A 16-year-old might be quite capable of making an informed decision about whether to end a pregnancy — a decision likely to be made after due consideration and consultation with an adult — but this same adolescent may not possess the maturity to be held to adult levels of responsibility if she commits a violent crime, according to new research into adolescent psychological development.


"Adolescents likely possess the necessary intellectual skills to make informed choices about terminating a pregnancy, but may lack the social and emotional maturity to control impulses, resist peer pressure and fully appreciate the riskiness of dangerous decisions," said Laurence Steinberg, a professor of developmental psychology at Temple University and lead author of the study. "This immaturity mitigates their criminal responsibility."


Steinberg and his co-authors address this seeming contradiction showing that cognitive and emotional abilities mature at different rates. For the study, they recruited 935 10- to 30-year-olds to examine age differences in a variety of cognitive and psychosocial capacities. Their findings appear in the October issue of American Psychologist, published by the American Psychological Association.


"It is very difficult for a 16-year-old to resist peer pressure in a heated, volatile situation," Steinberg said. "Most times, there is no time to talk to an adult to inject some reason and reality to the situation. Many crimes committed by adolescents are done in groups with other teens and are not premeditated."


In contrast, certain cognitive abilities, such as the ability to reason logically, reach adult levels long before psychosocial maturity is attained, Steinberg said.


"Medical decisions are those where adolescents can take the time to understand and weigh options provided by health care practitioners," said Steinberg. "Rarely are these decisions made in the heat of the moment without consultation with adults. Under these circumstances, adolescents exhibit adult maturity."


Questions about these maturity differences and the apparent inconsistency have been spurred by two friend-of-the-court briefs filed by APA in two cases heard by the Supreme Court during the last two decades. In the Hodgson v. Minnesota (1990), APA described adolescents as being competent to make informed and sound health care decisions. In the Roper v. Simmons (2005), APA characterized adolescents as too short-sighted and impulsive to warrant capital punishment, no matter what the crime.


APA differentiated these two scenarios by looking at the decision-making processes required for each situation and placed the research about psychosocial development of adolescents in the context of a court's need to determine as part of a death penalty sentence that the perpetrator can reliably be assessed as among the "worst of the worst."


In November, the Supreme Court is slated to hear two cases in which, according to Steinberg, similar questions about adolescent development may be raised. The cases concern the constitutionality of sentencing juveniles to life without the possibility of parole. APA has filed an amicus curiae brief in those cases presenting relevant research, including Steinberg's most recent study, to the court.


Adolescents' legal rights, said Steinberg, should be guided by accurate and timely scientific evidence on the nature and course of psychological development. "It is crucial to understand that brain systems responsible for logical reasoning and basic information processing mature earlier than systems responsible for self-regulation and the coordination of emotion and thinking," he said.