ZM: I’m Zena Mello, I’m a professor of psychology. Um I’m in the field of developmental psychology specifically. Um adolescence is my area of expertise. So in developmental psychology we study how people change from birth to death, and there’s so much knowledge about human development that to be an expert you have to pick an age period. So there are infant researchers, children researchers, I’m an adolescent researcher. I also do projects with people who study adults, but my primary emphasis is adolescents. Um so I think the topic you picked is really interesting and very relevant and is contemporary. Um can you define what is sexting?
KS: Um for my project, it is sending nude images or sexual images through a phone or your computer. Because …show more content…
Um I think one big picture issue is that laws around adolescents first of all they change they're dynamic they’re not static um they also are not an entirely related to common sense or to developmental science so like the best example is that some states vary on when an adolescent can have a tattoo um when an adolescent can drive under what situations like there's graduated drivers licenses so that adolescents can um and this is a great example actually so we know from FMRIs Functional magnetic resonance imaging studies that adolescents behave differently different regions of their brain are rewarded when they have friends around so in simulated studies they put adolescents in a magnet tube to look at the brain activity and then they have an adolescent they bring in a friend who just is on a microphone and says have a great time on your study or whatever they just make comments so that the adolescent in the tube knows that a peer is there um then they do a simulated driving task and we know from these studies that adolescents who have a friend present they are more likely to run stop lines and drive risky and we think it’s because the um the development of the prefrontal cortex in terms of executive function doesn't develop at the same rate as the limbic system which is really tied to emotions emotion control so basically before adolescents can think well they're thinking what makes them feel good and the …show more content…
KS: A lot of the research ive done because of the questions on my context outline which is what this research is for is how many teens sext or what percentage of teens sext and its always varying even though its from the same year like people say 7% then theres another one that states 14% and its just very confusing and i dont feel like answering that unless I know an accurate number because theres just so many resources giving me different
KS: Um for my project, it is sending nude images or sexual images through a phone or your computer. Because …show more content…
Um I think one big picture issue is that laws around adolescents first of all they change they're dynamic they’re not static um they also are not an entirely related to common sense or to developmental science so like the best example is that some states vary on when an adolescent can have a tattoo um when an adolescent can drive under what situations like there's graduated drivers licenses so that adolescents can um and this is a great example actually so we know from FMRIs Functional magnetic resonance imaging studies that adolescents behave differently different regions of their brain are rewarded when they have friends around so in simulated studies they put adolescents in a magnet tube to look at the brain activity and then they have an adolescent they bring in a friend who just is on a microphone and says have a great time on your study or whatever they just make comments so that the adolescent in the tube knows that a peer is there um then they do a simulated driving task and we know from these studies that adolescents who have a friend present they are more likely to run stop lines and drive risky and we think it’s because the um the development of the prefrontal cortex in terms of executive function doesn't develop at the same rate as the limbic system which is really tied to emotions emotion control so basically before adolescents can think well they're thinking what makes them feel good and the …show more content…
KS: A lot of the research ive done because of the questions on my context outline which is what this research is for is how many teens sext or what percentage of teens sext and its always varying even though its from the same year like people say 7% then theres another one that states 14% and its just very confusing and i dont feel like answering that unless I know an accurate number because theres just so many resources giving me different