Puberty

[Coolydudey]

Puberty (when reproductive capacity is attained) is often treated as a transitionary period between childhood and adulthood, entailing many cognitive and behavioural changes. Sometimes it is even treated as something of a necessary evil.

However, let's look at puberty from an evolutionary standpoint, apart from the fact that animals also go through it (for those that believe in evolution): are cognitive and behavioural changes that take place during puberty in any way similar to a transition between a more animal-like state of mind and a more human-like state of mind? Clearly, puberty is a dividing line for human behaviour (you don't see 20-year olds playing tag-hide and seek-wrestling-etc.), but could we classify our pre-puberty behaviour as more like that of animals, and our post-puberty behaviour less so? (my answer is yes, although not absolutely). Does this relate to the way the brain has developed from more primitive ones, meaning that it has to go through a period of more animal-like behaviour before transitioning into more adult human-like behaviour? (as a note, the connections in our brain actually decrease from age 3-6 onwards...)

 

[own8ge]

idk your definition of animal-like and human-like, thus this is a rather impossible question to answer.

Puberty. A lot of things happen there, and a lot of people never reach puberty or never get out of it. Which is good or bad about it, I'm no man to argue.

 

[Solitaire U.]

Actually, I think you have it backwards. Sexual drive and all its associated...potential complications seems a lot more 'primitive/animalistic' than 9 year olds playing hide and seek.

I mean, how many pre-pubescent BTK Killers have you heard of?

(you don't see 20-year olds playing tag-hide and seek-wrestling-etc.)

Yes you do (WWF, NFL, etc. etc.). Adults just do it through a more organized, purposeful-appearing facade.

 

[The Gopher]

I was going to say it was probably backwards but I didn't want to get trapped by this thread.

 

[Cognisant]

Puberty is a challenge to be overcome and it is only incidental to this process of overcoming that the adolescent becomes an adult, by which I mean puberty makes life more difficult/complicated and the skills/patience/endurance one requires to overcome this increased difficulty/complication can be used elsewhere, so in that sense becoming an adult has very little to do with one's physical changes.

 

[Fghw]

Adult behavior comes from the societal expectations that come with this coming-of-age. I would gladly partake in a game of hide-and-seek if my mind werent so plagued with important business matters.