Helping Adolescents Break The Spell Of Perceived Invincibility
Why we need to do more for teenagers who dare
It is no secret that millions of today’s teenagers are engaged in a wide range of risk-taking behaviors. Many do so under the spell of perceived invulnerability, an irrational belief that one is somehow charmed and exempt from life-threatening situations. Adolescents often see themselves as immortal and immune from such consequences as automobile accidents, gang activities, unwanted pregnancies, drug overdoses, and assorted thrill-seeking accidents. Perceived invulnerability may convince adolescents that they are somehow exempt from the consequences of real-life situations. The numbers keep creeping up on those teens who unnecessarily risk their lives engaging in reckless and unsafe behavior.
Much has been said about the sense of invulnerability that allows teens to engage in such activities. Perhaps they need this armor as they try to meet the many challenges that accompany growing and maturing. Unfortunately, the armor also shields adolescents from acknowledging the risks and consequences of reckless living. Too many mistakenly believe they are protected from the conditions under which others must abide.
The attitude of “nothing can happen to me,” reflects the conviction of personal uniqueness and sheds considerable light on why adolescents take unnecessary chances, even at the expense of risking their health and well-being. Indeed, many take their health for granted and fail to grasp the fragility of life. Perceived invulnerability may also explain why an uncanny number of adolescents engage in criminal behavior, such as physical and sexual assaults and reason that they can never be caught or apprehended. Excessive amounts of alcohol and other assorted other drugs, coupled with peer pressure, likely serve to magnify perceived invulnerability and further erode sound logic and judgment.
In my many years of college teaching and counseling, I often spoke about the concept of adolescent egocentrism, a type of mental development that may help to explain these troublesome tendencies and how they distort cognitive functioning. In its broadest sense, adolescent egocentrism is a form of self-centeredness characterized by adolescents’ concern about what people are thinking about them. Put another way, it is the tendency to conceptualize one’s own thoughts while also being preoccupied with the thoughts of others. A major consequence of adolescent egocentrism is a heightened level of self-consciousness.
I’ve shared with many different audiences that adolescent egocentrism promotes two unique types of thinking. The first is the construction of an “imaginary audience,” a delusion that other people are just as concerned about how they behave and look as they themselves are. Because of the imaginary audience, adolescents feel that they are always the focus of attention or on “center stage.” This perceived existence of an imaginary audience usually intensifies during potentially threatening social situations and may help to explain the “showing off” and loudness, as well as the distinctive clothing and bodily art and alterations that are often sparked during adolescence.
The second consequence of adolescent egocentrism is the “personal fable.” Personal fables are stories that adolescents fabricate and tell about themselves. Personal fables reflect the teenager’s conviction of personal uniqueness and may contain such mistaken beliefs that one will not die or that one leads a charmed existence. This type of thinking thus embraces the concept of perceived invulnerability; while under the spell of the personal fable, adolescents often feel as though they are protected from harm, risk, or even death.
The personal fable can be used to explain why many adolescents are willing to risk their health and well-being. It is possible that many believe they are immune to sexually transmitted diseases, becoming involved in unwanted pregnancies, or being injured on the highway when driving recklessly. Some may engage in criminal behaviors, such as stealing or sexual assault, because they reason that they can never be apprehended. Under a false sense of safety and immunity, many consume excessive amounts of alcohol and other assorted drugs that ultimately impair judgment. Consequently, precautionary behavior may be avoided by adolescents because they don’t really believe that anything negative will ever happen to them.
It becomes the task of adults to help adolescents reduce exaggerated beliefs concerning their indestructibility. We need to discover ways to help adolescents shed the illusion of immunity and look for opportunities to nurture more realistic and accurate styles of thinking.
To this end, I offer the following suggestions:
Emphasize how perceived invulnerability interferes with putting knowledge into practice. Rather than focusing exclusive attention on telling adolescents what to think in relation to risk-taking, a greater emphasis needs to be placed on understanding why adolescents think in particular ways. Perceived invulnerability will not be eliminated by simply providing young people with concrete facts and informational presentations. Adolescents tend to take risks even when they are well informed about the consequences, including those threatening their own lives.
Help adolescents to envision alternatives to recklessness and encourage perspective-taking. The very act of helping adolescents discuss and think about risk-taking by exercising more formalized reasoning will likely assist them in using more sound judgment. This is as true for adolescents who are “at-risk” as well as for those who are not. To adequately address the problems of “at-risk” adolescents, attention needs to focus on skills such as problem-solving or responsible decision-making. In our uncertain times, we need to help teens create adaptive decision-making, a critical thinking skill enabling them to calculate potential risks and consider all possible alternatives to risk-taking temptations.
Seek to discourage impulsive styles of thinking and reasoning. The central task here is to encourage reflective mental strategies. Reflective skills tend to promote more systematic and deliberate thinking and fewer episodes of hasty and impetuous behaviors. Reflective thinking encourages adolescents to move away from merely examining the perceived immediate gratification that a certain activity offers (e. g., drug experimentation, gambling, unprotected sex) and focus instead on all the consequences and risks involved.
Teach the teen to recognize the dangers posed by recklessness. Adolescents tend to underestimate the probability that their recklessness can lead to harm or injury. To upgrade more realistic appraisals of danger, adults might consider addressing the concepts of chance and probability so that adolescents can better understand the relative degree of risk posed by risky behaviors. Should the perceptions of risk for, let’s say, contracting a sexually transmitted infection be low or non-existent, attention might center on changing such appraisals. In so doing, adolescents might come to realize that recklessness makes them more susceptible to unhealthy consequences than once thought.
Encourage enrollment in school-based programming featuring risk-taking prevention. Many schools today offer such programming and provide valuable support and reassurance to teenagers. Some place an emphasis on various role-playing scenarios designed to erode impulsivity and upgrade vigilance, while others make use of role models trained to talk with teens about such topics as sexual risk-taking, drug experimentation, or delinquent behavior. Role models are especially helpful in setting examples while supplying valuable peer guidance and support.
Recognize that perceived invulnerability and risk-taking are likely only a part of an overall pattern of health-hazardous behaviors. Any efforts to change certain risk-taking behaviors among adolescents must consider how disregard for personal safety surfaces in other ways, such as with consuming alcohol, experimenting with illicit drugs, or engaging in delinquent behavior. Moreover, it needs to be acknowledged that the use of alcohol and/or other drugs usually alters perceptions of potential risks and impairs one’s ability to make rational judgments and decisions. To illustrate, large quantities of alcohol tend to diminish one’s ability to assess risk situations in addition to creating perceived immunity to harm. Researchers have also linked other drugs such as cocaine, methamphetamine and anabolic steroids to a wide variety of recklessness and risk-taking behaviors.
Before closing, it should be noted there is no single program component that by itself can reduce perceived invulnerability. As indicated, high-risk behaviors tend to be interrelated and multifaceted, and they are triggered by complex mental, social, and personality forces. As researchers grapple with these embedded dynamics, many topics beg further scientific inquiry. For example, we don’t fully understand the impact that age exerts on the risk behaviors of adolescents: Is the perceived invulnerability of younger adolescents different from that of older adolescents? What impact does the social media have on adolescent feelings of invincibility? Why is it that some adolescents take exaggerated risks while others take more calculated versions? What dynamics of invulnerability emerge among learning challenged teenagers?
Relatedly, we need a clearer understanding of how perceived invulnerability has the potential of transcending adolescence. While risk-taking behaviors are quite prevalent during adolescence, they do not restrict themselves to the teenage years. Health experts tell us that multitudes of grownups engage in a diversity of risk-taking behaviors, such as excessive tobacco use, habitual gambling, excessive exposure to the sun, driving at excessive speeds, or abusing prescribed medication.
The way perceived invulnerability reflects gender similarities or differences also warrants our attention. Should traditional gender-roles prevail, it is plausible that differences exist. By this, it is conceivable that many traditional males are socialized to ignore vulnerability to harm or to hide vulnerabilities that they do feel. They may be more likely than females to be encouraged by parents to “try it, it won’t hurt,” told by coaches to “stand up and take it like a man,” and chided by friends not to be a “sissy.” In this way, males’ perceptions of risk may be more determined by gender-role socialization than by egocentric factors. Their perceptions may reflect the need to present a masculine image and may be unrelated to how vulnerable a young male really feels.
All of this indicates that we need to more fully understand the many sides to perceived invulnerability. The relationship that exists between perceived invulnerability and reckless adolescent behavior clearly needs constant scrutiny. While separate bodies of research exist on these two topics, adults need to better understand how these two forces interact and create the potential for health-hazardous behaviors (including in their own lives). As we discover answers to such important issues, we will be in a better position to provide the most effective intervention for those who dare.
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