Little League Training, Major League Problems

AUTHOR: ChiChi Madu

PUBLICATION NAME: Psychology Today

DATE OF PUBLICATION: October 22, 2009

SUMMARY: Kids are getting recruited to sports at an earlier age. As sports get more and more competitive, the kids train at a younger age to try to get recruited more successfully. The kids do not play for the fun of the sport anymore but rather be trained harder, and harder. When accepted at an early age, the kids miss out on important events that would fortify them and know how to reaction in a certain situation. Since they miss these events, they do not know how to deal with them and many get mental illnesses. The pressure of being on the team and expected to do well is also very mentally straining. Even pro teams have the same issues with their players. At first, many coaches ignored their players mental health and only cared about their physical health, but then their players started becoming very depressed and had anxiety problems. They noticed they needed professional help for their professional players to succeed not only on the field, but also off. If professional players need psychologists to help them, then children also should have them, to avoid any future mental illnesses from occurring in their lives. This affects Psychology by providing new information regarding psychological behaviors for athletes and children to be athletes. This research does not counter any existing researches but supports them. When I was a kid I was also pressured to become a soccer player, I was not a good one but my mom made me play to be more healthy and for exercise.

LINKS TO STUDY: N/A

ARTICLE: http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200910/little-league-training-major-league-problems

SUBMITTED BY: Ryan Liu

Adolescent Brains Biologically Wired to Engage in Risky Behavior

AUTHOR: (Author unnamed) University of Texas at Austin, edited by ScienceDaily staff

PUBLICATION NAME: Science Daily

DATE OF PUBLICATION: June 6, 2010

SUMMARY:

As we all know, teenagers are known for making the most egregious mistakes and the riskiest of decisions. Could there be a true biological reason behind this stereotypical teenage behavior? Learning seems to rely on prediction error because if the world is exactly as you expected it to be, there is nothing new to learn.

Poldrack, a professor of psychology and neurology had stated, "Our results raise the hypothesis that these risky behaviors, such as experimenting with drugs or having unsafe sex, are actually driven by over activity in the mesolimbic dopamine system, a system which appears to be the final destination to all addictions, in the teenage brain."

Scientists have uncovered 'positive prediction error signal's that link to learning. Professor Poldrack stated that previous research has shown that the dopamine system in the brain is responsive towards prediction errors. Reward prediction error is defined as the difference between an expected outcome of an action and the actual outcome. Prediction errors have ties with learning. The human brain will take and reject whatever it wants to.

"Learning seems to rely on prediction error because if the world is exactly as you expected it to be, there is nothing new to learn", says Poldrack.

An experiment was conducted with participants from age eight to thirty, testing to see which age group would elicit the most dopamine response. Dopamine refers to one one of the most important factors for the motivation to seek rewards. Afterwards, the greater prediction error signals in the teenage brain could result in increased motivation to receive more positive outcomes, and greater risk-taking.

But unfortunately, this study is nothing but a theory. Questions afloat the minds of bio-psychological scientists. Can teenagers really control all their decisions, both good and bad? Is the idea being over analyzed? Could their adolescent behavior only be some sort of philosophy? Are biological differences really playing a part of this?

In the end, no one really knows.

LINKS TO STUDY: N/A

ARTICLE: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100603132458.htm

SUBMITTED BY: Cecile F. Zapanta