ADOLESCENT DECISION MAKING 2
Introduction
An individual’s ability to think and reason is often referred to as cognitive ability. With this in
mind, it is quite evident that an individual’s cognitive development tends to take place through
different stages of life with the adolescent stage marking the actual beginning of more complex
thinking and reasoning development. It is at the adolescent stage that individuals gain the ability
to use their logic in decision making. One of the significant weaknesses associated with the
adolescent stage is that individuals during this stage tend to have a high probability of allowing
their emotions interfere with their thinking.
During the adolescent stage, individuals tend to develop personal identities with respect to their
social environment. It is the process of developing personal identities or image, that some
adolescent start to behave in a particular manner or way so that they can adhere to the personality
that they associate themselves with. In a nutshell, parents should be able to take up an active role
in guiding adolescents in the process of acquiring different identities or behavior. The dual
system perspective tends to stipulate that during the adolescent stage, individuals tend to
participate in risk-taking behavior. It is based upon this factor that recklessness among
adolescents has been associated with cognitive deficiencies in young people's thinking. This
includes ignoring the risks involved, poor information processing and irrationality.
Conclusion
It is because of the risky behavior that teenagers develop that some are either involved in status
offenses or juvenile offenses. The core difference between status offenses and juvenile offenses
is that status offenses are actions that are done by minors which are termed to be illegal, for
example running away from home. Juvenile offenses tend to be more serious compared to status
