Is Jumping off the Roof 'Always' a Bad Idea? A Rejoinder on Risk Taking and the Adolescent Brain

Three respondents provide cogent commentary on the author's first article, "Does the Adolescent Brain Make Risk Taking Inevitable? A Skeptical Appraisal." Two respondent papers argue that the author mischaracterized valid and useful developmental and biological arguments affirming adolescents' singular risk propensities; the third response raises innovative biological perspectives suggesting unique adolescent brain abilities that strongly challenge current developmental discourse. In his rejoinder to the three respondents, the author presents new statistical and biological data to argue that current adolescent-risk theories will not survive rigorous, age-comparative socioeconomic analyses, objective inventories of cognitive capacities across the life span, and long overdue concession that grown-up outcomes show "risk taking" is not just (or even mainly) an adolescent event. (Contains 3 tables, 1 figure and 1 note.)