Slashdot Mirror
When Does Maturity Set In?
An anonymous reader writes "Two Dartmouth researchers claim that they are one step closer to discovering at what age human maturity sets in. From the article: 'For the study, Baird and graduate student Craig Bennett looked at the brains of nineteen 18-year-old Dartmouth students who had moved more than 100 miles to attend college. A control group of 17 older students, ranging in age from 25 to 35, were also studied for comparison. The results indicate that significant changes took place in the brains of these individuals. The changes were localized to regions of the brain known to integrate emotion and cognition. Specifically, these are areas that take information from our current body state and apply it for use in navigating the world.'"
When moving away from home you encounter a hell of a lot of new experiences and theres so much to learn and take in.
For instance, embedding the location of the pub and distance to the nearest kebab shop are key.
Students who cannot manage this feat rarely last a week, you see them cold hungry and sober in lectures wishing they were back at home.
Of course your brain matures when you leave home though, you do have to adapt, because you just couldn't survive if you let your mummy do everything.
liqbase
You're never going to get first post! Grow up!!!!!
"I may be full of crap about this game, and I may be wrong, and that's fine." -Jack Thompson
And I would just like to say POOP! *giggle*
From TA:
.... significant changes took place in the brains of these individuals"
"During the first year of college
- yeah, because it's the first year of college - they're all busy pickling their brains with newly found alcohol and drugs.
duh.
Here is a link to and science program in Australia called Catalyst. I actually managed to watch this episode and this reminded me of it and I was bored enough to google for a link.
t m
What it says is that the brain doesnt mature fully until the age of 25.
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s1424747.h
"I'm going to f***ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to f***ing kill Google"
That's because you don't really appreciate being 18 until you're 35.
Ouch, my arthritis!
Blank until
There has to be a statistical reason why your car insurance is so absurdly high when you're a late teen, with a steady decrease before a significant reduction at the age of 35. Certainly your appetite for risk behind the wheel doesn't completely reflect your all round maturity in life, but I'd suggest a strong correlation.
Aegilops
a) going to college changes your brain
b) being 18 and full of hormones changes your brain
c) both to varying extents
-- "You never mentioned comets before, Mac. This opens up a whole new area of negotiation." - Gordon Urquart
Even with all the disclaimers, they had two supportable contentions:
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
I've seen 10 year olds whose had a parent killed with more maturity than a 16 year old.
Indeed. My wife and I adopted two children from russia. Since then, we've done a lot of research into russian children who either spent most of their time in orphanages, or were taken from their russian* parents because of abuse or neglect. There are dozens of cases where a sibling group of three children or so, made up of, say, a 2 year old, 4 year old, and 6 year old, end up with the 6 year old going out and finding food for the younger children, even to the point where the oldest child is starving so that the younger ones can eat. Some of these sibling groups end up adopted by american families. When this happens, the oldest child can't seem to let go of this parental sense of responsability for the younger kids. It's almost like part of their childhood has been lost. So I agree. I think it has to do with the presence of responsability. Nothing makes you grow up faster than having to care for a child of your own.
* Not to single out the russians. I'm sure there are plenty of examples of this sort of bad situation in every other country including the US.
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
"nineteen 18-year-old Dartmouth students who had moved more than 100 miles to attend college" vs "A control group of 17..."
With a sample size that small you realy can't tell anything specific.
I don't know how they can try and publish a study where they look at such a small sample size, and assume the diffrence between the older and younger group's brain is based on maturity. Now if they had tracked 100 people from age 12 to 30 and compared brain scans with their behavior they could get good data but this study is worthless.
It is good to see a lot of thoughtful comments here regarding the paper.
If you have any questions for me specifically then please reply to this post and I will try to answer as directly as I can.
Best,
~Craig