The teenagers reality

Resident’s Name: Brian Schmid Date: 9/19/08
Article title: The teenagers reality
Author(s): David Elkind PhD
Journal: Pediatric Dentistry
Volume (number): Vol. 9 #4
Month, Year: December 1987
Major topic: Theory of the “imaginary audience”, the ‘personal fable’ and how this affects a teenagers reality and actions
Minor topic(s: Applying these theories to increase compliance and put teenagers more at ease
Type of Article: Professional opinion
Main Purpose To encourage practitioners to assume the outlook of a teenager in order to better understand the motivation for their actions and inactions

Overview of method of research: Anecdotal

Findings: Becoming a teenager is now being accepted as the “second age of reason” in growing to adulthood, attaining the ability to form conceptual ideas about space and time as well as assuming the outlook of others. Since a teenagers experience is so vivid and engrossing to them, they assume that everyone, their own personal “imaginary audience”, is just as caught up in their self-obsession as they are. This construct has both positive and negative consequences; the audience can be a conscience keeping them from performing ill deeds that no one else may see. The audience also serves as a motivator for personal success. However, the need for acceptance by the imaginary audience can make young teenagers more susceptible to peer pressure, leading them to make rash and often injurious decisions. Teenagers also begin to develop the ‘personal fable’, which convinces the individual that bad things may happen to other people but not them; this delusion worsens their resistance to peer pressure. This personal fable also helps us deal with daily life without constantly worrying about our plane crashing or being struck by a wicked huge meteor. The fable also convinces the teenager that their experience is unique and could not possibly be understood by anyone else, least of all their parents who couldn’t be more unlike them. One of the most important inferences taken from these theories is that it is not lack of education which leads to bad decision making by teenagers, but rather we must wonder why teenagers disregard the consequences.

Key points/Summary : By applying the theories of the imaginary audience and the personal fable, we as health care professionals can at least attempt to assume the outlook of a teenager and better understand their motivations and actions. It does not help to fully accept or deny their suppositions but to put them to the test and let the teenager set the limits of their own audience.

Assessment of article: A clever theory attempting to border the mind of a risk-taking, self-obsessed teenager. Thinking in this way could help us increase compliance, for example wearing retainers or ortho rubber bands.