Posted by
DebbieJohnson
566 days ago
(http://livescience.newscri.be)
Category: Health and Medical Care |
The findings suggest that when teens engage in "grown-up" behaviors, they feel closer to adulthood.
Previous research has shown that teens perceive themselves as slightly older than they really are—but that this trend begins to reverse when people reach their mid-20s, at which point they report feeling younger than they actually are.
Knowing this, Kelly Arbeau, a psychology doctoral student at the University of Alberta in Canada, and her colleagues at the University of Victoria wondered whether teens who participate in adult activities feel even older than their peers.
To find out, they asked 664 teens ages 12 to 19 to gauge how old they felt and to answer questions about their dating and sexual experiences as well as whether they smoked, drank or used drugs.
On average, the teens reported feeling older than their actual age, and girls generally felt older than boys—possibly because they reach puberty sooner. The teens who felt the oldest compared to their biological years were more likely to be dating someone older than them and to have had sex before.
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