From this perspective, middle adolescence (roughly 14 to 17) should be a period of especially heightened vulnerability to risky behavior, because sensation-seeking is high and self-regulation is still immature. And in fact, many risk behaviors follow this pattern, including unprotected sex, criminal behavior, attempted suicide, and reckless driving (Steinberg, 2008). How do we explain risky behavior that follows a different developmental trajectory? I would argue that the reason that certain other risky behaviors, such as binge drinking, peak a little later in development is because there are more constraints on opportunities to engage on them during middle adolescence (e.g., the prohibition of alcohol sales to individuals under 21 in the United States), and not because the underlying psychological processes are different.
