Neurologizing the Adolescent: An Exploration of Facticity Within the Scientific Study of Adolescence

Abstract

Neuroscience has become, more and more, a tool used to explain and define human behaviour. This neurologizing of behaviour not only occurs in scientific studies, but also in criminal law where brain scans are used to determine culpability. One specific group of people that has been subject to this neurologization is adolescents. Recent scientific research has studied brain development in order to explain adolescent behaviour. In addition, neurological development has been used to explain the differing treatment of adolescents versus adults in the criminal justice system. To explore this neurologization of adolescence, this thesis focuses on one research paper produced from a team of prominent researchers in the field of adolescent psychology. This exploration adopts a relational view of science from Actor Network Theory. The goal of the analysis is to explore the facticity of statements produced in science through the neurologization of adolescence. It is important to consider the scientific process of fact production in order to understand the way in which these neuroscience explanations and definitions of behaviour hold together so strongly. I explore how the neurologization of adolescence from one research paper builds and maintains connections through multiple movements, producing a neurologized adolescent entity that forms part of reality. Through each movement, the neurologized adolescent grows longer and stronger in its connections to social, material, and cultural actors, thus ensuring that it holds together as fact.