Why Can a Bad Idea Suddenly Feel Like a Good One?
How does yesterday's terrible idea suddenly become today's possibility? The idea may not have changed at all. The situation around the decision changed.
How does yesterday's terrible idea suddenly become today's possibility?
Yesterday, someone asks whether you would jump from a high ledge into water without knowing how deep it is or if there is the occasional boulder. Easy answer. No.
Today you are standing at the same ledge with four friends, somebody has already jumped, everyone is excited and one phone is recording. Strangely, yesterday's terrible idea has acquired a surprisingly effective promotional marketing department.
The ledge did not change. The water did not change. The situation around the decision changed.
During adolescence, our brain is becoming increasingly capable of making independent decisions but external influences matter more. Your brain is especially responsive to things that matter socially. Social signals include belonging, approval and what other people are doing.
Add the signal of anticipatory excitement or an immediate reward, and the same choice genuinely feels different.
That does not mean adolescents cannot make good decisions. You understand danger, think ahead and show considerable self-control.
The harder situation arrives when your brain has to weigh several powerful signals all at once: what you know, what you feel, what your friends are doing, what might happen later and what you could gain right now.
Your brain has not forgotten the consequence. The consequence just has considerably more new competition.
Go back to the ledge. Nothing about the actual jump changed from yesterday to today. Name three things around the decision that did. Name two bad outcomes and two unknowns.
Why does having other people around change the decision?
Peer influence is much bigger than somebody saying, “Come on. Do it.” A lot of the time, nobody has to say anything.
You notice what gets laughs, attention and approval. You see who is doing what and what the group seems to treat as normal.
Reading other people is an important human ability. It also means the people around us change how attractive a choice feels.
This work is happening in your brain, including in the area just behind your forehead called your prefrontal cortex. It works with other brain regions.
These systems help with planning, considering consequences, managing impulses and stopping long enough to reconsider an action.
These networks grow significantly during adolescence and continue growing and maturing into your twenties. They are not sitting around uselessly waiting for some magical twenty-fifth birthday.
They are always working, gaining experience and becoming more efficient at some very complicated jobs.
Consider the ledge again. Possible injury sits on one side. On the other side are excitement, belonging, approval and avoiding being the person who backs out while somebody records this important contribution to the historical record.
The possible injury matters. But most of those rewards on the other side are happening right now.
Remove the friends and the phone from the ledge. Does the decision feel different? Now ask yourself why. Why does it feel different?
What is actually influencing the choice right now?
No cliffs are required for this to happen. Someone sends an embarrassing screenshot of another student into a group chat. Forwarding it could earn almost instant attention and laughing reactions.
The hurt, damaged relationship or school consequences belong to a future that has not happened yet. An obviously poor idea starts looking different when an immediate reward gets attached to it.
Unsafe situations develop online, at home, at school and in the community. Sometimes the risk is physical. Sometimes it involves privacy, bullying, substances, unsafe driving, dangerous challenges, controlling behaviour or pressure from other people.
The situations look different, but the same skill keeps returning: notice what is influencing the decision before the situation carries you along with it.
Two questions are surprisingly useful:
Neither tells you what answer you must choose. They expose parts of the decision that excitement, embarrassment, anger or a group make easier to overlook.
Friends also shift things in the safer direction. One person says, “That looks sketchy,” refuses to forward the screenshot or walks away. Suddenly everyone else has different social information.
Apparently “everyone is doing it” has developed a small evidence problem.
Take the screenshot example. Before deciding whether to forward it, answer those two questions. What do they reveal about the decision?
How do you tell a worthwhile risk from an unnecessary one?
Risk itself is not the enemy.
Trying a difficult activity, meeting new people, performing in front of others, attempting something you might fail at or standing up for another person all involve uncertainty.
Your developing brain is supposed to explore, learn and become increasingly independent. The skill is becoming better at separating a worthwhile challenge from an unnecessary danger.
This is where social and emotional skills become genuine safety skills.
Self-awareness
Notice excitement, fear, anger, embarrassment or the desire to belong.
Social awareness
Notice the signals coming from the people and situation around you.
Self-management
Create some room between an impulse and what you actually do.
Relationship skills
Disagree, say no, leave, check on somebody else or get support.
Your brain is still developing while you are using it every day. There is no single perfect decision that somehow builds your adult brain. There are thousands of experiences and repetitions.
So when an idea moves from “Absolutely not” to “Well... maybe,” get interested in what changed.
Was it actually the idea? Or did friends, excitement, embarrassment, attention or an immediate reward arrive around it?
Your brain is still developing, but you are not simply waiting for that development to happen. You are living the experiences it is learning from.
Think of one worthwhile challenge and one unnecessary danger someone your age might face. What makes them different?