I discovered this researcher on Ted's talks and I absolutely think that I need to share her insights with you all.
Brené Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work. She has spent the past ten years studying vulnerability, courage, authenticity, and shame. She spent the first five years of her decade-long study focusing on shame and empathy, and is now using that work to explore a concept that she calls Wholeheartedness.
She poses the questions:
How do we learn to embrace our vulnerabilities and imperfections so that we can engage in our lives from a place of authenticity and worthiness? How do we cultivate the courage, compassion, and connection that we need to recognize that we are enough – that we are worthy of love, belonging, and joy?
There comes that day in everyone's life (at least if they have survived long enough :P) that they say "Is it me? Am I getting old or are teenagers getting dumber?" To that person, I must say CONGRATULATIONS!!!!! You have survived the teen and young adult years to become a "Grown Up"!!!
I truly do not mean to say this lightly. I have too many friends that did not live long to become a Grown Up.
That is because during the teenage and young adult years (I'd say between the ages of 12 to 25 on average for both males and females and YES I am making a generalization) we really truly believed that we were invincible. That we knew EVERYTHING! And that "Grown Ups" were beyond stupid. It is when we "grow up" that we discover we aren't near as smart as we think we are, that there is a whole hell of a lot out there in the world that we don't know. It is when we have learned that we are not invincible and neither is the person next to you. It of course is all about perspective and life experience. I can tell you right now, I NEVER really knew what fear was, until the day I took my oldest child home for the first time. The reality of the fact that from that day forward, I was completely and utterly responsible for the life and well being of another human being changed me forever.
I'm pretty sure I'm going to have knew insights, understanding, realizations, fears, and other lessons I cannot imagine right now in the future. Just like my children have grown up so far with vastly different experiences than I had growing up. I don't even want to think about what kind of experiences my possible future grandchildren will have. Anyway, back to that very very special time in our lives when we transform from child to grown up. There has been a great deal of research lately on understanding the teenage brain, and I would like to share some of that with you. As I now have TWO teen-aged daughters that are changing before my eyes, both physically and mentally, it's been something relevant for me to actively go out and research.
The first is a National Geographic Feature Article called Beautiful Brains.
Moody. Impulsive. Maddening. Why do teenagers act the way they do? Viewed through the eyes of evolution, their most exasperating traits may be the key to success as adults.
One part of the article briefly covers some of the National Institutes of Health project where they did the first full series of brain scans of over a 100 teenagers in the 1990s that showed that the human brain goes through massive reorganization between the ages of, you guessed it, the 12th to 25th years of development. The article is pretty fascinating and I like the way they frame the question away from "what's wrong with teenagers" to "what a unique, highly functional, even adaptive period of life."
Another Article from NPR about Teenage Brains describes a study where teens and adults play a game, getting points for correctly answering questions about the motions of dots on a screen. When there were a lot of points at stake, teens actually spent more time studying the dots and showed more brain activity in areas involved in making decisions than the adults. According to the researchers "Instead of acting impulsively, the teens are making sure they get i right."
Furthermore, there is research going on in Cambridge University to understand brain and mental development. "The subjects undergo tests that assess their propensity toward impulsive and risk-taking behavior. The expectation is that the emergence of more sensible behavior will correlate with changes in the wiring of the brain's white matter. This comparison will enable researchers to directly associate the shape of the wiring with behavior patterns that all adults have gone through."
There is actually a Frontline episode "Inside the Teenage Brian" The episode website has the full program available to view online, as well as advice and online activities for parents, more overviews of recent research including an interactive illustration of the brain, and a very interesting discussion on the challenges of applying brain research to parenting and public policy. A very cool and interesting interactive website about the brain! How awesome is that!? I'm going to go play around there some more now. (That's another thing about getting older, the more "grown up" you get, the more distracted you get. Go figure.)
"Social psychologists describe this change as a consequence of a gradual shifting from promotion motivation -- seeing our goals in terms of what we can gain, or how we can end up better off, to prevention motivation -- seeing our goals in terms of avoiding loss and keeping things running smoothly. Everyone, of course, has both motivations. But the relative amounts of each differ from person to person, and can shift with experience as we age."
Why do teenagers seem so much more impulsive, so much less self-aware than grown-ups? Cognitive neuroscientist Sarah-Jayne Blakemore compares the prefrontal cortex in adolescents to that of adults, to show us how typically “teenage” behavior is caused by the growing and developing brain. Sarah-Jayne Blakemore studies the social brain -- the network of brain regions involved in understanding other people -- and how it develops in adolescents.
Yes, yes, I know, ANOTHER Cracked.com article for you all to look over at your convenience. I was just working on some potential discussion posts for the online course I'm creating (of course also hoping it gets through the approval process, etc. etc. when I'm finished getting it together), and I had decided to share some links I found to the 1st season of Brain Games, when low and behold, this cracked.com article comes out! Talk about the universe telling me "hells to the yes, you need to share this information! People need to know it if they don't already!" Not only that, but there is an old song out there, Clint Eastwood by the Gorillaz, that my youngest has been listening to that also had the universe telling me I needed to talk about Reality and Perception ;)
Anyway, the article is "5 Mind-Blowing Ways your Senses Lie to You Every Day" --The are:
#5. Your Eyes Can Make You Hear Different Words
#4. Your Brain Erases Objects from Your Sight...While Your Driving
#3. Your Eyes Change the Way Food Tastes
#2. Your Brain Changes the Size of Objects Around You
#1. You Can Easily Forget Where Your Limbs Are
If you are interested in knowing more about the National Geographic series Brain Games, which is currently into season 2 (YAY!). Check out their website at http://braingames.nationalgeographic.com/
These videos present many experiments and tests that you can do while watching the show, and explain a lot of cognitive science and neuroscience research currently being investigated. We are social thinkers, and we do process information through attention, interpretation, judgment, and memory. And this is what influences just about everything that makes who we are and how we interact with others. I find it extremely fascinating how much these processes are actually wrong, but at the same time they work 'good enough' that we survive to live another day!
Episode 1: Pay Attention Designed to test your memory, the first episode presents viewers with a mock-up crime scene. In a New York park, a man is mugged in broad daylight. Test your Brain: You Won't Believe Your Eyes But can you describe the robbery seconds later? And will your description be the same as that of the person next to you? Discover how details often go missing, forcing the brain to 'make up' memories. So what you believe to be true could actually be
Episode 2: Perception You may not realise it, but our brains are being fooled all of the time - especially by Hollywood filmmakers. Experimental neuroscientist Beau Lotto guides you through the mind-bending world of optical illusions, showing you how our brains 'fill in' crucial information, enabling people to 'feel' with their eyes and 'see' with their ears.
Episode 3: Memory If you witnessed a crime, could you be sure you recognised the perpetrator? Our memories are surprisingly vulnerable, and our recollection of names, numbers and details can often be incorrect at the most crucial of moments. Former detective Greg Walsh reveals how what you believe to be true can often be alarmingly false.
