Adult–Adolescent Interaction and Adolescents’ Brain Development: Integrating Pragmatism/Interactionism and Neuroscience to Develop a Platform for Research on Adolescents’ Life Regulation

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to outline a platform for research on adolescents’ life regulation. Adolescents’ brain development is described with the help of neuroscience and integrated with pragmatist and symbolic interactionist insights about how adolescents can learn to control their impulses and act thoughtfully. The foundation for the analysis is found in American pragmatism, where a biopsychosocial perspective is built on the understanding that the developed human brain is the essential precondition of a complex and civilized society. Today's interactionists, and in general, the majority of sociologists, show little interest in brain development and function. However, there is an opportunity for sociologists and neuroscientists to collaborate in order to better understand how the brain develops in relation to biological development and social experience.

Empowering Marginalized People by Maximizing Reflective Intelligence: A Pragmatist Problem Solving Approach

“…This is a promising integration of pragmatist philosophy, neuroscience and social science. These scholars who believe that neuroscience has revitalized pragmatism integrate the old with the new and provide a conceptual framework that can be used in intervention research within social sciences [39,[49][50]. Although in this study we limited our conceptual framework to pragmatism in other places we have paid a contribution to this emerging perspective called neuropragmatism [39,[49][50].…”

“…Rahyab is a Persian term translated as "finding one's way," and was chosen as a fitting label for the development of a specific psychological tool to intervene on and bolster reflective intelligence. This tool has been in use in social work in Iran and Sweden since 1997 and is target of several action research projects in these two countries [32,33,38,[39][40][41][42][43]. In 2000, the tool was presented to non-governmental organizations and social work departments at two universities in Iran.…”

Empowering Single Mothers in Iran: Applying a Problem-Solving Model in Learning Groups to Develop Participants' Capacity to Improve Their Lives

“…A person-in-environment formula (Moula, 2009;Moula et al, 2009) that outlines the psychosocial approach to goal-directed behaviour is presented to explicitly demonstrate the conceptual basis behind the problem-solving model of Rahyab (Fig. 1).…”