What Causes Us to be Emotional? How Does it Change Depending on Age?

Alice Sterling Honig, professor emerita at Falk College, was interviewed by Spectrum News for a story about human behavior.

Within the first two weeks of August teens of Marcellus have had to grief over the passing of 16 year-old Matthew Norris and 14-year-old Gary Witkovsky. With such tragedies, enforcing proper ways for teens to cope has become imperative. Teens and adults deal with death in different ways due to the hyper-active, emotion controller, the amygdala in the brain. Adults tend to have more control over emotions than teens.

Honig, expert in children development says,  “Whereas an adult might be able to say, I miss my best friend horribly, I was my auntie lived longer, a teenage is going to feel those feelings– because the amygdala is very active– of fear and loss more strongly than adults feel it,”

“And they could do something with the grief that will make life better,” she finishes.