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Adolescents and risk-taking behaviour, a scientific explanation (European situation analysis)
It is notorious that involvement in risky behaviour is always a trade off between short term gains and potential long term consequences and the decision-making process depends a lot on the capabilities and knowledge of the individual.
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For example, involvement in risky driving such as speeding with a car might seem attractive to an adolescent who wants to impress his/her peers despite the possible long-term effects of a car crash or injury. Risk-behaviour tends to start in early adolescence and, in general, boys are likely to become more involved in risk-taking behaviour than girls.
Adolescents are more prone to take risks than adults. Risk-taking seems to be a normal and inevitable part of adolescence which maybe explained by adolescents' heightened need for stimuli. Therefore interventions ought to focus on reducing the harm associated with risk behaviour rather than intending to minimise the risk taking behaviour itself. Adolescents are not necessarily ignorant of the risks but rather that they do not perceive the possibility of an injury in their everyday practises.
Adolescents do actually perceive themselves as vulnerable to risks; in fact younger adolescents perceive themselves as more vulnerable to risks than older adolescents - risk perception decreases with age.
Risk perception and assessment
It is important to take into account that individual risk perception and risk assessment is bound to be biased and subjective (depending on past experiences, motivations, the present mood and emotions), and that human beings are not always able to make accurate objective calculations of situations.
Some people may try to avoid risks because of some unpleasant past experiences and some people may want to keep a certain level of thrill in their lives by accepting risks as part of their daily lives. Five dimensions are commonly seen to affect individual ability for decision making on risk:
1) Physical (consists of speculating whether a person will be harmed by the action),
2) Financial (consists of speculations whether a person will gain or lose from committing an act),
3) Psychological (consists of ego considerations ‘whether a person’s self-esteem will be improved or worsened by the action’ and social considerations ‘whether a person’s social status will increase or decrease in the situation’)
4) Functional (consists of speculations whether a person can achieve the set goal by the action and whether she will benefit from taking action), and
5) Political/career (consists of considerations whether one’s career prospects will improve by taking the action.
For example when a driver is overtaking a car she has to take into account the other drivers, relative speeds and distances of other cars, oncoming traffic and other traffic that might be hidden from the view. If a person is in a more aggressive mood than usual or if she is in a hurry she might be more eager to overtake other cars than she normally would. Furthermore personal traits affect risk taking.
Some factors that may help adolescents
Knowledge about the possible consequences of risky behaviour does not necessarily diminish risk-taking behaviour. Providing youth with information on the actual risks is probably not the most fruitful approach in trying to diminish adolescents’ risk-taking. The actual negative outcomes of many types of risky behaviour are relatively small, thus concentrating on the actual risks could lead adolescents to minimise their importance. Rather the educators ought to concentrate on translating small probabilities into real probabilities.
In addition, adults have a tendency to exaggerate youth problems and see the issue from their own risk perception. For example, when in Finland adolescents’ use of alcohol and drugs was decreasing the adult population thought it was increasing. If the discourse of the youth and their problems is seen from an adult's perspective adolescents’ perception of what represents and what in fact is risky behaviour will not bet taken into account. It is important to know what young people experience and feel.
Even though adolescents do consider the risks before indulging in risky behaviour risks appear to play only a secondary role in their risk assessment.
Finally, risky activities especially during adolescence are not individual activities as adolescents are more susceptible to peer pressure than adults. Most of the risky behaviour is conducted together with other friends in a group, e.g. drinking, risky driving and sexual risk taking.
In the next year this section will be developed to include an interactive map of Europe which will include more information at country level. Information will also be gatherd on the different injury topics:
Unintentional injuries (traffic injuries, sport injuries, work injuries) and
Violence (youth violence, intimate partners’ violence, family violence, sexual violence) and Intentional self-harm
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