Many young people are inclined toward risk taking and also toward helping other people. "Prosocial risk taking" is a term that can describe different ways that youth provide significant instrumental and emotional support to family members, friends, and strangers, even when it involves a personal risk. In this article, we review research…

Empathy and executive functions (EFs) are multimodal constructs that enable individuals to cope with their environment. Both abilities develop throughout childhood and are known to contribute to social behavior and academic performance in young adolescents. Notably, mentalizing and EF activate shared frontotemporal brain areas, which in previous…

The stability of callous-unemotional (CU) traits and both individual and contextual factors that influence this stability have been studied in community adolescent samples but not to great extent in adolescents who have been arrested. We estimated the developmental changes in CU traits measured over the course of 36 months (6-month intervals)…

The second decade of life is a transition that poses unique developmental challenges for adolescents, and also for their families and teachers, and how well adolescents negotiate this transition will have important implications for later outcomes across the life course. Coming of age, acquiring the status and trappings of adulthood, unfolds over…

Consistent with social neuroscience perspectives on adolescent development, previous cross-sectional research has found diverging mean age-related trends for sensation seeking and impulsivity during adolescence. The present study uses longitudinal data on 7,640 youth from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth Children and Young Adults, a…

The authors focus on the moral development of the early adolescent (ages 10 to 15). The ways in which early adolescents develop morally, social influences on such development, and the expression of morality behaviorally are discussed. (Editor/KC)

Discusses adolescent depression, suicide and parasuicidal behavior and suggests that these behaviors appear in a predetermined sequence. Uses a developmental perspective to weave together two patterns: identity formation, and a three-phase process of adolescent maturation specific to each individual. Attempts to integrate clinical findings and…

Examined intraindividual and interindividual differences in self-esteem among 142 rural adolescents during a four-year period encompassing the transition to high school. Cluster analysis identified three distinct, divergent trajectories of self-esteem change from early to middle adolescence: (1) consistently high; (2) small increase; and (3)…

A typology of adolescent media uses is presented, discussing five uses--entertainment, identity formation, high sensation, coping, and youth culture identification--in relation to adolescent socialization. Media differ from other socializing agents in that adolescents have greater control over their media choices, resulting in substantial…

Although the structure of modern society has both prolonged adolescence and exacerbated some of its tasks and challenges, the majority of adolescents successfully negotiate this period and mature in a relatively healthy manner. Nevertheless, significant numbers of adolescents find the challenges overwhelming, experience great conflict, and wind up…