To suggest that this period of development is one of no brakes or steering wheel (Bell & McBride, 2010) is to greatly oversimplify it. In a series of recent experiments in our laboratory
(Somerville, Hare, & Casey, 2011), we measured selfcontrol using a variant of a go/no-go paradigm that contained social cues (positive, negative, or neutral facial expressions).
By using socially relevant and emotionally salient stimuli together with neutral stimuli, we could test how well adolescents regulated their impulses in both emotional and nonemotional
contexts (Hare et al., 2008; Somerville et al., 2011).