European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - December 8, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse                                A a the risky bus mess of adolescence the three biggest killers of Young people Are essentially psychological. They Are dying of their own reckless  by Daniel Goleman new York times ust Why Leo Roagers Lake so Many too Lush risks  on skateboards to Molong cigarettes to sex without contraceptives is Itie Lopic of an intensive new research Elford by behavioural scientists. Tho picture thai is emerging is a deadly combination of hormone rela cd i Hill seek Rig an inability of perceive risks accurately and Iho nned to impress Peers by one s Cavalier recklessness Allol which peat during the years Between 10 and the mid-205 the most compelling tact behind the Rose cd i that adolescents Aie the Only age group in which mortality fats risen since 1960 three quarters of adolescent deaths Are caused by accidents homicide and suicide Allol which indicate a lethal propensity or risk taking aces wants alone account for 60 percent of those deaths. The three biggest killers of Young people Are essentially psychological said Lewis Uppitt a developmental psychologist at Brown University they Are dying of their own reckless  Lipsitt organised a meeting of scientists last year Al the National Institute of mental health to draw up a research Agenda on risk taking by teen agers and what can be done about in. A follow up mooting is planned for this Spring. The meetings Are part of Elfors by the government and or Vale foundations to identify teen agers most Likely to take dangerous risks and to find ways to head off the peril. In seeding the causes of the risk taking researchers Are confronted with a fact known 10 every Parent teen agers can seem to live in an orbit Alt their own in which the reasonable imperatives of the adult world have Little it any re Nance. What seems a deaf danger in the eyes of an adult the researchers Are finding May seem Safe or Safe enough to the teen Ager. The ability to evaluate risk seems to be skewed in Many Leen agers. For instance when they were asked to anticipate what risks become More or less dangerous Over time they saw addiction from drug use and pregnancy from unprotected Intercourse As becoming less rather than More Likely according Locharles Irwim a paediatrician at the University of California at san Francisco. Further perception of some risks May fade in the Ace of peer pressure for example when it comes to using condoms the major concerns of adolescents Are not the risks of pregnancy bul rather such matters As whether 1 they think their Peers use condoms and whether condoms Are inconvenient or might make them look silly according to Nancy Adler a health psycho Agist at the Liniver Siviy of Ca Lorma at san Francisco and a colleague c own the immediate experience is whal Mallory to them not worries about Long term consequences after said Fisk Laking is part of the natural exploration and assertion of Independence that Overy healthy teen Ager goes through to one extent or another. The Pursuit of new activities and taking of initiative Are crucial for the psychological growth that Young people undergo through adolescence. That natural tendency makes risk taking de he More Likely. Part of adolescence is trying on new roles and seeking now expectancies said be allx a. Hamburg child1 psychiatrist at mount Sinai Hospital in new York City. But by age 10 or so they enter a risky period when they do tots of exploring Al a time when their cognitive development has not yet reached the Point where they can make judgments that will keep Triem out of rouble. They canno really comprehend Laws of probability. And they also have ideas of invulnerability hat persuade them hat hey can safely Lake a known  one of the major deficits in the thinking of teen age particularly in Early adolescence is in evaluating the probabilities of a risk. Often if a teen Ager does something several limes like no breaking his neck Whan he does something stupid or not getting pregnant after sex without contraceptives he will assume it becomes toss risky each time not More  Hamburg said. Teen agers Are also prone to exaggeration Hamburg said. Adolescents lend to grossly Over or underestimate based on their immediate experience she said. Whan they say everyone s doing it Why should t for they wildly overestimate the actual numbers. And by the same Loken they wildly underestimate 1he safety of the dangerous things they  for instance Hamburg cited a study of smoking among youths 10 to 14 years old. Aboul is percent of them said they sometimes smoked Bui when asked Aboul he extent of smoking in their age group they put tha figure at nearly 60 percent. Those who had he most exposure to smoking in their family or among friends Overell imaged the rates of smoking the most. College students in another study overestimated the reliability of condoms by close o three times a Corong to Baruch Fischhoff a psychologist at Carnegie Meton University. Dealing with death in a crisis situation people often find themselves capable of sustaining what would seem to be incredible strength or  Page 16 the stars and stripes tuesday december b. 1987 by Russell Kishi in led press International Hile the old cliche observes Hal there Are two Universal inevitability is in deals and axes it is equally True Hal everyone would sooner address the Issue of their faxes Ihan their deals. The very mention of deals provokes at Best an awkward reaction. Mention near death experiences in which an individual comes within a hair s breadth of dying but somehow survives through the intervention of Fale and some might deflect 1ns Issue with humor As one person did when he responded hat his closes Brush with death was being forced to sit try ought Tiree Houf performance by Wayne  bul or. Marilyn Ruman a clinical psychologist in Enimo Calif said that when an individual has a Clumsy faced Iho Issue a his own mortality via a crisis or catastrophe he remainder of his life is Indelio a impacted it s like As soon As you prepare to die it loses its mystery she said Allol us live in fear of being afraid. Many of us live in Lear of deals because we can t fathom it. Bul when a person passes through an experience where they thought they might die. I find that number one they Are no longer afraid of dying and number two. They really begin to look Al the Way they live and evaluate it in some Way. They Hava a sense thai it death could have happened and ask themselves if they would be satisfied with dying knowing that they be lived Hen lives As Hay have o hat Point. Sometimes people make changes in their lifestyles