A 16-year-old’s brain is capable of making informed decisions

The Supreme Court’s recent decision on the voting age was momentous. It followed a long campaign by Make It 16 and other youth advocates to lower the voting age to 16, arguing the current law that confers the right to vote once people reach 18 is age-based discrimination.

This was swiftly followed by news the Labour Government would bring the issue to Parliament for consideration.

Unsurprisingly, this decision provoked widespread commentary both for and against lowering the voting age to include 16- and 17-year-olds.

It was quickly apparent one of the main arguments against the decision and any subsequent law change concerned the brain development of young people; specifically, whether the brains of 16-year-olds are developed enough to vote ‘‘wisely’’.

This argument comes from neuroscientific evidence that shows a fully adult brain has not developed until people are about 25.

Until then, the brain is still being shaped by biological, social and cultural processes that can impact the development of skills and behaviours such as critical thinking, self-regulation and decision-making.

However, it is unfair to characterise young people as incompetent until they are fully developed. Like all aspects of development, progress is cumulative, and the associated skills get better and stronger over time.

So, what can the brains of 16and 17-year-olds do? They can typically engage in cognitive processes like abstract and futureoriented thinking. They can make judgments about the values that matter most to them. They are capable of understanding issues from multiple perspectives and deciding for themselves which perspectives best align with their values.

In other words, they can exercise the kind of critical thinking we hope all adult voters do when casting their ballot. Their brains may not be fully developed, but they are generally sufficiently developed to be able to do these things and more.

Neuroscientific knowledge about brain development often underpins what youth development researchers call ‘‘futurity’’. Futurity portrays young people as citizens of the future, when they are fully developed adults and therefore capable of making valid contributions to society.

Phrases like ‘‘children are our future’’ and ‘‘young people are tomorrow’s leaders’’ acknowledge the potential of young people, but also position them in futuristic terms, so adults do not have to take their concerns and opinions seriously in the present.

This systematically excludes young people from social and political participation and fails to recognise what they are actually capable of now.

Futurity is just one example of why simple claims about developmental processes need to be put in a broader context. Brain development is important, but it is just one part of a much larger picture about how young people learn, grow and thrive.

We want young people to grow into engaged citizens who participate fully in civic and political life.

To strengthen their ability to make informed choices, we need to give them opportunities to do so and remove relevant structural barriers to participation. In doing so, we not only benefit from hearing their voices, but we collectively support their positive development.

In Aotearoa and internationally, young people repeatedly demonstrate their civic and political engagement. They lead protest movements, campaign for legislative change and speak eloquently on pressing issues like climate change and sexual violence.

In contrast to pervasive stereotypes about the apathy or immaturity of teenagers, many are active in their communities and have views they wish to contribute and have represented through our electoral processes.

It is not the case that a fully developed adult brain is required to make informed voting decisions. Otherwise, we would be advocating to lift the voting age to 25 – an idea that would be unacceptable to many people across Aotearoa.

It might be easy, as adults, to presume the worst of young people and repeat the tired stereotypes that exist in our social, cultural and media narratives about them. However, young people consistently prove these wrong, if only we would listen and take them seriously.

‘‘Simple claims about developmental processes need to be put in a broader context.’’ Hilary Dutton