Dorsal Lateral Prefrontal Cortex

Allstate Insurance Company just recently ran an ad in magazines explaining why young people seem to be greater risks for insurance. It seems that a part of the human brain called the dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex doesn’t usually completely develop until one gets into their mid-twenties. This part of the brain, according to the ad, is largely responsible for people being able to discern long-range consequences of their actions, and its immaturity reputedly implies that their ability to render serious judgments concerning the affect of their actions on their lives and on others is relatively impaired if they are still in their late teens or early twenties. To which I muttered to myself, “H-m-m-m!”

So people aren’t really capable of making truly responsible decisions concerning their own lives until their mid-twenties, huh? Then, why oh why, do we as a society push young people into making major career decisions right in the middle of this age group? Why do we insist on recruiting soldiers from them? Why is it such a great thing to see young adults marry in their early twenties and rush off to have children?

I believe that, along with the development of said part of the brain, the young person needs experiences that progressively enable him or her to properly integrate physical growth with personality, including emotions, intellect, and ethics. Both colleges and the military seem to recognize, and at least on some level, acknowledge, that their students or recruits receive beneficial training in handling stress and making decisions under varying degrees of supervision. Both societal institutions emphasize personal growth of the individual into a more responsible citizen in their appeals for enrollment. And I’m not against early marriage per se: I just don’t think people should be getting married because it’s “time to”.

People should not be put into pressure-cooker situations where they feel that it’s now or never, that whatever they decide at a particular “window” in time commits their lives inexorably in a certain directions and shuts out other possibilities or opportunities. And I believe that’s the situation that too many young adults find themselves having to deal with, but with their growth still too incomplete to enable them to get a better, more farsighted perspective on their true situation (and how much freedom they really have in their lives). I also believe that, in a more primitive or traditional social setting, there would have been a greater role attached to the sagely elders, whose advice to the youths would both have been more forthcoming and more accepted. Nowadays, though, it seems that young people are, in a sense, being encouraged to grow up at earlier and earlier ages, while their physical (and dorsal prefrontal lateral cortex) development still takes just as long as ever to mature.