Adolescence is a period of transition accompanied by physical, psychological,
and social transformations eliciting novel experiences of emotional arousal (Silk,
Steinberg & Sheffield Morris, 2003). It is a time when previously held roles and
boundaries are either modified or rejected and an increasingly complex set of new
roles is assumed (Danish, Fazio, Nellen & Owens, 2002). Adolescence is often a time
of confusion for young people in attempting to define these new roles and boundaries.
A vast array of psychological research has approached the transformations during this
time in an attempt to provide reasoning as to why adolescents behave the way they
do. Risk taking by youth has been of great interest to researchers with biological,
cognitive, emotional and psychosocial explanations for this behavior offered over the
years in an attempt to understand these adolescents more sufficiently. Unfortunately
for adolescents, this has occasionally led to reduced understanding and false