For the brain of a teenager, the promise of a reward is a much more effective incentive of the threat of punishment: it reveals a study published in PLOS Computational Biology, which also shows how teenagers are less able than adults to reflect on the consequences of alternative decisions to those who participated.

The test.
Stefano Palminteri, Italian neuroscientist now at the Ecole Normale Suprieure of Paris, conducted the experiments while he was at University College London.
He asked 18 volunteers aged 12 to 17 years and 20 persons between 18 and 32 years to choose from a series of abstract symbols, associated in turn with the certainty of a reward, a punishment or no consequence.
During the test, the subjects learned to associate the symbol to its effect, and could modulate the choices accordingly.
The neurological mechanisms of the adolescent brain
A different approach.
Adults and adolescents were equally good in choosing symbols associated with reward, but teens were less skillful in avoiding those related to punishment, or in storing information about what would happen if they chose otherwise.
Computational models have confirmed the behavioral data.
The study suggests that positive data from parents and teachers reinforcements might work better than threats of punishment and calls for learning from their mistakes.

From Focus