Stages of development

Human growth seems to be describable in a number of ways. I'm particularly interested in that pattern that describes the relative dominance of each of two functional parts of the brain: the emotional self and the intellectual one. I'm sure that each is intuitively obvious. They do not develop in step with each other, however. This is largely due to the fact that the actual physical development of the brain, especially the myelination of the connecting neurons, doesn't get completed until the early 20s, although the emotional capacity of the brain is largely complete at birth.

Small children, up to the age of 4 or 5 (and ages are very generally given) have little capacity to subordinate their feelings to their intellect. They may even be able to understand in a particular instance why they should do so. But if their feelings are even a little stronger, they dominate the child's behavior easily. In the second stage, from about 5 or 6 until puberty, they are more easily able to control their emotions with their intellect. During this (very pleasant!) age, you readily get a look at the person they will become as an adult.

When puberty strikes, the emotions greatly increase in intensity fairly quickly, but the brain continues its slow and steady development. As a result, the emotional self easily dominates the behavior and choices of the person, even though (at least at times) they are able to recognize how irrational and inappropriate their own behavior is. They are simply unable to muster the power to override their impulses. The teenager feels greatly conflicted by his/her own inability to make their behavior match their newly chosen values and beliefs. They are difficult to tolerate, even to each other.

When the person reaches the early twenties, assuming they haven't been done in by a parent, their growing intellectual power to suppress or inhibit emotionally-dominated behavior makes them more consistent and reasonable. The balance between emotional self and intellectual self remains precariously stable for many years, becoming more and more dominated by inhibitory power and intellect as the emotions (especially sexual) become weaker with age.

Since our emotional drives tend to diminish as we get older, we are more and more able to make our behavior fit our values consistently, and so our values become stronger and more reinforced by our actual choices. There is no age at which the emotions are totally dominated by intellect, of course, otherwise even us old people couldn't make impulsive and irrational choices. Such choices are clearly less frequent, however. At least I hope so.