Jonathan Cloud, Independent Consultant, presenting at the Local Public Safety Coordinating Council of Multnomah County's What Works Conference, "Juvenile Justice Grounded in Youth Development." Portland, Oregon, Dec. 9, 2011. http://web.multco.us/lpscc

1. Good Maladjustment:
Interpreting Misbehavior in
Light of Brain Development
What Works Conference:
Juvenile Justice Grounded
in Youth Development
Portland, Oregon
December 9, 2011
Jonathan I. Cloud
Independent Consultant

2. What Charles Darwin Really Thought
Evolution arrives at a creature [us] built not just to
adapt to what is, or to what presently exists. There
has been given to us the capacity to venture toward
what can be, or [adapt to] possibilities for the future.
Looking to future generations, there is no cause to
fear that our social instincts will grow weaker, and we
may expect that virtuous habits will grow stronger,
the struggle between our higher and our lower
impulses will be less severe, and virtue will be
triumphant.
J. Cloud/2011 2

3. We Are Beginning to See It
A few researchers began to view recent brain and
genetic findings in a brighter, more flattering light, one
distinctly colored by evolutionary theory. The resulting
account of the adolescent brain – call it the adaptive-
adolescent story – casts the teen less as a rough draft
than as an exquisitely sensitive, highly adaptable
creature wired almost perfectly for the job of moving
from the safety of home into the complicated world
outside.
“Beautiful Brains”
David Dobbs
National Geographic Magazine, October 2011
J. Cloud/2011 3

4. Hardwired Tendencies Associated with Reaching
Higher Levels of Development
• Idealistic image of self.
• Novelty, excitement-
seeking.
• Risk-taking.
• Peer affiliation.
J. Cloud/2011 4

5. Hierarchy of Processes that Shape a
Youth’s Pattern of Behavior
Willing
Thinking
Feeling
Sensing
J. Cloud/2011 5

6. Brain’s Hierarchical
WILLING Organization THINKING
Prefrontal Lobes “The Four-Part Brain” New Mammalian
(“Heart” “Mindfulness”): or Neocortex
higher thought, intention, (“Human Brain”):
reflection; spiritual right brain creativity,
intelligence or SQ left brain logic;
intellectual
intelligence
or IQ
FEELING
SENSING Old Mammalian or
R-System or Core Brain: Limbic System:
instinctive action, emotions, interaction,
movement, impulses; relating; emotional
bodily intelligence or BQ intelligence or EQ
J. Cloud/2011 6

7. Hierarchy of Developmental Tasks a Youth’s
Behaviors Strive to Address
What kind of person
Hope can/will I become?
(Willing)
What kinds of things can I
Engagement do well; can I achieve?
(Thinking)
Wellbeing What kind of person am I?
(Sensing and Feeling)
J. Cloud/2011 7

8. Developmental Potential:
The Inner Forces for Each Developmental Task
(Kazimierz Dabrowski; Theory of Positive Disintegration)
Developmental
Potential creates crises
characterized by strong Aspirations
inner disturbances that
produce discontent
with “what is” and a Talents
quest to realize “what
ought to be;” a
realization of the Intensities
“possibility of the
J. Cloud/2011
higher.” 8

9. Elements of Developmental Potential
1. Sensing and Feeling DP Element: intense responses to
stimuli; increased neuronal sensitivities; powerful,
sometimes overwhelming perceptions of one’s
circumstances/life.
2. Thinking DP Element: special abilities and interests,
gifts, and talents (involves youth’s dominant
intelligences: emotional, logical, spatial, kinesthetic,
musical, intuitive, aesthetic, social, spiritual and as
many as 17 more).
3. Willing DP Element: autonomy, intention, purposeful-
ness, aspiration, self-determination.
J. Cloud/2011 9

10. Developmental Potential Responds
to Models, Not Prohibitions
Intelligence can unfold within us only when
an actual model of that intelligence is given
to us . . . the characteristics of each new
possibility must be demonstrated for us by
someone, some thing, or an event in our
immediate environment.
Source: Evolution’s End: Claiming the Potential of Our Intelligence, Joseph Chilton
Pearce,
J. Cloud/2011 10

11. Positive Maladjustment
The individual with a rich
developmental potential rebels
against the common determining
factors in his external
environment. He rebels against
all that which is imposed on him
against his will, against the
typical influences of his
environment, against the
necessity of subordination to the
laws of biology.
Dabrowski, 1970
J. Cloud/2011 11

12. Interactions Influence Brain’s Architecture: How Neural Systems
Integrate and How Positive Maladjustment is Experienced
Pre-Logical Operational Logic Vision-Logic
Age Age Age Age Age Age
1 4 7 11 15 21
Instincts
Lower
R-System (sensing: bodily
states/intelligence)
Limbic System (feeling/emotional
states/intelligence)
Right Hemisphere (thinking: creative mental
states/intelligence)
Left Hemisphere (thinking: logical mental
states/intelligence)
Cerebellum (coordinates brain systems; coordinates
attention; integrates brain systems)?
Prefrontal Lobes: Stage II (spiritual
states/ intelligence)
Instincts
Higher
Prefrontal Lobes: Stage I (unfolding of one’s gifts, talents, genius; learning and growth)
J. Cloud/2011 12
The Biology of Transcendence: A Blueprint of the Human Spirit, Joseph Pearce, 2002, modified

13. Late Teen Years: High Aspirations
(Activation of Prefrontal Lobes for Higher Levels of Development)
• When the prefrontal lobes complete their growth and begins
their full function, a new form of reality and a larger world
unfold to us and distinctly new behaviors and abilities fill our
repertoire.
• Evolution’s latest neural addition [of prefrontal lobes] seems to
lie largely dormant within us despite the fact that it seems it
should offer a discontinuously new potential, a new reality – a
whole new mind.
• If a child’s environment does not furnish the appropriate
stimuli needed to activate prefrontal neurons, the prefrontals
can’t develop as designed.
The Biology of Transcendence: A Blueprint of the Human Spirit, Joseph Chilton Pearce
J. Cloud/2011 13

14. Levels Development
Dabrowski’s Theory of Positive Disintegration
Positive
Self-Directed Adjustment
Disintegration
Spontaneous
Disintegration
Positive
Maladjustment
Negative
Adjustment
J. Cloud/2011 14

15. Hardwired Tendencies Associated with Reaching
Higher Levels of Development
• Idealistic image of self.
• Novelty, excitement-
seeking.
• Risk-taking.
• Peer affiliation.
J. Cloud/2011 15

16. High Developmental Potential
(Intense, Talented, and Grand Expressions of the Tendencies)
Risk-Taking
& Peer
Affiliation
Novelty
and
Excitement
Idealistic
Image of Self
J. Cloud/2011 16

17. Misinterpretation of Positive Maladjustment
and the Cycle of Juvenile Justice
There is a cyclical pattern in juvenile
justice policies in which the same
sequence policies has been repeated
three times in the last two hundred
years. Present juvenile justice policies
can be explained by this cycle and future
changes in these policies predicted by it.
Thomas J. Bernard
The Cycle of Juvenile Justice
1992
J. Cloud/2011 17

18. The Cycle of Juvenile Justice
Juvenile crime thought
to be unusually high.
Many harsh
punishments and few
lenient treatments.
Juvenile crime thought
to be high due to Harsh punishments and
lenient treatments. doing nothing both
Expand harsh thought to increase
treatments. juvenile crime.
Major reforms
introduce lenient
treatments; middle
ground between
punishing and nothing.
J. Cloud/2011 18

19. Poor Assumptions and Low Values Influence
the Interpretative Frameworks Used
Programs
and Practices
Research and
Policies
Theories
Assumptions
and Values
J. Cloud/2011 19

20. Also Influence the Enculturation Process
(Frustrates Undertaking the Three Developmental Tasks)
Rituals and
Behavior
Systems and
Institutions
Beliefs, Attitudes,
Conventions
Assumptions and
Values
(Helen Spencer-Oatey, Ph.D., adapted from Hofstede, 1991 and Trompenaars &Hampden-Turner, 1997) 20
J. Cloud/2011

21. A Harsh Cultural Climate
(Positive Maladjustment More Intense and Prolonged)
These cultural techniques [of control] involve
carefully masked threats that prey upon the
child’s rapidly learned fear of pain, harm, or
deprivation, and more primal anxiety over
separation or alienation from parent,
caregiver, and society. “Do this or you will
suffer the consequences.” . . . Such directives
activate [lower] instincts of defense . . .
Joseph Pearce
The Biology of Transcendence, 2004
J. Cloud/2011 21

22. Maslow’s Hypothesis Concerning Youth
Misbehavior
• Youth possess intrinsic higher motivations and
values, noble aspirations.
• Much of their bad behavior is due to frustration of
the “idealism” so often found in young people.
• Such behavior can be a fusion of continued search
for something to believe in, combined with anger at
being disappointed.
J. Cloud/2011 22

23. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Self-Actualization
Self-Worth/Esteem
Love/Belonging
Safety
Physiological
J. Cloud/2011 23

24. Delinquency as Unfulfilled Self-Actualization
(Source: “Possible Selves and Delinquency,” Oyserman and Markus, Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 1999)
Hoped For Selves
ideal images or aspects
of personality one
desires to master
in the future
Feared Selves Expected Selves
defective images or images or aspects of
aspects of personality personality seen as
feared as likely in most likely in
near future near future
J. Cloud/2011 24

25. Brain’s Prefrontal Lobes and Possible Selves
(What They Can Become – Not Just What They Did)
• Images of one’s self in future states are essential
elements in the motivational, goal-setting process.
• An image of one’s self in a feared or undesired state
can produce inaction or a stopping in one’s tracks (cf.
Atkinson, 1958).
• A feared possible self will be most effective as a
motivational resource when it is balanced with a
self-relevant positive, expected possible self that
provides the outlines of what one might do to avoid
the feared state.
Source: “Possible Selves and Delinquency,” Oyserman and Markus, Journal of Personality and
J. Cloud/2011 Social Psychology, 1999 25

26. Account For All Four Theaters of the Brain
Sensing
Feeling
Perception Thinking
Attention
Willing
Conscious- Brain Func-
ness tion Identity
Cognition Behavior
(Source: John J. Ratey, M.D., A User’s Guide To The Brain:
Perception, Attention, and the Four Theaters of the Brain, 2002)
J. Cloud/2011 26

27. SPARKS
Accounts for All Four Theaters of the Brain
A young person’s passionate interests – those things
that give meaning, focus, energy, and joy.
The power of sparks comes when:
You know your spark or sparks.
Your spark is important to you.
You take initiative to develop your spark.
J. Cloud/2011 27
Teen Voice 2010, Best Buy Children’s Foundation and Search Institute

28. SPARKS
Which is Why Developing Them Fosters Positive
Outcomes in Other Areas of Life
Percentage of Youth Having Outcomes, By Levels of Sparks Index
Performance Areas High Low
Goals to master what they study at school. 69% 41%
Very often work up to their ability at school. 45% 30%
Have a GPA of 3.5 (B+) or higher. 70% 51%
A sense of purpose and hope for their future. 48% 17%
Believe it is important to help others. 57% 36%
Believe it is important to engage in community. 42% 32%
J. Cloud/2011 28
Teen Voice 2010, Best Buy Children’s Foundation and Search Institute