In a June 20th Chronicle of Higher Education article, Eric Hoover discusses the college admissions process in light of the fact that traditional age college applicants do not yet have fully matured pre-frontal cortex and do have highly active amygdala.
The amygdala is central to memory and processing emotional reactions; hence why emotional moments and subjects tend to be remembered more easily. It my also help explain why we have a hard time objectively considering ideas that elicit an emotional response from us or why adolescents are difficult to argue with. With a highly active amygdala, adolescents are likely to process information through their emotions, or at least attend to the emotional aspects of that information, more so than the details. Due to it's role in memory, it may make it harder for adults to transfer (encode) information that is processed as emotionally incongruous into Long Term Memory. There is also the fact that emotional responses tend to inhibit reasoning, planning, and logic, all functions of the pre-frontal cortex. In this way, the pre-frontal cortex provides mechanisms to manage emotions and impulses, although this a fairly large oversimplification.
The pre-frontal cortex is the "control and command" center of the brain, and without it at full capacity, traditional age college students experience greater difficulty with higher order functions, particularly those that require extensive and intensive concentration, metacogition, etc. when there is little emotional interest in the subject. This is where we gain our objectivity and a greater ability to process separately emotions and information.
Hoover talks about how the admissions process is overwhelming to many traditional age college students because of the higher order functions required of the many different forms, deadlines, essays, etc. in light of the emotions experienced in terms of "getting accepted" and "getting accepted to _________", etc. In essence he encourages adults and admissions counselors to help traditional age applicants chill out, reduce their emotional intensity, and develop scaffolding systems to help cope with the higher function demands, such as creating realistic plans to complete applications on time.
This is more important than that, though. The fact that traditional age college students are still developing their pre-frontal cortex has great implications for all areas of the college. Traditional aged students, in this context, have difficulty with complex systems, procedures, etc. Desk workers often seem to get confused about forms that make complete sense to us. The Resident Assistants can have greater difficulty enforcing policies that have emotional meaning to them, i.e. alcohol, drugs, visitation, etc. Faculty members may give assignments that involve content that is rather esoteric and emotionally irrelevant to students and feel disappointed at the lack of enthusiasm or effort given to the assignment. Students may not be self-aware enough or able to reason effectively enough amidst all the emotions to consider seeing a counselor or an adult for help.
In terms of behavior, student's risk taking and their desire for emotionally intense experiences often trumps their reasoning and impulse control. This impacts areas of Student Conduct, Residential Life, and faculty, who often deal with the indirect consequences of this area of student behavior. Increasingly, though, faculty are directly dealing with inappropriate student behavior in the classrooms. The science tells us our approaches should first engage the amygdala, and work with them on the emotional level. We should simultaneously provide mechanisms or experiences that support, but not exclusively rely on, the development and exercise of the pre-frontal cortex. We have become so accustomed to our own ability to reason and manage emotions, that we take it for granted. We frequently talk about students just not "getting it" referring to that cognitive gap that we sense when students reject or simply don't understand the salience of the reasoning behind our rules, expectations, decisions, etc.
Given the science, we may be the ones not getting it. If we take for granted that traditional age college students will relate to information and experiences in ways similar that we do, then that gap may be more about us not understanding them.
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