How Childhood Trauma Adversely Affects Decision-Making
"Punishment—or the threat of it—is generally considered an effective way
to shape human behavior; it is, after all, the foundation of our
criminal justice system. But what if there's a subset of the population
for whom this paradigm simply doesn't apply? New research suggests that there is such a group: survivors of childhood trauma.
University of Wisconsin–Madison psychology professor Seth Pollak worked
with over 50 people around the age of 20, and found that those who had
experienced extreme stress as kids were hampered in their ability to
make good decisions as adults. Simply put, childhood trauma—due to
circumstances like neglect or exposure to violence—created young adults
fundamentally unable to correctly consider risk and make healthy life
decisions—and no threat of punishment was likely to be effective in
changing this deficit. For cities where fears of juvenile violence
have transfixed residents and flummoxed city leaders, Pollak's results
suggest that demands for stiffer sentences on youthful offenders are
likely to be counterproductive."
View the Full Text Article
No comments:
Post a Comment