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You will write a six-page response paper discussing the following question:

Are studies of cognitive and emotional developments in adolescents useful for setting public policy guidelines?

To begin this assignment, you will read three sources (full citations and abstracts below):

After you have read the three sources provided to you here, you should construct a coherent argument about the role of studies of cognitive and emotional development in setting public policy guidelines and support this argument with specific evidence from the papers. Once you have decided the approach or stance you want to take for your paper, write a thesis statement in response to one of the following questions:

-In what circumstances can psychological research on cognitive and emotional development be used to set public policy?

-When, if ever, should public policy distinguish between cognitive and emotional development and why (or why not)?

-Whose view of psychological development Steinberg's or Fischer's is better for setting public policy and why?

You should read over your thesis statement and ensure it is as clear and concise as possible. Your thesis statement will act as a roadmap for your annotated outline, so ensure that summarizes the main points of your research clearly.

For example, your thesis statement for a paper on how the climate systems on Mt.Hood have been affected by climate change, specifically global warming and the effects of these changes may be:

Due to global warming, the local economy and the biology and wildlife of Mt.Hood are under threat and face possible extinction in the next fifty years.

From this thesis, you may then create section headings that will back up your thesis, or your paper's claim. For example:

The Geological Profile of Mt.Hood

The Climate Systems on Mt.Hood

The Recent Climate Changes on Mt.Hood via Global Warming

The Effect of Climate Change on the Local Economy

The Effect of Climate Change on the Biology and Wildlife

After you have written thesis statement, you should organize the main points of your paper by creating an annotated outline.

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Are Adolescents Less Mature Than Adults? Minors’ Access to Abortion, the Juvenile Death Penalty, and the Alleged APA “Flip-Flop” Laurence Steinberg Elizabeth Cauffman Jennifer Woolard Sandra Graham Marie Banich The American Psychological Association’s (APA’s) stance on the psychological maturity of adolescents has been criticized as inconsistent. In its Supreme Court amicus brief in Roper v. Simmons (2005), which abolished the juvenile death penalty, APA described adolescents as developmentally immature. In its amicus brief in Hodgson v. Minnesota (1990), however, which upheld adolescents’ right to seek an abortion without parental involvement, APA argued that adolescents are as mature as adults. The authors present evidence that adolescents demonstrate adult levels of cognitive capability earlier than they evince emotional and social maturity. On the basis of this research, the authors argue that it is entirely reasonable to assert that adolescents possess the necessary skills to make an informed choice about terminating a pregnancy but are nevertheless less mature than adults in ways that mitigate criminal responsibility. The notion that a single line can be drawn between adolescence and adulthood for different purposes under the law is at odds with developmental science. Drawing age boundaries on the basis of developmental research cannot be done sensibly without a careful and nuanced consideration of the particular demands placed on the individual for “adult-like” maturity in different domains of functioning. Keywords: adolescents, abortion, juvenile death penalty, Supreme Court, APA I n its landmark 2005 decision abolishing the juvenile death penalty (Roper v. Simmons, 2005), the U.S. Supreme Court held that the inherent immaturity of adolescents relative to adults mitigated teenagers’ criminal responsibility to the extent that it barred the imposition of capital punishment for crimes committed under the age of 18, regardless of their heinousness. Prior to this decision, in the United States, individuals could be executed for capital crimes committed at the age of 16 or older. By a 5-to-4 vote, the Court ruled that this age boundary should be set at 18, rather than 16. Developmental science was front and center in the Court’s ruling, which drew extensively on an amicus curiae brief submitted by the American Psychological Association October 2009 ● American Psychologist © 2009 American Psychological Association 0003-066X/09/$12.00 Vol. 64, No. 7, 583–594 DOI: 10.1037/a0014763 Temple University University of California, Irvine Georgetown University University of California, Los Angeles University of Colorado (APA, 2004) and was informed by a recent summary of relevant research on psychological development during adolescence that was published in this journal (Steinberg & Scott, 2003). Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy drew attention to three specific aspects of adolescents’ immaturity that diminished their criminal culpability: their underdeveloped sense of responsibility (and difficulty controlling their impulses), their heightened vulnerability to peer pressure, and the unformed nature of their characters. As Justice Kennedy wrote, First, as any parent knows and as the scientific and sociological studies respondent and his amici cite tend to confirm, “[a] lack of maturity and an underdeveloped sense of responsibility are found in youth more often than in adults and are more understandable among the young. These qualities often result in impetuous and ill-considered actions and decisions.” . . . The second area of difference is that juveniles are more vulnerable or susceptible to negative influences and outside pressures, including peer pressure. . . . The third broad difference is that the character of a juvenile is not as well formed as that of an adult. The personality traits of juveniles are more transitory, less fixed. . . . These differences render suspect any conclusion that a juvenile falls among the worst offenders. (Roper v. Simmons, 2005, pp. 15–16) The position taken by APA in its brief—that adolescents are inherently less blameworthy than adults as a consequence of their developmental immaturity—was noteworthy not only because it proved so influential to the Court’s decision but because it appeared, on its face, to contradict a stance taken by APA in a previous U.S. SuEditor’s note. June P. Tangney served as the action editor for this article. Author’s note. Laurence Steinberg, Department of Psychology, Temple University; Elizabeth Cauffman, Department of Psychology and Social Behavior, University of California, Irvine; Jennifer Woolard, Department of Psychology, Georgetown University; Sandra Graham, Psychological Studies in Education, University of California, Los Angeles; Marie Banich, Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry, University of Colorado. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Laurence Steinberg, Department of Psychology, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 19122. E-mail: lds@temple.edu 583 Ultimately, Simmons wants the Court to declare that [drawing the age boundary for purposes of death penalty eligibility at 16] is now “without penological justification” not based on research that uniformly reaches that conclusion, but based on inconsistent research, viewed through the lense [sic] of a stereotype that the American Psychological Association decried in Hodgson: “[T]he assumption that adolescents as a group are less able than adults to understand, reason and make decisions about intellectual and social dilemmas is not supported by contemporary psychological theory and research.” (Roper, 2004, p. 11) Laurence Steinberg preme Court case, Hodgson v. Minnesota (1990). In that case, which concerned a minor’s right to obtain an abortion without parental notification, APA had argued that because adolescents had decision-making skills comparable to those of adults, there was no reason to require teenagers to notify their parents before terminating a pregnancy (APA, 1987, 1989). Thus, in Roper, APA argued that science showed that adolescents were not as mature as adults, whereas in Hodgson, it argued that the science showed that they were. The apparent contradiction in these views did not go unnoticed. Justice Kennedy explicitly asked at oral argument in Roper if the APA had “flip-flopped” between 1989 (when its final amicus brief was filed in the abortion case) and 2004 (when its brief was filed in the juvenile death penalty case). The flip-flop issue also was raised by those who disagreed with the Court’s decision to abolish the juvenile death penalty. Indeed, in his dissenting opinion in Roper v. Simmons (2005), Justice Antonin Scalia drew unambiguous attention to this issue: [T]he American Psychological Association (APA), which claims in this case that scientific evidence shows persons under 18 lack the ability to take moral responsibility for their decisions, has previously taken precisely the opposite position before this very Court. In its brief in Hodgson v. Minnesota, 497 U. S. 417 (1990), the APA found a “rich body of research” showing that juveniles are mature enough to decide whether to obtain an abortion without parental involvement. . . . The APA brief, citing psychology treatises and studies too numerous to list here, asserted: “[B]y middle adolescence (age 14 –15) young people develop abilities similar to adults in reasoning about moral dilemmas, understanding social rules and laws, [and] reasoning about interpersonal relationships and interpersonal problems.” (Justice Scalia, dissenting, pp. 11–12) The petitioner in Roper, the State of Missouri, made a similar point in its brief: 584 Concerns about reconciling the scientific arguments offered in the two cases were also raised by abortion rights advocates, but in a different context. Indeed, after Laurence Steinberg met with the Executive Committee of the Society for Research on Adolescence, asking for the organization’s endorsement of the APA stance in Roper, the committee decided not to sign on to the APA brief, fearing that the argument that adolescents were not as mature as adults (and thus ineligible for capital punishment) would come back to haunt those who had worked so hard to secure the abortion rights of young women. As it turns out, these worries were not unfounded. Within two years of the Roper decision, the U.S. Supreme Court heard Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England (2006), which, like Hodgson, concerned minors’ access to abortion without parental involvement. Opponents of adolescents’ autonomous abortion rights had taken the Court’s characterization of adolescent immaturity in the juvenile death penalty case and used it to argue in favor of parental involvement requirements. Citing the Roper decision, they argued, Parental involvement is critical to ensure not only that the adolescent’s choice is informed, but that it is freely made and not the result of coercion or duress. . . . These concerns are heightened for adolescents who, as this Court has recently observed, are more susceptible than adults to “outside pressure” and other “negative influences,” and more likely than adults to make decisions that are “impetuous and ill-considered.” Roper v. Simmons, 125 S.Ct. 1183, 1195 (2005). (Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, 2006, p. 15) It is easy to see why many criticized the APA for its apparently contradictory positions. On the face of it, the APA position in the juvenile death penalty case was in direct opposition to the stance it took in Hodgson. In its amicus brief arguing for adolescents’ abortion rights, for example, APA stated, [B]y age 14 most adolescents have developed adult-like intellectual and social capacities [italics added] including specific abilities outlined in the law as necessary for understanding treatment alternatives, considering risks and benefits, and giving legally competent consent. (APA, 1989, p. 20) However, in its amicus brief arguing against the juvenile death penalty, APA stated, Given that 16- and 17-year-olds as a group are less mature developmentally than adults [italics added], imposing capital punishment on such adolescents does not serve the judicially recognized purposes of the sanction. (APA, 2004, p. 13) APA responded to accusations that developmental psychologists were trying to have their scientific cake and October 2009 ● American Psychologist Elizabeth Cauffman eat it too—spinning the science for the sake of youth advocacy— by pointing out that the type of decision under consideration in Roper was not the same as that at issue in Hodgson: We [APA] took note of the Hodgson brief in the approval process for APA’s brief in [Roper] but concluded that the two cases were distinguishable in several respects. [Roper] and Hodgson, while both dealing with adolescent decision-making, involved very different legal issues and different types of decisions. Therefore the research, which was different in each of the two cases, addressed distinct aspects of adolescent behavior and attributes. (Gilfoyle, 2005, p. 1) There is no question that the legal issues in Hodgson and Roper differed. The abortion rights case was a 14th Amendment case involving the amendment’s due process clause. The central question considered in Hodgson was whether the state had a compelling interest in mandating that an adolescent seeking an abortion be required to first notify both her parents. Several legal issues were relevant, including whether the notification requirement placed an undue burden on adolescents (especially those whose parents were divorced or estranged) and whether providing for a judicial hearing as an alternative to parental notification (known as a “judicial bypass”) was acceptable, but the most relevant for the present discussion concerned the competence of adolescents to make informed and sound health care decisions on their own. If it could be concluded that adolescents were sufficiently competent to make an informed decision about whether to terminate a pregnancy, the state’s interest in requiring parental notification would be rendered less compelling. Ultimately, the Court ruled that requiring parental notification was constitutional so long as a bypass provision was part of the law. October 2009 ● American Psychologist The juvenile death penalty case was an 8th Amendment case involving the amendment’s cruel and unusual punishments clause. A central issue in Roper was whether adolescents were mature enough to be held to adult levels of criminal blameworthiness and, in particular, to a level of blameworthiness that potentially warranted capital punishment; if they were not, the juvenile death penalty was excessively cruel. Under a bedrock principle of American criminal law known as “penal proportionality,” the punishment a guilty party receives should be in proportion to his or her culpability for the criminal act, and certain factors are accepted as mitigating the actor’s culpability. These mitigating factors include diminished decision-making capability (e.g., decision making that is impulsive or shortsighted), exposure to coercion, and evidence of the offender’s otherwise good character (Steinberg & Scott, 2003). As noted earlier, the Court ruled that the inherent immaturity of adolescents, with respect to the impetuousness of their decision making, their susceptibility to coercion, and their unformed characters, made them categorically less blameworthy than the average criminal and therefore not eligible for a punishment that was reserved for only the most culpable offenders. Whether APA in fact “flip-flopped” or, worse yet, tried to have it both ways, as its critics have contended, is an exceedingly important question, both with respect to the decisions about where to draw legal boundaries between adolescents and adults for various purposes and with respect to APA’s scientific credibility more generally. As some of us have written elsewhere, “scientists’ authority to enter the policy arena rests largely on the credibility of their research findings” (Grisso & Steinberg, 2005, p. 620). If APA’s statements about the state of scientific knowledge are seen as advocacy masquerading as research, the integrity of the Association’s scientific mission is threatened. After all, in both Hodgson and Roper, APA took a position that could be fairly characterized as, at the very least, friendly to youth advocates. It is crucial, therefore, to examine the issue empirically. That is the focus of the present article. For the past several years, as members of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice, we have been studying age differences in many of the cognitive and psychosocial capacities that have been at issue in the Supreme Court cases discussed above. We have been studying basic intellectual abilities, such as working memory and verbal fluency, but also aspects of psychosocial development, including impulse control (Steinberg et al., 2008), future orientation (Steinberg et al., 2009), reward sensitivity (Cauffman et al., in press), sensation seeking (Steinberg et al., 2008), and susceptibility to peer influence (Steinberg & Monahan, 2007). To our knowledge, ours is the first study to include both cognitive and psychosocial measures administered to the same sample, to include an ethnically and socioeconomically diverse group of individuals, and to span the period from preadolescence through young adulthood. 585 Jennifer Woolard On the basis of this work, some of which we summarize in the pages that follow, we believe that APA’s seemingly contradictory positions in Hodgson and Roper are in fact quite compatible with research on age differences in cognitive and psychosocial capacities. More specifically, our findings, as well as those of other researchers, suggest that whereas adolescents and adults perform comparably on cognitive tests measuring the sorts of cognitive abilities that were referred to in the Hodgson brief—abilities that permit logical reasoning about moral, social, and interpersonal matters—adolescents and adults are not of equal maturity with respect to the psychosocial capacities listed by Justice Kennedy in the majority opinion in Roper— capacities such as impulse control and resistance to peer influence. Not only were the legal issues different in the two cases, but so are the circumstances surrounding abortion decisions and criminal behavior, and therefore, the relevant dimensions along which adolescents and adults should be compared differ as well. Unlike adolescents’ decisions to commit crimes, which are usually rash and made in the presence of peers, adolescents’ decisions about terminating a pregnancy can be made in an unhurried fashion and in consultation with adults. We recognize that not all abortion decisions are deliberative, rational, and autonomous and that not all criminal decisions are impulsive, emotional, and influenced by others. After all, any decision about whether to abort a pregnancy or carry it to term has an emotional component, involves both immediate and long-term consequences, and may be influenced by the opinions of family and friends. By the same token, adolescents’ crimes are occasionally strategic, planned in advance, and executed alone. In general, though, when contemplating an abortion, an adolescent has time to deliberate before making a final choice and 586 has an opportunity to consult with an adult expert, whereas the circumstances leading up to the typical adolescent criminal offense—robbing a convenience store, for instance—are characterized by heightened emotional arousal, time pressure, and peer influence. For example, studies indicate that about half of all pregnant adolescents contemplating an abortion whose parents are unaware of the situation consult with a nonparental adult other than medical staff (e.g., a teacher, school counselor, clergyperson, older relative, or adult friend of the family); this figure is the same among younger (under age 16) and older adolescents (Henshaw & Kost, 1992). Moreover, 35 states require all women seeking an abortion to receive some type of counseling from the abortion provider before the procedure is performed, usually including information about the specific procedure as well as the health risks of abortion and pregnancy (Guttmacher Institute, 2009). Twenty-four states mandate a waiting period of at least 24 hours between the counseling and the medical procedure (Guttmacher Institute, 2009). Thus, it does not appear as if a high proportion of pregnant teenagers decide to terminate a pregnancy under circumstances that are rushed or in the absence of adult advice. In contrast, studies indicate that adolescents’ crimes are more often than not impulsive and unplanned (Farrington, 2003) and typically committed with peers (Reiss & Farrington, 1991). Thus, while some of the capabilities relevant to both decisionmaking contexts no doubt overlap, the circumstances that define “mature” behavior in each are clearly different. Resisting peer influence, thinking before making a decision, and considering the future consequences of one’s actions are clearly more important in criminal decision making than abortion decision making, in part because society structures the latter context to promote consultation with adults and avoid hasty decision making. The importance of maintaining a distinction between cognitive and psychosocial maturity in discussions of the legal status of adolescents is supported by other research that has examined age differences in each of these domains. Studies that have examined logical reasoning abilities in structured situations and basic information-processing skills, for instance, have found no appreciable differences between adolescents age 16 and older and adults; any gains that take place in these domains during adolescence occur very early in the adolescent decade, and improvements after this age are very small (Hale, 1990; Kail, 1997; Keating, 2004; Overton, 1990). The results of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network’s earlier study of age differences in competence to stand trial, which depends on individuals’ ability to understand facts about a court proceeding and to reason with those facts in a rational fashion, also were consistent with these findings. We found significant differences between the competence-related abilities of adults and those of adolescents who were 15 and younger, but no differences between the abilities of adults and those of adolescents who were 16 and older (Grisso et al., 2003). This general pattern, indicating that adolescents attain adult levels of competence to stand trial somewhere around age 15, has been reported in similar studies of October 2009 ● American Psychologist Sandra Graham decision making across a wide variety of domains (e.g., Grisso, 1980; Jacobs-Quadrel, Fischhoff, & Davis, 1993) and in many studies of age differences in individuals’ competence to provide informed consent (Belter & Grisso, 1984; Grisso & Vierling, 1978; Gustafson & McNamara, 1987; Weithorn & Campbell, 1982). In contrast, the literature on age differences in psychosocial characteristics such as impulsivity, sensation seeking, future orientation, and susceptibility to peer pressure shows continued development well beyond middle adolescence and even into young adulthood (Scott, Reppucci, & Woolard, 1995; Steinberg & Cauffman, 1996), although few studies have gone much beyond adolescence (but see Cauffman & Steinberg, 2000, for an exception). Consistent with this literature, and in contrast to the pattern of age differences seen in the information-processing, logical reasoning, and informed consent literatures, studies of age differences in the sorts of risky behavior likely to be influenced by the psychosocial factors listed above—such as reckless driving, binge drinking, crime, and spontaneous unprotected sex—indicate that risky behavior is significantly more common during late adolescence and early adulthood than after (Steinberg, 2007). In other words, although adolescents may demonstrate adult-like levels of maturity in some respects by the time they reach 15 or 16, in other respects they show continued immaturity well beyond this point in development. The MacArthur Juvenile Capacity Study Participants The MacArthur Juvenile Capacity Study was designed to examine age differences in a variety of cognitive and October 2009 ● American Psychologist psychosocial capacities that are relevant to debates about the relative maturity of adolescents and adults, especially as they affect judgments of criminal blameworthiness. There were five data collection sites in the study: Los Angeles; Irvine, CA; Denver; Philadelphia; and Washington, DC. Data for the present study come from 935 individuals ranging in age from 10 to 30 years (M ! 17.84 years). Participants were recruited via newspaper advertisements and flyers posted at community organizations, Boys & Girls Clubs, churches, community colleges, and local places of business in neighborhoods targeted to have an average household education level of “some college” according to 2000 U.S. Census data. Because we were interested in characterizing the capacities of “average” adolescents and adults, we did not target individuals on the basis of their involvement with the legal system but sought instead to survey an ethnically and socioeconomically diverse sample of individuals in the age range of interest. Individuals who were interested in the study were asked to call the research office listed on the flyer. Members of the research team described the nature of the study to prospective participants over the telephone and invited those interested to participate. Given this recruitment strategy, it is not possible to know how many potential participants saw the advertisements, what proportion responded, and whether those who responded were different from those who did not, although the education level of the sample is comparable to that of the people in the neighborhoods from which it was drawn. Data collection took place either at one of the participating university’s offices or at a convenient location in the community. Before beginning, participants were provided verbal and written explanations of the study, their confidentiality was assured, and their written consent or assent was obtained. For participants who were under the age of 18, informed consent was obtained from either a parent or a guardian. Procedure Prior to data collection, all site project directors and research assistants met at one location for several days of training. The project coordinators and research assistants conducted on-site practice protocol administrations prior to enrolling participants. Participants took part in a two- to two-and-one-half-hour interview that included three sets of measures: (a) a series of computerized tasks designed to assess a range of executive functions (not discussed in this report); (b) a series of questionnaires designed to measure a variety of psychosocial capacities relevant to discussions of how adolescents should be treated by the legal system; and (c) tests of basic intellectual functioning. The tasks and questionnaires were administered on a laptop computer in individual interviews. Research assistants were present to monitor the participant’s progress, reading aloud the instructions as each new task was presented and providing assistance as needed. To keep participants engaged in the computer tasks, we told the participants that they would receive $35 for participating in the study and that they could obtain up to a total of $50 (or, for participants who 587 Marie Banich were under 14, an additional prize) depending on their performance. In actuality, we paid all participants ages 14 –30 the full $50, and all participants ages 10 –13 received $35 plus a prize (approximately $15 in value). This strategy was used to increase the motivation to perform well on the tasks but also to ensure that no participants were penalized for their performance. All procedures were approved by the institutional review board of the university associated with the data collection site. Measures Of interest in the present report are the demographic measures and IQ (which were used to ensure that the various age groups had comparable social and intellectual backgrounds), the measures of psychosocial capacities, and the tests of basic intellectual functioning. Demographic variables. Participants provided information about their age, gender, ethnicity, and highest level of education within their household. For youths 17 years of age and younger, household education was based on parents’ level of education, as research has indicated that parental education may be the most stable component of a family’s social class (Steinberg, Mounts, Lamborn, & Dornbusch, 1991). For participants 18 years of age and older, their own educational attainment was used to index this construct. In order to have cells with sufficiently large and comparably sized subsamples for purposes of data analysis, we created age groups as follows: 10 –11, 12–13, 14 –15, 16 –17, 18 –21, 22–25, and 26 –30 years. The age groups did not differ with respect to gender or ethnicity but did differ, albeit modestly, with respect to household education. Accordingly, all subsequent analyses controlled for this variable. Demographic characteristics of the sample are presented in Table 1. 588 IQ. The Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (WASI) Full-Scale IQ Two-Subtest (FSIQ-2) (Psychological Corporation, 1999) was used to produce an estimate of general intellectual ability based on two (Vocabulary and Matrix Reasoning) of the four subtests. The WASI can be administered in approximately 15 minutes and is correlated with the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (r ! .81) and the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (r ! .87). It has been normed for individuals between the ages of 6 to 89 years. Because there were small but significant differences between the age groups in mean IQ, this variable was controlled for in all subsequent analyses. Psychosocial maturity. The battery of instruments contained self-report measures of five capacities frequently mentioned in discussions about age differences in maturity and their relevance to legal policy. Table 2 lists these measures and provides sample items from each. Three widely used and well-validated Likert-scaletype instruments were used to assess risk perception (the extent to which one perceives a potentially dangerous or harmful activity as risky), sensation seeking (the extent to which one actively seeks experiences that provide thrills), and impulsivity (the extent to which one acts without thinking or has difficulty controlling impulses). Risk perception was assessed using a modified version of a widely used measure developed by Benthin, Slovic, and Severson (1993). The respondent is presented with eight potentially dangerous activities (e.g., riding in a car with a drunk driver, having unprotected sex) and asked to indicate how risky the activity is (" ! .82).1 Sensation seeking was assessed using a subset of six items (" ! .70) from the Sensation Seeking Scale (Zuckerman, Eysenck, & Eysenck, 1978).2 Impulsivity was assessed using all 18 items (" ! .73) from three six-item subscales of the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (Patton, Stanford, & Barratt, 1995): Motor Impulsivity, Inability to Delay Gratification, and Lack of Perseverance. All three self-report measures have been shown to be significantly correlated with behavioral indices of their associated constructs. In our sample, scores on the impulsivity self-report measure were significantly negatively related to the amount of time participants waited before making their first move on a Tower of London task, and scores on the sensation-seeking questionnaire were significantly correlated with sensation-seeking behavior in a video driving game (Steinberg et al., 2008). In addition, individuals who were less likely to perceive potentially risky behaviors as risky were more likely to report engaging in high-risk behavior. 1 The original Benthin et al. (1993) measure also contains an item concerning alcohol use. Our analyses indicated that including this item in the scale’s construction adversely differentiated the reliability of the scale among the younger and older participants, most likely because the use of alcohol is risky for minors but not necessarily for adults. As a consequence, we dropped that item from our scale computation. 2 Many of the items on the full Zuckerman et al. (1978) scale appear to measure impulsivity, not sensation seeking (e.g., “I often do things on impulse.”) Because we have a separate measure of impulsivity in our battery, we used only the Zuckerman et al. items that clearly indexed thrill or novelty seeking (see Table 2). October 2009 ● American Psychologist Table 1 Demographic Characteristics of the Sample (N ! 935) Characteristic Percentage Age (in years) 10–11 12–13 14–15 16–17 18–21 22–25 26–30 Gender Male Female Ethnicity African American Asian American Hispanic White Other/biracial Household education High school High school graduate Some college College graduate Postcollege 12.5 14.7 13.8 15.2 15.9 14.6 13.2 49.2 50.8 29.2 15.1 21.2 24.0 9.9 11.9 22.8 34.1 21.4 9.7 Two additional psychosocial capacities, resistance to peer influence and future orientation, were assessed using new self-report measures developed for this program of work. Each used a response format introduced by Harter (1982) in which respondents are presented with two oppos- ing statements that are both phrased in a socially acceptable fashion, asked to indicate which best describes them, and then asked whether the descriptor is “very true” or “sort of true.” (This format is presumed to reduce social desirability bias.) Resistance to peer influence (Steinberg & Monahan, 2007) was assessed using a 10-item scale (" ! .76) designed to measure the extent to which individuals change their behavior or opinions in order to follow the crowd. We have no data on the validity of this measure in the current sample, but we do in analyses of data from a large study of serious juvenile offenders. There we found that the presence of antisocial peers in an individual’s network is more highly correlated with the individual’s own criminal behavior among those who report a low ability to resist peer influence on this measure than among those who have equally antisocial peers but score high in self-reported resistance to peer influence (Monahan, Steinberg, & Cauffman, 2007). Studies of the neural underpinnings of resistance to peer influence using this measure have found neurobiological differences between same-age individuals who vary in their resistance to peer influence in ways consistent with the notion that higher scores on this instrument reflect better coordination of affect and thinking (Grosbras et al., 2007; Paus et al., 2008), a key component of psychosocial maturity in our conceptualization of the construct. Future orientation was assessed using a 15-item scale (" ! .80) that measures the anticipation of future consequences, planning ahead, and thinking about the future. The validity of this measure is supported by our finding that individuals who score high on this scale are more likely to choose a larger delayed reward over an immediate smaller one in a delay discounting task (Steinberg et al., 2009). A composite measure of psychosocial maturity was formed by reverse-scoring the measures of impulsivity and Table 2 Indices of Psychosocial Maturity Construct Measure Risk perception Benthin et al., 1993 Sensation seeking Impulsivity Resistance to peer influence Zuckerman et al., 1978 Patton et al., 1995 Steinberg & Monahan, 2007 Future orientation Steinberg et al., 2009 October 2009 ● American Psychologist Sample item “If you did this activity (e.g., had unprotected sex), how much are you at risk for something bad happening?” “I sometimes like to do things that are a little frightening.” “I do things without thinking.” “Some people think it’s better to be an individual even if people will be angry at you for going against the crowd. BUT Other people think it’s better to go along with the crowd than to make people angry at you.” “Some people take life one day at a time without worrying about the future. BUT Other people are always thinking about what tomorrow will bring.” 589 sensation seeking so that higher scores indicated greater maturity (i.e., more impulse control and less thrill seeking), standardizing all five measures, and averaging the standardized scores. Thus, individuals who score relatively lower on the composite characterize themselves as less likely to perceive dangerous situations as risky, more impulsive, more thrill seeking, more oriented to the immediate, and more susceptible to peer influence. This is very similar to the portrait of adolescents described by Justice Kennedy in his majority opinion in the juvenile death penalty case. A confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the composite model fit the data well (comparative fit index ! .95, root mean square error of approximation ! .075). The five indicators are modestly, but significantly, intercorrelated (rs range from .14 to .38; average r ! .26). Cognitive capacity. The test battery included several widely used tests of basic cognitive skills, including a test of resistance to interference in working memory (Thompson-Schill et al., 2002), a digit-span memory test, and a test of verbal fluency. The resistance to interference in working memory test was one in which participants saw four probe letters on the screen and then a target. They were then asked whether the target was among the four probes. On test trials, two of the four letters presented had appeared in the previous trial, providing interference with recall on the present trial. An overall accuracy score was computed by averaging the number of correct responses across all test trials. The digit-span memory test was similar to that in the Wechsler scales. Participants heard a series of 13 sequences of digits (beginning with two digits and increasing to eight) that they were asked to recall forwards and 13 sequences that they were asked to recall backwards. A memory score was computed by averaging the total number of forward trials and backward trials recalled correctly. Finally, the measure of verbal fluency asked participants to generate, in one minute, as many words as possible that either began with a specific letter (three trials) or were members of a category (e.g., fruits; three trials). A verbal fluency score was computed by averaging the number of words generated for each of the six lists. Because the composite consisted of only three items, it was not possible to derive a reliable estimate of internal consistency. However, after examining the intercorrelations among the tests, we found them to be significant (fluency and working memory, r ! .29; working memory and digit span, r ! .39; digit span and verbal fluency, r ! .40). Accordingly, scores on each of the measures were standardized, and the standard scores were averaged to create an index of general cognitive capacity. Not surprisingly, our composite measure of general cognitive capacity is significantly correlated with IQ (r ! .46, p # .001). Unlike IQ scores, however, which are adjusted for chronological age, the measure of cognitive capacity is not. More important, because we controlled for IQ in all analyses, any observed age differences in general cognitive capacity are not due to age differences in intelligence. In its original amicus brief in Hodgson, the APA (1987) made reference to the “cognitive capacity” (p. 6) of 590 adolescents and cited sources that referred to both information-processing abilities (Keating, 1980) and logical reasoning (Inhelder & Piaget, 1958) in support of its argument that adolescents are as cognitively competent as adults. We acknowledge that our index, which tilts heavily toward measuring how many pieces of information an individual can process or produce, does not measure logical or moral reasoning and as such is an incomplete measure of cognitive capacity as conceptualized in the APA Hodgson brief. Our measure assesses cognitive ability in a highly structured manner and as such does not tap aspects of executive function that may be important in novel situations. It is also important to note that our measure of general cognitive capacity does not include tests of higher order executive functioning, such as comparing short- versus long-term consequences, coordinating affect and cognition, or balancing risk and reward. Many such executive functions have both cognitive and psychosocial aspects to them, however, and given that our interest was in maintaining a distinction between general cognitive and psychosocial capacities so as to better examine their distinct developmental timetables, it was important not to conflate the two. The measures of psychosocial maturity and cognitive capacity are very modestly correlated once age is controlled, r(922) ! .15, p # .001. Although our operationalization of general cognitive capacity is not identical to that used by APA in its argument, it is very clear that the authors of the Hodgson brief (APA, 1987) were referring to cognitive abilities and not psychosocial maturity and that the authors of the Roper brief (APA, 2004) were referring to psychosocial maturity and not cognitive capacity. Results Two analyses of covariance were conducted in order to examine age patterns in psychosocial maturity and general cognitive capacity; as noted earlier, both analyses controlled for IQ and household education. The results of the two analyses are shown in Figures 1 and 2. Each figure presents the age group means for the standardized composites, with a value of 1.0 added to each Figure 1 Psychosocial Maturity (Standardized Composite Scores) as a Function of Age (in Years) October 2009 ● American Psychologist Figure 2 General Cognitive Capacity (Standardized Composite Scores) as a Function of Age (in Years) Figure 3 Proportion of Individuals in Each Age Group Scoring at or Above the Mean for 26- to 30-Year-Olds on Indices of Cognitive Capacity and Psychosocial Maturity group’s mean for ease of presentation (i.e., to make all values positive numbers). The analysis of age differences in psychosocial maturity indicates a significant age effect, F(6, 900) ! 12.577, p # .001. As Figure 1 indicates, age differences in psychosocial maturity, as assessed in this study, did not emerge until mid-adolescence but were present throughout late adolescence and early adulthood. Indeed, pairwise comparisons, using a Bonferroni correction, revealed no significant differences in psychosocial maturity among the first four age groups (10 –11, 12–13, 14 –15, and 16 –17 years) but significant differences between the 16 –17-year-olds and those 22 and older, and between the 18 –21-year-olds and those 26 and older. In neither case was there a significant interaction between age and gender, indicating that the patterns were the same among males and females. The analysis of age differences in cognitive capacity shows a very different pattern. As with psychosocial maturity, there is a highly significant age effect, F(6, 901) ! 58.246, p # .001. However, as Figure 2 indicates, age differences in cognitive capacity were evident during the first part of adolescence but not after age 16 —just the opposite from the pattern seen with respect to psychosocial maturity. Pairwise comparisons using a Bonferroni correction indicated significant differences in general cognitive capacity between each of the first four age groups but no age differences after age 16. Figure 3 presents these data in a somewhat different way. Here we show the proportion of individuals in each age group who scored at or above the mean level of the 26- to 30-yearolds in our sample on the psychosocial and cognitive composites, graphed in the same figure. As the figure indicates, general cognitive capacity reaches adult levels long before the process of psychosocial maturation is complete. Although our measure of cognitive capacity included several of the information-processing skills noted in the APA (1987) Hodgson brief but did not include indices of the sort of reasoning to which APA referred, it is important to ask whether the pattern of age differences we found on this measure resembles that observed using measures of more sophisticated cognitive abilities of the sort believed to influence abortion decision making. As we noted earlier, in addition to the present study, the MacArthur Network also conducted a study of age differences in capacities related to competence to stand trial (Grisso et al., 2003). The main instrument used to assess these capacities was the MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool—Criminal Adjudication (MacCAT–CA), a standardized interview that measures respondents’ understanding of and reasoning about their legal situation (Poythress et al., 1999). Although the abilities necessary for competence to stand trial are not identical to those necessary for competent decision making about abortion, they are conceptually similar in that both involve being able to understand and reason with facts and appreciate the nature of one’s situation. Figure 4 presents data from the present study alongside data from the Grisso et al. (2003) study in a way October 2009 ● American Psychologist Figure 4 Proportion of Individuals in Each Age Group Scoring at or Above the Mean for 22- to 24-Year-Olds on Index of Cognitive Capacity and on a Measure of Abilities Relevant to Competence to Stand Trial Note. MacCAT–CA ! MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool—Criminal Adjudication, Understanding and Reasoning subscales. MacCAT–CA data are from Grisso et al (2003). 591 comparable to that used in Figure 3, that is, in terms of the proportion of individuals of different ages who performed at or above the mean level of the adults in the sample. The Grisso et al. study included participants ages 11 to 24, drawn equally from the community and the justice system. In order to make the appropriate comparison of these data to those of the present study, we excluded the justice system subsample from the analyses (the average IQ of that subsample was 85, substantially lower than that of the present study), categorized individuals into chronological age groups that paralleled those used in the present study (11, 12–13, 14 –15, 16 –17, 18 –21, and 22–24 years), and used the oldest group as the adult reference category. Similarly, we reanalyzed the cognitive capacity data from the present study after dropping the 10-year-olds, excluding individuals who were older than 24, and using 22- to 24-year-olds as the adult reference category. As Figure 4 illustrates, the pattern of age differences in abilities relevant to competence to stand trial is virtually identical to the pattern seen with respect to general cognitive capacity as assessed in the present study. On both indices, scores increased between ages 11 and 16 and then leveled off, with no improvement after this age. This gives us greater confidence that the absence of age differences in cognitive capacity after age 16 observed in our study is not merely a function of the fact that our index included only measures of basic information-processing abilities. Rather, our reanalysis of the Grisso et al. (2003) data supports the argument that adolescents reach adult levels of cognitive maturity several years before they reach adult levels of psychosocial maturity. Discussion Developmental psychologists with expertise in adolescence are frequently called on to provide guidance about the appropriate treatment of young people under the law and about the proper placement of legal age boundaries between those who should be treated as adults and those who should not. The results of the present study suggest that it is not prudent to make sweeping statements about the relative maturity of adolescents and adults, because the answer to the question of whether adolescents are as mature as adults depends on the aspects of maturity under consideration. By age 16, adolescents’ general cognitive abilities are essentially indistinguishable from those of adults, but adolescents’ psychosocial functioning, even at the age of 18, is significantly less mature than that of individuals in their mid-20s. In this regard, it is neither inconsistent nor disingenuous for scientists to argue that studies of psychological development indicate that the boundary between adolescence and adulthood should be drawn at a particular chronological age for one policy purpose and at a different one for another. Whether and how these findings should inform decisions about adolescents’ treatment under the law depends on the specific legal issue under consideration. To varying degrees, such decisions rely on value judgments (e.g., about what aspects of maturity are relevant to a particular decision or about what is mature “enough” to warrant 592 autonomy and/or culpability), which science alone cannot dictate. Nevertheless, the legal treatment of adolescents should at the very least be informed by the most accurate and timely scientific evidence on the nature and course of psychological development. On the basis of the present study, as well as previous research, it seems reasonable to distinguish between two very different decision-making contexts in this regard: those that allow for unhurried, logical reflection and those that do not. This distinction is also in keeping with our emerging understanding of adolescent brain maturation, which suggests that brain systems responsible for logical reasoning and basic information processing mature earlier than those that undergird more advanced executive functions and the coordination of affect and cognition necessary for psychosocial maturity (Steinberg, 2008). When it comes to decisions that permit more deliberative, reasoned decision making, where emotional and social influences on judgment are minimized or can be mitigated, and where there are consultants who can provide objective information about the costs and benefits of alternative courses of action, adolescents are likely to be just as capable of mature decision making as adults, at least by the time they are 16. Three domains of decision making that would seem to fit into this category are medical decision making (where health care practitioners can provide information and encourage adolescents to think through their decisions before acting), legal decision making (where legal practitioners, such as defense attorneys, can play a comparable role), and decisions about participating in research studies (where research investigators, guided by institutional review boards, can function similarly). Although adults in these positions cannot and should not make the decision for the adolescent, they surely can take steps to create a context in which adolescents’ decisionmaking competence will be maximized. The position taken by APA in Hodgson v. Minnesota (1990), in favor of granting adolescents’ access to abortion without the necessity of parental involvement, therefore seems to us to be consistent with the available scientific evidence, so long as youngsters under the age of 16 have the opportunity to consult with other, informed adults (e.g., health care practitioners, counselors). In contrast, in situations that elicit impulsivity, that are typically characterized by high levels of emotional arousal or social coercion, or that do not encourage or permit consultation with an expert who is more knowledgeable or experienced, adolescents’ decision making, at least until they have turned 18, is likely to be less mature than adults’. This set of circumstances likely characterizes the commission of most crimes perpetrated by adolescents (which are usually committed in groups and are seldom premeditated; Farrington, 2003; Zimring, 1998) and may also be typical of other situations where adolescents are emotionally aroused, in groups, absent adult supervision, and facing choices with apparent immediate rewards and few obvious or immediate costs—the very conditions that are likely to undermine adolescents’ decision-making competence (Steinberg, 2007). These conditions often prevail in situaOctober 2009 ● American Psychologist tions involving the purchase of alcohol and tobacco, driving, and other potentially health-compromising behaviors, such as having unprotected sex. In these cases, adolescents’ relative immaturity should be acknowledged either by imposing greater restraints on their behavior than are imposed on adults (e.g., prohibiting the purchase of alcohol, restricting driving to certain hours of the day or certain conditions) or by providing added protections (e.g., prohibiting capital punishment, making condoms easily accessible). Thus, APA’s argument that adolescents should not be subject to capital punishment owing to their impulsivity and susceptibility to peer pressure is consistent with the results of our own research and with other scientific studies of psychosocial development that show continued maturation of these capacities well into young adulthood (Steinberg & Scott, 2003). In our view, then, the seemingly conflicting positions taken by APA in Roper v. Simmons (2005) and Hodgson v. Minnesota (1990) are not contradictory. Rather, they simply emphasize different aspects of maturity, in accordance with the differing nature of the decision-making scenarios involved in each case. The skills and abilities necessary to make an informed decision about a medical procedure are likely in place several years before the capacities necessary to regulate one’s behavior under conditions of emotional arousal or coercive pressure from peers. Science alone cannot dictate public policy, although it can, and should, inform it. Our data can neither “prove” nor “disprove” the appropriateness of requiring parental involvement before a teenager can obtain an abortion, but they do inform the debate. Nor do our data “prove” or “disprove” whether it is appropriate to apply the death penalty to individuals who are inherently more impulsive than adults and whose characters are not yet fully formed— although, again, they are informative. But our findings do demonstrate how the positions taken by APA in Hodgson v. 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Zuckerman, M., Eysenck, S., & Eysenck, H. J. (1978). Sensation seeking in England and America: Cross-cultural, age, and sex comparisons. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 46, 139 –149. October 2009 ● American Psychologist Narrow Assessments Misrepresent Development and Misguide Policy Comment on Steinberg, Cauffman, Woolard, Graham, and Banich (2009) Kurt W. Fischer, Zachary Stein, and Katie Heikkinen Harvard Graduate School of Education Intellectual and psychosocial functioning develop along complex learning pathways. Steinberg, Cauffman, Woolard, Graham, and Banich (2009) measured these two classes of abilities with narrow, biased assessments that captured only a segment of each pathway and created misleading age patterns based on ceiling and floor effects. It is a simple matter to shift the assessments to produce the opposite pattern, with cognitive abilities appearing to develop well into adulthood and psychosocial abilities appearing to stop developing at age 16. Their measures also lacked a realistic connection to the lived behaviors of adolescents, abstracting too far from messy realities and thus lacking ecological validity and the nuanced portrait that the authors called for. A drastically different approach to assessing development is required that (a) includes the full age-related range of relevant abilities instead of a truncated set and (b) examines the variability and contextual dependence of abilities relevant to the topics of murder and abortion. Keywords: adolescence, assessment, cognitive development, learning pathway, maturity C hildren develop many different capabilities along multiple pathways, and they gradually learn to use those capabilities across many situations and in many different emotional states. Steinberg, Cauffman, Woolard, Graham, and Banich (2009, this issue) oversimplified development by dividing it into two categories— cognitive and psychosocial—and measuring behavior in a few tasks that did not capture the full range of capabilities and contexts relevant to the issues of abortion and murder. Within the full range, children develop many cognitive and psychosocial capabilities long before age 16, and they continue to develop others in both areas long after age 16. The simplifications in the research by Steinberg and colleagues omit consideration of the breadth of cognitive and psychosocial capabilities pertinent to decisions about abortion and murder and thus lead to conclusions about policy that are misleading. Consider Sally, a 17-year-old adolescent who has lived with her mother since she was 7, when her father moved out after a divorce. Her behavior illustrates the range of capabilities relevant to the actions of children and October 2009 ● American Psychologist © 2009 American Psychological Association 0003-066X/09/$12.00 Vol. 64, No. 7, 595– 600 DOI: 10.1037/a0017105 adolescents as well as the importance of contexts for shaping those actions. At age 17, Sally’s relationship with her mother has become strained. She struggles to control herself around her mother. Outbursts and arguments are almost daily occurrences. Sally knows that these irrational arguments typically end in tears and frustration, but she cannot seem to control herself. She wonders why she cannot control her emotions at home the way that she did when she was younger, when during her parents’ divorce she could “hold herself together” and handle difficult situations when her mother was in distress. Sally’s situation at school is different from the one at home. During her parents’ divorce, when she was 6 and 7 years old, she struggled in school, and teachers suggested that she be held back a year so her skills could develop to the appropriate level. But now in high school, she excels in many classes and serves as a peer mediator, volunteering her time to help her classmates resolve their conflicts. Sally wonders how she can be so together at school now when she feels so out of control at home. She finds it curious that years ago she was a mess in school but was more capable of holding herself together at home. Sally’s story exemplifies the variability and complexity of cognitive, emotional, and interpersonal development during childhood and adolescence. In some respects, Sally can be viewed as more emotionally mature and psychosocially capable at the age of 7—when the situation demanded it—than she is now at the age of 17. On the other hand, her cognitive capabilities seem to display the opposite trend, changing from below average in grade school to excellent in high school. In other words, her interpersonal capabilities—as well as her cognitive and emotional ones—vary or fluctuate drastically depending on context, as she indulges in emotionally charged, irrational arguments at home while serving as a peer mediator at school. Kurt W. Fischer, Zachary Stein, and Katie Heikkinen, Dynamic Development Laboratory, Human Development & Psychology, Harvard Graduate School of Education. The writing of this article was supported by grants from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Kurt W. Fischer, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Larsen Hall 702, Appian Way, Cambridge, MA 02138. E-mail: kurt_fischer@harvard.edu 595 measures to specific ages a priori. They conceptualized the development of capabilities in essentialist and nondynamic terms, ignored the radical importance of context, and assumed a static picture in which a capability, once it has been displayed, is taken as simply present. We examine their perspective on the development of capabilities in adolescence in terms of two basic research issues: construct validity (Did they conceive and measure their basic constructs in a psychologically meaningful way?) and ecological validity (Were they measuring constructs that are meaningfully related to the real lives of adolescents, especially the complex issues related to abortion and murder?). It is important to note that people develop differently in separate domains on the basis of their experiences and interests, and their development continues far into adulthood in domains on which they focus (Dawson-Tunik, 2004; Fischer, Yan, & Stewart, 2003; Kitchener, Lynch, Fischer, & Wood, 1993; Kohlberg, 1984). Kurt W. Fischer Embracing the Complexity of Development This is how development looks during childhood and adolescence. Capabilities develop with age and experience, and they also fluctuate over time and across contexts and domains. Most broad capabilities— cognitive, emotional, and interpersonal— begin to develop during infancy and are dynamically constructed well into adulthood. Development of new capabilities continues far beyond the age of 16. At all ages, development of new capabilities is marked by discontinuities, spurts, and regressions and can unfold along diverse pathways as various lines of development interact. For over a century, psychologists and theorists have attempted to embrace and explain the complexity and diversity of human development (Baldwin, 1894, 1906; Fischer & Bidell, 2006; Piaget, in Gruber & Voneche, 1977; Wilber, 1999). When the full complexity of human development is considered, it is hard to make simple arguments and offer clear-cut advice. Steinberg and colleagues (2009) chose to jettison this complexity— both conceptually and methodologically—in order to make a simple argument and offer clear-cut advice for policy. They measured capabilities by using tasks that are known to have ceiling effects at specific ages and that have limited ecological validity (little relation to the everyday lives of adolescents). Thus, they did not capture the broad spectrum of related and lived abilities that constitute cognitive, emotional, and interpersonal development—assessing instead only part of the pathways for “intellectual” and “psychosocial” development. For intellectual capabilities, they assessed skills that develop early, while for psychosocial capabilities, they focused on skills that develop later, although they did not intend to tie their 596 Measuring Development in Childhood and Adolescence: Construct Validity Steinberg and colleagues (2009) sought to justify the “flipflop” in which the American Psychological Association maintained that teens are mature enough to make reasonable decisions about abortion but not mature enough to be treated as adults in death penalty cases. They argued that this apparent flip-flop is justified by research findings that teens attain adult-like capabilities at different ages in different domains. Specifically, they argued that adolescents’ cognitive capabilities develop earlier than their capacity for emotional self-regulation and impulse control. To support this claim, they reported research using a battery of tasks to measure the proposed differential distribution of capabilities. Cognitive Capabilities To assess cognitive maturity, Steinberg et al. (2009) administered “tests of basic intellectual functioning” (p. 587), which included tests of working memory interference, digit span memory, and verbal fluency. We discuss these tests’ construct validity and their relevance to the larger construct of “cognitive capacity,” or “cognitive maturity.” Although the authors acknowledged that theirs was an “incomplete measure of cognitive capacity” (p. 590), they nonetheless made the bold claim that general cognitive capacity plateaus around age 16. This claim is spurious on at least two grounds: (a) These tasks do not adequately represent general cognitive capacity, and (b) cognitive capacity, when more carefully defined, does not plateau around age 16 or 17. The authors used tasks with ceiling effects. Attempts to measure something like general cognitive capacity with a single metric or composite go back to Binet’s laboratory in Paris at the turn of the 20th century, where intelligence testing was invented. Although Steinberg and colleagues (2009) separately assessed IQ in order to control for it, their measures of “basic intellectual functioning” are quite close to traditional measures of intelligence. Even the best tests of intelligence do not capture October 2009 ● American Psychologist Zachary Stein everything about intelligence (Gardner, 1983), let alone a broader construct like cognitive capacity. Working-memory interference tasks, digit-span memory tasks, and tests of verbal fluency—the tasks used by Steinberg et al.—are known to peak or plateau in the teenage years, and they constitute only a few of the skills involved in cognitive development (Horn, 1982). Cognitive development includes many interrelated and complex skills, such as logical reasoning (Inhelder & Piaget, 1958), reflective judgment (Kitchener et al., 1993), conceptual complexity (Case, 1992; Fischer & Bidell, 2006), and emotion regulation (Benes, Turtle, Khan, & Farol, 1994; Dawson-Tunik, 2004; Fischer et al., 2003; Vaillant, 1977). These skills all begin to develop early in life, continue to develop well into adulthood, and vary as a function of learning, context, and maturation. In contrast, the standard tests of working memory and verbal fluency are simpler tasks that plateau early. More complex skills such as reflective judgment, logical reasoning, and even working memory for sophisticated concepts such as conservation of energy, evolution by natural selection, and the role of community in development do not plateau in the teenage years. The evidence is substantial that cognitive development continues for years beyond the ages of 15 or 16 (Dawson-Tunik, 2004; Fischer et al., 2003), and likewise brain development continues well into adulthood (Benes et al., 1994). Steinberg and colleagues (2009) were not justified in claiming that “by age 16, adolescents’ general cognitive abilities are essentially indistinguishable from those of adults” (p. 592). Their research indicators of working memory and verbal fluency may have reached adult levels by that age, but complex and important cognitive capabilities continue to develop long afterward. Even October 2009 ● American Psychologist vocabulary continues to increase throughout adulthood, especially for educated people (Horn, 1982). The measures used by Steinberg et al. fail to capture the broader developmental patterns that characterize adolescent and adult cognition. An accurate portrait of development requires assessment of a diverse set of skills that begin early in life and move along learning pathways into adulthood (Case, 1992; Fischer & Bidell, 2006). Some of these skills, such as standard assessments of object permanence and working memory, develop quickly and plateau early, while others, such as reflective judgment, start early but do not plateau until well into adulthood (Kitchener et al., 1993). Skillspecific learning sequences develop at different rates depending on a variety of factors, including education (Dawson-Tunik, 2004), contextual support (Fischer & Bidell, 2006), and motivation (Fink, 2007). The development of cognitive maturity thus varies depending on what is measured and how it is measured. Simpler skills such as working memory for common words or numbers and understanding of the basic requirements of participation in a trial (testifying honestly, sitting quietly, etc.) may peak by adolescence, but complex conceptual skills such as reflective judgment, understanding how laws and courts function in society, and taking perspectives across different cultures do not peak until the 20s or 30s or later—and even then only in the context of optimal contextual support and education. Psychosocial Capabilities The same problems hold for Steinberg et al.’s (2009) approach to psychosocial capabilities. The measures in their research represent only a small segment of social and emotional skills and thus distort the picture for development of these capabilities. To assess “psychosocial maturity” (p. 588), Steinberg et al. collected selfreport questionnaires on risk perception, sensation seeking, impulsivity, peer influence, and future orientation. All measures assessed self-descriptions—not self-regulation, understanding about legal processes, moral judgment, or other capabilities relevant to abortion and murder. With these instruments, they observed essentially no change in psychosocial scores, on average, between the ages of 10 and 17 years and then significant growth to ages 18 –21 and age 26 and beyond. The problem, again, is that the measurement tasks truncate the construct and thus drastically constrain the age range in which development is observable. Different measures of psychosocial maturity display significant and important developmental changes at early ages, such as basic sociomoral perspective taking (Kohlberg, 1984; Selman & Schultz, 1990) and basic interpersonal attunement and attachment (Cassidy & Shaver, 1999). Children construct their understanding of self and others starting at birth and show richly textured developmental pathways for psychosocial skills from infancy through adulthood (Fischer & Bidell, 2006). Self-reports about risk, impulsivity, peer influence, and so forth represent a limited set of behaviors and do not capture fundamental capabilities 597 Katie Heikkinen for thinking and feeling that are relevant to the issues of abortion and murder. Depending on what is measured, the developmental pattern for psychosocial maturity will differ greatly. Selfreport measures like those used in the Steinberg et al. (2009) study will show a late onset for psychosocial maturity. On the other hand, standard measures for development of attachment relationships or social perspective taking will show major transformations of psychosocial maturity at early ages. Infants in the first two years develop skills for self-regulation with their mothers or other caregivers. Grade-school children come to grasp the need for abstract norms and rules and the reasons for controlling their behavior to follow those norms and rules. These skills lay the foundation for understanding about abortion and murder, although sophisticated understanding certainly awaits development of higher capabilities. The claim by Steinberg et al. (2009) that “psychosocial maturity” sets in later than “cognitive maturity” is dependent on the selective use of specific measures. Using a different set of measures could yield the opposite picture. For example, the development of abstract reasoning capabilities such as reflective judgment, understanding the legal system, and taking diverse cultural perspectives lags behind the development of rich emotional and interpersonal attunements and rule following evident in early childhood. This comparison would lead to the opposite conclusion from that reached by Steinberg et al.: Psychosocial capabilities develop richly in childhood and early adolescence (and continue to develop well into adulthood). Dynamic Webs of Development Development in any domain—for example, cognitive or psychosocial—moves at a varying pace along multiple 598 strands in a dynamic web across the life course (Fischer et al., 2003). In addition, a capability is not fixed across contexts, but varies dynamically. Perspective taking with your mother is different from perspective taking with your friend, your classmate, or your lawyer. The idea is simply wrong that once a capability has been displayed at a certain level in a certain context it will be displayed at that same level across a variety of contexts. Development unfolds along diverse pathways and is radically sensitive to variations in context. Skills mastered in one context can fall apart in another, needing to be rebuilt to meet the unique task demands of new situations. Factors that drive such variation include stress (Ayoub & Fischer, 2006), novelty (Granott, 2002), and recalibration/self-organization (Van Geert, 1994). This kind of sensitivity to context is particularly significant in the two examples given by Steinberg and colleagues (2009) because the contexts are so vastly different, as they noted. Reasoning about abortion, where a doctor or health-care worker can support the teen’s thinking over a length of time, is very different from acting violently in the heat of the moment. Teenagers’ capabilities are tied to contexts and emotional states. Teenagers are not simply cognitively mature and psychosocially immature. Context is radically implicated in the nature of capabilities, and the two cannot be realistically disentangled. Depending on context and support, the same individual can function in drastically different ways, and there is not one condition that represents the true capability. How does this argument apply to Sally’s story? Is she cognitively mature or immature? Is she emotionally and socially mature or immature? Is she more mature cognitively or psychosocially? These kinds of questions are predicated on a simple and essentialist notion of what capabilities are. Sally is both immature and mature depending on both the context she is in and the measuring instruments used. At school, Sally scores high on some measures of cognitive capability, as reflected in her strong performance in her courses; but she is still years away from sophisticated reasoning about reflective judgment (the bases of knowledge about complicated issues). At home during the heat of an argument with her mother, Sally does not take multiple perspectives, as she does during school, but focuses primarily on her own immediate feelings. But when she is serving as a peer mediator, she effectively takes her peers’ perspective. What is required is a rich portrait of her capabilities in different contexts and for different goals. Sally’s story is typical, not unusual. Variability is the norm at all ages and especially in adolescence. The way that development and capability are measured can distort as much as it can reveal. Steinberg and colleagues (2009) systematically misrepresented the development of the broad capabilities they studied because of their selection of measures and their framing of capabilities as fixed and stable, as opposed to variable and context dependent. With these oversimplifications, they have created a simple story for policymakers, but the story is wrong. October 2009 ● American Psychologist Measuring Things That Are Worth Measuring: Ecological Validity Because of the many strands of the web of development, scientists need to be careful about the measures they use and the claims they make about the implications of their findings. One way of increasing the likelihood that research will connect to practical questions and policies is to ask about the ecological validity of measures and methods. How do they relate to the everyday lives and behaviors of adolescents, especially in contexts relevant to the practical questions? The real-world behaviors of children and adolescents such as Sally are not merely the expression of certain general capabilities functioning at certain age-specific levels. They arise from the complex and unique lives of individual people, rich with emotion, diverse relationships, and novel challenges. What is the relation between the assessment tasks that Steinberg et al. (2009) used and the dilemmas of adolescent life they are meant to illuminate? How can performances of working memory interference, digit span memory, and verbal fluency indicate the capacity to make a reasoned decision about abortion? Likewise, how can self-report of risk perception, sensation seeking, impulsivity, resistance to peer influence, and future orientation indicate the capacity to make decisions about criminal behavior? Measures should assess the capabilities that are involved in those kinds of decisions. Unfortunately, the kinds of tasks and research paradigms used in the Steinberg et al. (2009) research are common in psychology. They truncate and oversimplify the range and variability of behaviors while lending themselves to neat statistical analyses and simple stories that distort understanding of real children in living contexts. They lead to the mistaken belief that capabilities develop in lockstep, age-fixed sequences and show no variability from child to child or from context to context. They are divorced from the lived experiences, behaviors, and challenges that real people face. The alternative to these forms of psychological research and measurement (and the essentialist constructs they engender) is the use of dynamic methods for studying the development of behaviors in medias res (Fischer & Bidell, 2006; Mascolo & Fischer, in press). (For more on these methods and the measures that facilitate them, see also http://www.lectica.info/; Dawson & Stein, 2008; Fischer & Dawson, 2002.) In real life, people cope with the many complexities of life “in the middle of things.” They display their behaviors and reasoning capabilities across a variety of situations and conditions, dealing with difficult decisions and situations such as those involved in abortion and murder. Dynamic structural methods can detect pathways for learning and action in these situations and in related domains such as making sociomoral decisions and analyzing oneself and others in important relationships. These methods begin with a common scale (a general ruler) that captures the ways that people build skills and concepts in any domain. They analyze activities that relate to the key domains of interest, such as dilemmas, stories, and situaOctober 2009 ● American Psychologist tions that deal with abortion or murder. They depict learning pathways and limits on capabilities that are based on people’s activities in the domains of interest. They do not assume that people have general capabilities that somehow apply effortlessly across situations and contexts. This kind of research can uncover the variety of adolescent developmental pathways and the patterns of variability across different contexts. Conclusion: Narrow Assessments Create Results That Flip-Flop The ways in which Steinberg and colleagues (2009) measured cognitive capacities and psychosocial maturity led directly to their results and to misleading conclusions. A simple shift in the assessments used would reverse the pattern, so that cognitive capacities would seem to develop during adulthood while psychosocial abilities would seem to develop during childhood, ending at age 15 or 16. Simply put, the measures in the study made the results come out in favor of the hypothesis. Moreover, the measures lacked a realistic connection to the lived behaviors of adolescents and thus lacked ecological validity. From a broad perspective of the full range of capabilities, both cognitive and psychosocial, development involves many skills that develop along complex pathways from infancy through adulthood, with many capabilities developing both before age 16 and afterward during early adulthood. These capabilities can be measured by observations of activities in relevant contexts and placed within developmental pathways that capture the full range of skills for those contexts and eliminate problems with ceiling effects. This dynamic perspective on developmental science starts with the variability of skills and finds the principles of order within that variability, which contrasts with the traditional view of abilities as fixed and static. If psychology tells richer, more accurate stories, then its relation to policy needs to be reframed. Psychologists cannot draw simple lines in the sand, after which a developing person can be confidently assigned a full cognitive or psychosocial capability. Development is more complex and variable than that. Similar problems have surfaced in the emerging field of mind, brain, and education, where many people want to use neuroscience and genetics to shape and define education policy (Stein & Fischer, in press). Admitting the true complexity of human developmental processes means that, following Habermas (1996) and others, scientists and disciplinary experts should not claim that research results require a certain policy. Instead, they need to help inform the public debate about a policy by presenting relevant evidence that can illuminate the ultimately evaluative decisions about what policies to set, all perspectives considered and given the facts in hand. This approach is consistent with Steinberg et al.’s (2009) argument for “a careful and nuanced consideration of the particular demands placed on the individual for ‘adult-like’ maturity in different domains of functioning” (p. 593). 599 REFERENCES Ayoub, C. C., & Fischer, K. W. (2006). Developmental pathways and intersections among domains of development. In K. McCartney & D. Phillips (Eds.), Handbook of early child development (pp. 62– 82). Oxford, England: Blackwell. Baldwin, J. M. (1894). Mental development in the child and the race. New York: Macmillan. Baldwin, J. M. (1906). Thought and things: A study of the development of meaning and thought, or genetic logic (Vols. 1–3). New York: Macmillan. Benes, F. M., Turtle, M., Khan, Y., & Farol, P. (1994). Myelination of a key relay zone in the hippocampal formation occurs in the human brain during childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Archives of General Psychiatry, 51, 477– 484. Case, R. (1992). The mind’s staircase: Exploring the conceptual underpinnings of children’s thought and knowledge. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Cassidy, J., & Shaver, P. (Eds.). (1999). Handbook of attachment: Theory, research and clinical applications. New York: Guilford Press. Dawson, T. L., & Stein, Z. (2008). Cycles of research and application in science education. Mind, Brain, and Education, 2(2), 90 –103. Dawson-Tunik, T. L. (2004). “A good education is . . .” The development of evaluative thought across the life-span. Genetic, Social, and General Psychology Monographs, 130(1), 4 –112. Fink, R. (2007). What successful adults with dyslexia teach educators about children. In K. W. Fischer, J. H. Bernstein, & M. H. ImmordinoYang (Eds.), Mind, brain, and education in reading disorders (pp. 264 –281). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Fischer, K. W., & Bidell, T. R. (2006). Dynamic development of action and thought. In W. Damon & R. M. Lerner (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology (6th ed., Vol. 1, pp. 313–399). New York: Wiley. Fischer, K. W., & Dawson, T. L. (2002). A new kind of developmental science: Using models to integrate theory and practice. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 67(1, Serial No. 173, pp. 157–167). Fischer, K. W., Yan, Z., & Stewart, J. (2003). Adult cognitive development: Dynamics in the developmental web. In J. Valsiner & K. Connolly (Eds.), Handbook of developmental psychology (pp. 491–516). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. 600 Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New York: Basic Books. Granott, N. (2002). How microdevelopment creates macrodevelopment. In N. Granott & J. Parziale (Eds.), Microdevelopment: Transition processes in development and learning (pp. 213–242). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Gruber, H. E., & Vonèche, J. J. (Eds.). (1977). The essential Piaget: An interpretive reference guide. New York: Basic Books. Habermas, J. (1996). Between facts and norms: Contributions to a discourse theory of law and democracy (W. Rehg, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Horn, J. L. (1982). The aging of human abilities. In B. B. Wolman (Ed.), Handbook of developmental psychology: Research and theory (pp. 847– 870). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Inhelder, B., & Piaget, J. (1958). The growth of logical thinking from childhood to adolescence. New York: Basic Books. Kitchener, K. S., Lynch, C. L., Fischer, K. W., & Wood, P. K. (1993). Developmental range of reflective judgment: The effect of contextual support and practice on developmental stage. Developmental Psychology, 29, 893–906. Kohlberg, L. (1984). The psychology of moral development: The nature and validity of moral stages (Vol. 2). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Mascolo, M. F., & Fischer, K. W. (in press). The dynamic development of thinking, feeling, and acting over the lifespan. In R. Lerner & W. Overton (Eds.), Handbook of life-span development: Vol. 1. Cognition, neuroscience, methods. New York: Wiley. Selman, R. L., & Schultz, L. H. (1990). Making a friend in youth. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Stein, Z., & Fischer, K. (in press). Directions for mind, brain, and education: Methods, models, and morality. Educational Philosophy and Theory. Steinberg, L., Cauffman, E., Woolard, J., Graham, S., & Banich, M. (2009). Are adolescents less mature than adults? Minors’ access to abortion, the juvenile death penalty, and the alleged APA “flip-flop.” American Psychologist, 64, 583–594. Vaillant, G. E. (1977). Adaptation to life. Boston: Little, Brown. Van Geert, P. (1994). Dynamic systems of development: Change between complexity and chaos. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Wilber, K. (1999). Integral psychology. Boston: Shambhala. October 2009 ● American Psychologist Reconciling the Complexity of Human Development With the Reality of Legal Policy Reply to Fischer, Stein, and Heikkinen (2009) Laurence Steinberg Elizabeth Cauffman Jennifer Woolard Sandra Graham Marie Banich The authors respond to both the general and specific concerns raised in Fischer, Stein, and Heikkinen’s (2009) commentary on their article (Steinberg, Cauffman, Woolard, Graham, & Banich, 2009), in which they drew on studies of adolescent development to justify the American Psychological Association’s positions in two Supreme Court cases involving the construction of legal age boundaries. In response to Fischer et al.’s general concern that the construction of bright-line age boundaries is inconsistent with the fact that development is multifaceted, variable across individuals, and contextually conditioned, the authors argue that the only logical alternative suggested by that perspective is impractical and unhelpful in a legal context. In response to Fischer et al.’s specific concerns that their conclusion about the differential timetables of cognitive and psychosocial maturity is merely an artifact of the variables, measures, and methods they used, the authors argue that, unlike the alternatives suggested by Fischer et al., their choices are aligned with the specific capacities under consideration in the two cases. The authors reaffirm their position that there is considerable empirical evidence that adolescents demonstrate adult levels of cognitive capability several years before they evince adult levels of psychosocial maturity. Keywords: policy, science, adolescent development, chronological age I n our article (Steinberg, Cauffman, Woolard, Graham, & Banich, 2009, this issue), we asked whether there was scientific justification for the different positions taken by the American Psychological Association (APA) in two related Supreme Court cases—Hodgson v. Minnesota (1990; a case concerning minors’ competence to make independent decisions about abortion, in which APA argued that adolescents were just as mature as adults) and Roper v. Simmons (2005; a case about the constitutionality of the juvenile death penalty, in which APA argued that adolescents were not as mature as adults). On the basis of our reading of the extant literature in developmental psychology, as well as findings from a recent study of our own, October 2009 ● American Psychologist © 2009 American Psychological Association 0003-066X/09/$12.00 Vol. 64, No. 7, 601– 604 DOI: 10.1037/a0017246 Temple University University of California, Irvine Georgetown University University of California, Los Angeles University of Colorado we concluded that the capabilities relevant to judging individuals’ competence to make autonomous decisions about abortion reach adult levels of maturity earlier than do capabilities relevant to assessments of criminal culpability, and that it was therefore reasonable to draw different age boundaries between adolescents and adults in each instance. In their commentary on our article, Fischer, Stein, and Heikkinen (2009, this issue) raised both general and specific objections to our conclusions. The general issue concerns how developmental evidence may or may not inform the construction and analysis of legal age boundaries. The specific issues involve the conclusions we drew from our analysis of data on age differences in cognitive capabilities and psychosocial maturity. We appreciate the opportunity to reply to both of these concerns. When psychologists agree to provide guidance on matters of law, they must be able and willing to simultaneously plant their feet in two worlds—that of social science and that of legal policy and practice. These worlds operate on different principles and with different expectations. Social scientists are accustomed to providing complicated answers to seemingly simple questions, whereas legal professionals typically want simple answers to complicated ones. Social scientists avoid casting things in black and white, whereas legal professionals are often forced to do so. The question at hand is whether developmental scientists can provide meaningful guidance that can help legal Editor’s note. June P. Tangney served as the action editor for this article. Authors’ note. Laurence Steinberg, Department of Psychology, Temple University; Elizabeth Cauffman, Department of Psychology and Social Behavior, University of California, Irvine; Jennifer Woolard, Department of Psychology, Georgetown University; Sandra Graham, Psychological Studies in Education, University of California, Los Angeles; Marie Banich, Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry, University of Colorado. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Laurence Steinberg, Department of Psychology, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 19122. E-mail: lds@temple.edu 601 professionals decide where to draw reasonable age boundaries. Fischer et al. (2009) implied that this is not possible. They characterized our attempt to address this reality as a failure to appreciate the complexity of the issues at hand. Yet their own approach, as we shall argue, can only lead to the conclusion that the science of developmental psychology should not inform the construction of chronological boundaries under the law. In contrast, our position is that legal lines will be drawn whether social scientists weigh in or not. We believe that using science to inform the law— even in the form of educated guesses—is better than using no science at all. In theory, Hodgson and Roper both raise interesting and broad philosophical issues about the essential nature of development in general and maturity in particular. But these were not the issues before the Supreme Court in these cases. Indeed, the legal question before the court in each case was very narrowly drawn. In Hodgson, the question was whether someone under 18 should be required to notify her parents before obtaining an abortion. In Roper, the question was even narrower: Should individuals be eligible for the death penalty for crimes they committed at the age of 16, as it was at the time of Roper, or should the minimum age be raised to 18? The commentary provided by Fischer et al. (2009) did not attempt to answer either of these questions. According to Fischer et al.’s (2009) view, development is far too multifaceted, variable across individuals, and contextually conditioned to warrant generalizations about age differences in maturity. From this perspective, making legal decisions on the basis of chronological age makes no sense at all. Imagine their answer to the central question posed in Roper—whether the minimum age for the death penalty should be left at 16 or raised to 1...
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Running head: COGNITIVE AND EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Cognitive and Emotional Development
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COGNITIVE AND EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT

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Introduction
The psychological development rate of adolescents varies from one adolescent to
another both cognitively and emotionally. Such development usually depends on several
things such as life experiences, challenges that one faces as well as the environment that
someone grows in. Research has however shown that as much as psychological development
varies in adolescents, at certain ages, they tend to exhibit adult behavior or rather, these
capabilities plateau and stop developing (Papalia, Olds, & Feldman, 2013). At these ages, it
is, therefore, reasonable to say that these adolescents can be regarded or treated as adults in
terms of being considered as mature enough to make their own personal decisions as well as
being mature enough to bear the consequences of their actions as adults would. It, however,
should be noted that in order to determine whether an adolescent is mature enough in any
context, the relevant constructs should be considered. Studies of cognitive and emotional
developments in adolescents are therefore important for setting public policy guidelines
(Papalia, Olds, & Feldman, 2013). Steinberg's view of Psychological development is better
than Fischer's in setting public policies as it advocates for baseline age brackets that are
unambiguous and therefore easy for the policymakers to rely on.
Steinberg’s View of Psychological Developments in Adolescents
In two different cases, which are the Roper case as well as the Hodgson case, the
American Psychology Association was seen to take two clearly contrasting stands when it
came to whether adolescents, at the age of 16 are mature enough to be considered adults
(Steinberg, et al., 2009a). In the Hodgson case which was about whether adolescents were old
and mature enough to make independent decisions when it came to seeking abortion, the
APA was of the view that adolescent were mature enough to make their own decisions and
did not necessarily need to seek advice from their parents or guardians (Steinberg, et al.,

COGNITIVE AND EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT

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2009a). In the Roper case however which was about whether, an adolescent at the age of 16
was mature enough to be fully liable for the consequences of their criminal activities, the
APA was of the view that adolescents at the age of 16 are inherently immature and should
therefore not be considered fully blameworthy of their criminal actions (Steinberg, et al.,
2009b).
According to Steinberg, cognitive developments are seen to reach maturity earlier
than emotional developments. This means that the part of the brain that...


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