Investing in Adolescence: Positive emotions, prosocial learning, and the digital landscape for interventions with Dr. Ronald Dahl

this as a transition from childhood into adolescence. Part of what makes that formative is that there are changes, not only in the body and rapid physical growth and sexual maturation and these hormones that affect physical and physiological systems, but also because these changes, as puberty is just beginning, sensitizes certain kinds of learning, particularly social learning, affective learning, emotional learning in new ways, and there are new proclivities for exploring

relationships in new ways, not only the early kindling of romantic interests and crushes in new ways, but also creating intense friendships and learning about self and other trial and error, reinforcement learning models of experimenting with who you are. Adolescents want to fit in, and they want to stand out, and that's part of the challenge for this period.

recognized stress experts from UCSF, UCLA and Yale. I'm excited to share today's episode with you, featuring developmental scientist Dr. Ron Dahl. This episode nicely compliments our last episode with Dr. Megan Gunnar, focused on puberty.Our conversation today focused on early adolescence as a pivotaldevelopmental period with unique vulnerabilities and

opportunities for positive growth. Dr. Dahl emphasizes the importance of positive emotions and pro-social learning, needing to find authentic ways to feel like one's actions really matter beyond social media likes, as well as discussing integrative approaches to address inequities in adolescence through policy and economic interventions.

Today, we're joined by Dr. Ron Dahl, who is a pediatrician and developmental scientist, whose current research focuses on adolescents asa developmental period with unique opportunities for early intervention tosupport a lot of the behavioral and emotional health issues that we think about, especially for developing adolescents. He is the director of the Institute of Human Development at the University of California, Berkeley, where he also serves as a professor in the School of

Public Health and the joint Medical program. Dr. Dahl is also the founding director of the Center for the Developing adolescent. And we especially appreciate his focus on integrative developmental science and translating this area of research into clinical and social policy that can improve the lives of children and adolescents. Welcome, Dr. Dahl, we are so happy you could join us here on the Stress Puzzle.

of life, or they're talking about the teenage years. World Health Organization now is defining adolescences from 10 to 24 and those are very broad ranges of time and age and development and the kinds of opportunities and vulnerabilities for health impact and educational impact. And so, we're increasingly interested in the early phase of adolescence, and more specifically, we think about

this as a transition from childhood into adolescence. Part of what makes that formative is that there are changes, not only in the body and rapid physical growth and sexual maturation and these hormones that affect physical and physiological systems, but also because these changes, as puberty is just beginning, sensitizes certain kinds of learning, particularly social learning, affective learning, emotionallearning in

new ways. And there are new proclivities for exploring relationships in new ways, not only the early kindling of romantic interests and crushes in new ways, but also creating intense friendships and learning about self and other, not learning at the level of thinking about these things and remembering them, but trial and error reinforcement learning

models of experimenting with who you are. And one of my favorite frames in this space is that adolescents want to fit in and they want to stand out, and that's part of the challenge for this period. How do I find a way to fit in, gain value, gain admiration and respect among the people that my peers, that I care about, but also individuals want to stand out. They don't

just fit into the norms. And so, this is a dynamic period of trial and error, learning about self and other, and self other relationships, and having positive experiences in this window of early adolescence can be really formative. Now, from a public health perspective, from the World Health Organization or UNICEF, people are defining adolescents as 10 to 24, it starts early. It's not just teenage years, because puberty

has been happening at earlier ages. Some of these physical changes and social changes begin by 10 or 11 years of age in many young people. But when does adulthood begin? When does adolescence over? Increasingly, we understand that the early 20s is a transition to adulthood. But of course, the difference between 10 year olds and 24 year olds is so immense we can't generalize about adolescence. So, one developmental science

perspective is to think about windows within that frame. And one of the windows we find really interesting is this biological transition as puberty is starting. It's a biological transition from childhood into the beginning of adolescents. Another fascinating transition is the transition into adulthood. As adolescents are taking on fulladult roles, that's a social transition. There's less biological change. Each transition creates vulnerabilities and

opportunities. We think that the transition from childhood into adolescence is particularly rich for helping young people get on a positive trajectory, about self identity, about relationships with others, about learning how to care, finding ways to matter in pro-social ways. And there's a lot of opportunity to promote this healthy learning that could actually be contributing to early intervention and prevention for behavioral, emotional and social challenges.

opportunities. Are there any other pieces that you see as key for how you think about early adolescence or that transition from childhood to early adolescence as a window of both vulnerabilities and opportunities?

early adolescents is in relation to stress. Again, that's a framework that has its own complexities, but in many ways, what creates stress is threat and uncertainty, and this transition brings a lot of new levels of threat and uncertainty, of figuring out who won, figuring out a sense of self in more complex social situations, and rapid changes in across all these different systems, and so, that, I think increasingly, as we understand that this complex, multi level,

multi faceted, you know, set of transitions from physical changes, and social changes,and biological changes and affective

changes is that scaffolding those challenges. When I, when I say scaffolding, it's providing the support that's needed, whether that's parents, whether that's teachers, whether it's coaches, whether that's clinicians, creating support for positive learning can increase the positive trajectory opportunities and similarly, it is a time where the vulnerabilities emerge, and we've known that from you know, all of the work in developmental psychopathology and child mental

illness and psychiatry, that this is the new window of

vulnerability. But rather than just think of this as an onset of problems, we should be thinking about this as a pivotal time when some of these negative trajectories begin, and sleep problems and anxiety, social anxiety, and worries and rumination at bedtime, and uncertainties about how one you know is going to fit in or stand out, or how one is going to gain respect and a sense of belonging in this, these new social groups, or how to deal with a mean, bullying person in one's

life, these threats, these challenges, these new levels of complexity of uncertainty, are at the same time sources of stress that can contribute to negative spirals. But, there also learning experiences to learn how to master these challenges and that putting that together, it highlights the importance of creating supports for healthy, normative learning.

So, I think that's one powerful framework, and we often, you know, from a clinical perspective, we often think about mid to late adolescence as when these more serious problems are emerging, but the early aspects of those problems start to show up in this early adolescent period. It's not simply identifying them and treating them as problems

earlier. It's also the possibility of helping healthy learning to support healthy learning experiences that create a sense of mastery and resilience for dealing with these kinds of stress. You know, in some ways they're that's a

yin yang way of looking at the same thing. But I think increasingly, we're understanding there's also separateness positive emotion is not simply the lack of negative emotion creating positive learning experiences, particularly experiences that help young people feel like they matter and that their actions can make a difference and that they can have experiences of mattering and actions that impact others in pro social ways, not that they can say that

in sentences, the feeling that they've done something to help someone, they've contributed to their community. They've gained respect by authentically contributing to something of value to other people. Those are formative learning experiences, if young people don't have success in caring about and for others, contributing to their communities, to their families in these ways, there are anti social ways to feel like your

actions have impact. And so, it's not that it's just one or the other, but creating or making it more likely to have those pro-social versions of contributing, caring, gaining authentic feelings of respect and admiration, not by being the best athlete or being the best student or doing the most

successful social media campaign with the number of likes. Status competition is one way to feel like you matter, but there are enormous opportunities to get those desirable feelings that you matter just through caring and contribution, finding niches of ways to help others that there's no zero sum game. There's ample opportunities for young people to get those feelings in these very authentic, but still diverse range of ways to care, contribute and add value to other people's lives.

negative and static. And I think that kind of opening that language up to be more supportive of all of the ways that adolescents can go right and be supporting a really healthy, pro-social life down the line is a really powerful framework for us as a field, through public health, as clinicians. So, I really appreciate that you highlighted

that. And another piece that you've talked about, just sort of zooming out you mentioned it a little bit earlier today, is how wide of a time span adolescence is today, and how much it's really expanded in such a transformational manner for society today. So, if we could just take a step back. Love to hear you talk about how you think about that expansion in terms of what a longer adolescence it enables, and maybe also how it could tie to increased inequities?

happening all over the world over the past 1500 years. In fact, the first person to really call attention to this was Michael Rutter back in the 1980s looking at puberty coming earlier and raising questions about this with psychopathology. And I think that what we have learned over these past decades is that this expansion of adolescents creates

opportunities and vulnerabilities. And what I mean by that is if you think about the interval between having these physical and physiological changes and growth experiences and having to take on all of the roles and responsibilities of being an adult, if you have extra years to learn, to figure out who you are, to find out ways to stand out and fit in, to develop social skills, to develop skills and capacities to

contribute to society or to community. Develop a skill set, you know, learn languages arts, that can be an advantage you have a longer period of time to have specialized learning, breadth and depth of learning. But that is likely to be true for the most advantaged young people, young people who are growing up in wealthy countries, in wealthy communities, and in families and communities that have a lot of resources to

buffer them and let them make some mistakes and learn. If you think about this as a window of vulnerability, which is the way the science began of adolescence, is this time of all these vulnerabilities for emotional disorders, for a substance use, psychiatric problems, and you think about individuals who are exposed to exploitive or hardships or lack of opportunities for more years, then what you immediately think

about is, you have increased the exposure of vulnerability. And I think both things are true, and it's not that every individual fits into one category or the other, that they're in an opportune environment and they're protected, or that vulnerable kids can't find, even late in adolescence, you know, inspiring experience or individual in their life and

have an improved trajectory. Those are all true, but if you look from a population health perspective, it really suggests that this expansion of adolescents with earlier physical maturity and later full responsibilities and roles as adolescents is going to amplify inequities, so the individuals who have the fewest opportunities to develop positive skills, knowledge and capacities and more exposure to risk factors, substances or anti social ways to feel like their

actions matter, is going to increase the chance for negative spirals to the cascade and vice versa. With more years, even some adolescents who may start off with some problematic behaviors or difficulties, there's more time to recover and then find more positive trajectories. And so, I think this suggests that it goes back to an earlier point you made. If we just look at this within a single discipline, it's going to

look one way. But if one starts thinking about it, with across multiple disciplines, about population health, about economic factors, and economic is not simply having enough money, it's having enough opportunities, independence, freedom, the kinds of things that economic dependability creates a safety for where you know, living, day to day, week to week, with uncertainty about food, uncertainty about resources, uncertainty about housing, creates new

vulnerabilities. And so, I think if we really want to have impact not just on mental health or behavioral problems or emotional problems or substance use problems, but on thriving, that we really need to take more of this integrative approach looting interventions at the level of policy and and that

influence economic inequities. And so I think the bigger point here is one that's, I think, relevant in so many areas of science, integrative teams working across levels with aligned goals that the current core crisis in mental health and young people and adolescents and people talking about this all

over the world. If we're going to tackle these complex issues, we can't just do it within a single discipline, it's not just going to be better school based health clinics or more psychiatrists out in the field, or more access to medical services or public health programs or economic programs or

just cash transfers. It's really going to require teams thinking about how to address in a more multifaceted way, greater opportunities and greater support at the kinds of learning that can help young people take advantage of these opportunities.

collaborations with so many different people. You know, I recently had the privilege of speaking with Dr. Megan Gunnar about puberty as a sensitive period for recalibration of stress systems, and I was wondering if you could speak to how neuro behavioral change just through puberty may be sort of actively shaping our identities and priorities moving into

adulthood. So, I'm essentially wondering how you might be able to sort of complement our understanding of the stress physiology shifts by understanding the affective and motivational shifts that we see through early adolescence?

relation to stress. And I think the evidence for onset of puberty and this transition into adolescence in a cross species approach really supports this idea that there's some biological underpinning to recalibrating stress responses. And I would add that I think we also are understanding that it's much broader than simply how we physiologically respond to stress and how we recalibrate the downstream impact of this on cortisol, for example, I think those are signals that are

relevant. But, I think increasingly we're starting to learn that these social and affective learning systems are actually the upstream aspects of these very, very important windows of opportunity. And I say that because some of the, let me just slow down for a moment and unpack this a little

bit more. Early on in looking at the physiology, we tend to look very downstream from the changes that are going on in neural systems, not only in terms of hypothalamic pituitary axis systems, but upstream from that, and in fact, puberty itself is not primarily changes that occur downstream after all of these pubertal changes have reached the level of the gonads and testosterone and prolactin and estrogens, but rather puberty itself begins in the brain, the pulsatile release of the

gonadotropin releasing hormone, and changes in growth hormone begin during sleep before puberty even starts in the body and some of these hypothalamic systems that are involved in regulation of temperature and sleep and metabolic regulation and other physiological systems are also involved in learning systems, learning about salience systems, learning about social incentives that become more important as one moves into a new reproductive phase of development are actually

changing priorities in learning systems, and so we don't have to rely on these downstream effects on cortisol and the physiological response to a psychological stress, but I actually believe we're getting new insights from these reinforcement learning models that social learning shifts upstream from some of those physiological changes, we begin to be more sensitive to value social value feedback. That's not simply that we're more sensitive as we move into

adolescence, to social rejection. We've known that for a long time the physiological response to even a mild rejection becomes more intense as individuals, even of the same age, move into puberty, but so too does the thrill of social success being impressive, gaining social value becomes more exciting and thrilling. Now those create a lot of noise in the system, but they also are crucial feedback for finding

ways to gain social value through contribution. If it's more painful to be disrespected or lose social value and it's more thrilling to gain social value, that creates natural motivation to learn how to do things that are valuable to other people. Finding a niche of contribution, not just being the best hunter or the best gatherer or the best warrior, but rather finding creative ways to contribute to your group, has

probably been adapted throughout human history. So, to have adolescents naturally seek out experiences where they are giving invaluable ways to their group and gaining respect and admiration and belonging through contribution seems to be wired into these systems, not as shifting behavior, but shifting learning priorities. Now, this creates a lot of vulnerabilities for kids who are trying to maximize their likes on social media or posting pictures of themselves, they're getting

deluged with feedback that could be really distorting. On the other hand, the sensitivity to social value through pro-social opportunities, learning to be kind and caring and supportive of other people, gaining social. Value through those pathways could be enormously adaptive, and it doesn't require super status competition, where only the 3% of people that get the highest scores on standardized grades matter to the university

systems of highest prestige. But rather, there are infinite numbers of ways to add value to your community, to your family, to your friends that should be authentically valued create these feelings. So, I think that it's not only a chance to recalibrate stress responses, it's a chance to recalibrate our social motivations for what makes us feel like we matter and our actions matter in pro-social adaptive ways.

opportunities to feel disconnected and connected. That kind of mismatch of so many opportunities for connection, but not necessarily clear paths to become connected, is something I've been grappling with, you know, really strong youth social movements around the globe, but then how much are we seeing each other in person after school and things like

that? So, I wonder if you could speak to how you're thinking about mentioned sleep earlier as well, and so kind of the intersection of sleep and social learning and digital technology?

Hopefully. The first is that sleep is probably one of the areas where we have the most clear cut evidence of harm from social media, digital technology and light exposure in these times that as young people are moving into adolescence, and they have these biological changes in their sleep and circadian systems, they become much more vulnerable to having erratic schedules, staying up later, sleeping in later, having social jet lag between school schedules that erodes their

motivation, it makes them tired, it makes them more irritable, it undermines their cognitive control and emotion regulation. And we know, for example, that not only does technology amplify this vulnerability, including that getting light from screens into your eyes when that you biologically should be in the darkness, but also through the path of worry and rumination. Kids have super busy lives. Tendency to worry and ruminate

is very biologically based. We all do. We all, our minds split to, you know, cursing things that we did wrong and things that are coming up that we anticipate with dread and uncertainty. But when we're busy all day, that's an avoidance strategy. But when you go to bed at night, that's the most vulnerable time to, you know, it's like sticking your tongue into toothache to just repeat and and rehearse things that

have happened or things that you're worried about. And then even if they turn off their devices or, you know, shut off the social media, they can continue to be anxious and worried and ruminating, and that not only keeps them awake, but it also interferes with sleep. Sleep is turning off vigilance. You have to feel safe and relaxed to turn off your

vigilance for long periods of the time. And so, this is one of these negative cascades where anxious, vigilant kids that tend to be more anxious, they tend to worry more, they tend to ruminate more, who start having high vigilance and stress problems, their sleep starts to unravel, their social jet lag makes it worse that interferes with school and social

functioning. And you see how this is a cascade. Now, that's not to blame the technology, but it clearly shows how technology and light and these opportunities to continue social interaction, or have no FOMO about everyone else is communicating after you turn your phone off, it amplifies this vulnerability. And so, that's one practical aspect where the problem with technology is displacing sleep, and it's interfering with sleep, and it's amplifying these worry

rumination and distraction strategies. Now, I want to shift to another part of what you're talking about in terms of the complexity of social media and how fast it's changing, and how youth active networks are having an impact. And what's fascinating in this space, I think, is that young people are increasingly recognizing that they need to take control over their own social media, and that they may need help in doing that in certain ways, and that they see both positive and negative.

It increases their capacity to connect, to find people, to be able to control aspects of initiating, getting to know someone. And, I think they're recognizing that there's something missing by only interacting through technology. And this, I'm going to end with this, because I think it's so

complicated, but so important. What we need is interdisciplinary research, transdisciplinary research that can really inform how technology platforms and policies around technology and ways of creating support and scaffolding for good skills and knowledge of young people in dealing with technology can increase the likelihood of the positive

opportunities and decrease the vulnerability. This is such an important area of research you have people yelling and screaming at each other about them, with moral outrage about technology melting kids brains or or trying to pass regulation that has very little insight into how young people actually

use technology. And, I think increasingly young people are recognizing that they need help, but we need to have research, not only by interdisciplinary teams of scientists, but with youth activists helping to co-create the design of these studies and the implementation of the actionable insights from these studies is an incredibly exciting frontier, and it's urgent that we get better understanding in ways that can inform clinical and policy level issues.

know, this is Social Media. Is all bad, all good, but how can we best leverage these platforms that folks are going to be using to support mental health? So, I really appreciate what you're saying there.

issues. So, we developed a technology based intervention to help them with their sleep, and one of the key steps to that is to teach them savoring at bedtime. And savoring is the

mirror image of worry and rumination. You've got to identify positive events we activate the thoughts and feelings of those events and and so we are developing a single session approach to teach that can be technology supported and near peer taught as a way to take really important clinical insights into how to help sleep in young people, especially with anxiety and PTSD and trauma, but try to do a lot of it in a

single session and use technology. And it's again, it's not it's not like we're ready to show the absolute evidence that this is working, but it's a way to make a bridge between clinically informed approaches that we know can help them with a critical component of their health, which is getting better sleep and being able to fall asleep at night earlier when they want to by practicing these skills, and how sharing that and teaching others how to do that actually helps them learn it.

And so, using a single session approach has been and using technology that helps them learn how to do this and store images, and, you know, personalize it, is a great example of exactly what you described. And we did it mainly because in the environment we were working in, we were limited. On the other hand, it has broad application.

on savoring, as I hear so much, right? We think so much about the negative, trans- diagnostic mechanisms, and so just being able to think about something like savoring that could be more on the positive flip side of that to support mental health,

especially around sleep, is really exciting to see. And because we're kind of on this topic already, I'm just sort of wondering if there are any other either measurement issues or perspective issues that you see related to either stress or social experiences in adolescence that you see as sort of an oversight in how we as, whether it's a particular field or, you know, public health community, are kind of missing?

many different ways. And there's stronger and stronger science that even in situations like in a war setting, even in situations like refugee camps with adolescents struggling, finding ways to activate authentic positive feelings, not being Pollyanna ish, not pretending things are better than they are. That is not it. It is there are moments. It's a flower, it's a kindness. It's a noticing something. It's having somebody say something that makes you feel that up swell of

emotion that we all recognize that is connection. It's caring, recognizing the value of those moments physiologically, biologically in brain systems, I think is a really important aspect. Many people say that's not related to stress. It absolutely is related to stress, activating positive emotions, feeling loved, feeling connected, feeling like you belong, feeling like you matter, lowers your vigilance. It lowers the threat sensitivity for really good biological reasons.

And so, I think often as clinicians, we're so focused on the negative, we forget the value of activating the

positive. And then, the second thing is that as much as I am an advocate for and pouring a lot of my personal energy and research into these applied settings, and wanting to have scalable impact as a scientist, I also see the value of rigorously evaluating our models, our developmental models, and our models of affect and positive affect and negative affect, and that, to me, is just as exciting and so that the integration of really rigorous research in neuroscience and

developmental social neuroscience and developmental affective neuroscience really can inform these practical applications, including these one session interventions. And

so, I think that we do need to try things. We need to not just wait for every RCT to prove exactly what intervention or protocol needs to be done, we can take the stretch to trying these interventions, but as a scientist, I also want to bring that back, not only to what works and what and evaluate what kinds of interventions are actually having a positive effect, but how that feeds back to our models about developmental windows, about the kinds of learning, including

positive affective learning about self and other and about connection and caring, how understanding how that learning occurs scientifically with really rigorous studies will increase our ability to develop these kinds of interventions.

speaking there. So, it's just exciting to hear that that kind of focus is really coming up in our science. Thank you, Dr. Dahl, so much for joining us today. It's been wonderful to hear all about the impactful intervention work that you're doing, from a very integrative developmental science perspective, we are so grateful to learn from you today.