behavior. Teens behave more intensely and
adults tend to believe that teenagers blow things out of context but it tends to seem important for
them at that period. This phase is just learning and adapting for life. They learn morals and take
important decisions in life gradually. Therefore, this study shows how much teenagers grow and
develop during adolescence.

5UNDERSTANDING THE TEENAGE BRAIN
Works Cited
Albert, Dustin, Jason Chein, and Laurence Steinberg. "The teenage brain: Peer influences on
adolescent decision making." Current directions in psychological science 22.2 (2013):
114-120.S
Casey, Betty Jo, and Kristina Caudle. "The teenage brain: Self control." Current directions in
psychological science 22.2 (2013): 82-87.
Dobbs, David. "Teenage Brains". Www.Nationalgeographic.Com, 2019,
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2011/10/beautifulbrains/https://
www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2011/10/beautiful-brains/. Accessed 1 Mar
2019.
Shakespeare, William. romeo and juliet. Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Understanding the Mysterious Teenage Brain from Talk of the Nation, National Public Radio.
"“Understanding The Mysterious Teenage Brain” From Talk Of The Nation, National
Public Radio | Learnzillion". Learnzillion.Com, 2019,
https://learnzillion.com/resources/83922/.