YOUR DEVELOPMENTAdolescence
Let’s be honest, teenagers don’t get the best press, at least not in Western
cultures. The period between childhood and adulthood tends to conjure
up thoughts of spots, sulks and strops, combined with a penchant for
moody music, illicit drinking and other risky antics. These stereotypes
are matched by the statistics. In the USA, for example, eighteen is the
“peak age” of arrest for a range of crimes. For arson, it’s even younger.
Oddly enough, adolescence
is a uniquely human develop-
mental stage. Even our closest
relatives, the great apes, mature
seamlessly from childhood
into adulthood without an
equivalent intermediary phase.
The orthodox view of why we
evolved with an adolescent
phase was that it gave extra time
for brain growth and for devel-
oping a body fit to walk long
distances on two legs. However,
this view has been challenged
by recent controversial findings
suggesting that our small-brained ancestor homo erectus may also have
had an adolescent phase. Another explanation, proposed by anthro-
pologist Barry Bogin of Loughborough University, is that adolescence
improved the subsequent reproductive success of our immediate ances-
tors. By this account, humanoid girls look fertile before they really are
fertile, allowing them time to practise the social and cultural complexi-
ties of adulthood without much risk of falling pregnant. By contrast,
although teenage boys are fertile from a young age, their scrawny appear-
ance reduces their appeal to women and their threat to adult men, thus
giving them a safe time to practise being macho.
STROPPY TEENAGERS
When it comes to teenage angst, the default position among experts
and lay people alike used to be to blame it all on the raging hormones.
There’s little doubt that the hormonal changes brought on by puberty
do affect teenage behaviour, motivation and risk-taking. However, the