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Sept. 7, 2006 -- It may be a "me first" world in the typical teen brain.
Brain scans show that teen's brains may still be developing when it comes to sensitivity to other people's feelings.
And in a second study, the same researchers found that adolescents and preadolescents are slower at predicting how another person might feel in a given situation.
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, PhD, of University College London, worked on the two studies.
"We think that a teenager's judgment of what they would do in a given situation is driven by the simple question: 'What would I do?'" Blakemore says, in a University College London news release.
"Adults, on the other hand, ask: "What would I do, given how I would feel and given how the people around me would feel as a result of my actions?'" she continues.
Blakemore presented the findings from the studies today in Norwich, England, at the BA Festival of Science, held by the British Association for the Advancement of Science.
What Would You Do?
In the brain scan study, Blakemore's team looked at 19 teen girls and 20 women in London.
The teens were nearly 15 years old, on average, and attended a selective private school. The women were 28 years old, on average, and were university students or graduates.
Each girl or woman viewed a series of questions displayed on a computer screen.
Some questions were "What would you do?" scenarios that required an intentional choice, such as: "You are at the cinema and have trouble seeing the screen. Do you move to another seat?"
Other questions focused on cause and effect, such as: "A huge tree suddenly comes crashing down in a forest. Does it make a loud noise?"
Participants answered "likely" or "not likely" to each question by pressing a computer key.
Meanwhile, their brains were scanned with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).