Former Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) postdoctoral fellow Ivy Defoe and APPC research director Dan Romer have published a letter in Nature called, “Why scientists should study ‘teensplaining.’”
Romer and Defoe, who is on the Social and Behavioural Sciences faculty at the University of Amsterdam, wrote that there’s a history in literature and science of adolescents being stereotyped “as being impulsive and emotional.”
They added: “One aspect of their unique communication style has attracted attention in popular culture: ‘teensplaining’. Similar to mansplaining, when a man condescendingly explains things to a woman regardless of her expertise, it involves youths assuming they know more than adults do (often, parents and teachers) and teensplaining things in a disrespectful tone.”
Although the term comes across as dismissive, Defoe and Romer argue, teensplaining “reflects potential adaptive roles as teenagers mature.”
“We wish to encourage multidisciplinary teams … to study teensplaining and what it can teach us about the learning, thoughts, emotions, motivations, identity and language development of adolescents as they transition into adulthood.”
Romer and Defoe previously collaborated on other research into adolescents, including an article reviewing research on whether adolescents have a natural tendency to engage in more risk-taking than children.
The Nature correspondence piece, published Feb. 17, 2026, is available here. DOI: 10.1038/d41586-026-00496-x
