tions involving the purchase of alcohol and tobacco, driv-
ing, and other potentially health-compromising behaviors,
such as having unprotected sex. In these cases, adolescents’
relative immaturity should be acknowledged either by im-
posing greater restraints on their behavior than are imposed
on adults (e.g., prohibiting the purchase of alcohol, restrict-
ing driving to certain hours of the day or certain conditions)
or by providing added protections (e.g., prohibiting capital
punishment, making condoms easily accessible). Thus,
APA’s argument that adolescents should not be subject to
capital punishment owing to their impulsivity and suscep-
tibility to peer pressure is consistent with the results of our
own research and with other scientific studies of psycho-
social development that show continued maturation of
these capacities well into young adulthood (Steinberg &
Scott, 2003).
In our view, then, the seemingly conflicting positions
taken by APA in Roper v. Simmons (2005) and Hodgson v.
Minnesota (1990) are not contradictory. Rather, they sim-
ply emphasize different aspects of maturity, in accordance
with the differing nature of the decision-making scenarios
involved in each case. The skills and abilities necessary to
make an informed decision about a medical procedure are
likely in place several years before the capacities necessary
to regulate one’s behavior under conditions of emotional
arousal or coercive pressure from peers.
Science alone cannot dictate public policy, although it
can, and should, inform it. Our data can neither “prove” nor
“disprove” the appropriateness of requiring parental in-
volvement before a teenager can obtain an abortion, but
they do inform the debate. Nor do our data “prove” or
“disprove” whether it is appropriate to apply the death
penalty to individuals who are inherently more impulsive
than adults and whose characters are not yet fully formed—
although, again, they are informative. But our findings do
demonstrate how the positions taken by APA in Hodgson v.
Minnesota (1990) and in Roper v. Simmons (2005) are
compatible with each other and consistent with the rapidly
growing body of scientific evidence indicating that intel-
lectual maturity is reached several years before psychoso-
cial maturity.
Developmental science can and should contribute to
debates about the drawing of legal age boundaries, but
research evidence cannot be applied to this sort of policy
analysis without a careful and nuanced consideration of the
particular demands placed on the individual for “adult-like”
maturity in different domains of functioning. Jurists, poli-
ticians, advocates, and journalists seeking a uniform an-
swer to questions about where we should draw the line
between adolescence and adulthood for different purposes
under the law need to consider the asynchronous nature of
psychological maturation, especially during periods of dra-
matic and rapid change across multiple domains of func-
tioning.
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