Measuring Youth Perceptions of Being Known and Loved and Positive Youth Development: Cross-National Findings from Rwanda and El Salvador.

Background: Dynamic, relational developmental systems-based models of development emphasize that developmentally-nurturant youth-adult relationships elicit in youth perceptions of being known and loved. Although such perceptions are foundations of positive youth development (PYD), such measures do not exist. Objective: We sought to create a theoretically-predicated measure of youth perceptions of being known and loved by capitalizing on data sets in two countries (Rwanda and El Salvador) wherein a multi-national study of PYD was being conducted by Compassion International (CI). Method: With Rwanda data (n = 1,204, M age = 11.84, 50% CI-supported), exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses enabled refining the measure for robustness and parsimony. Measures of intentional self-regulation, hopeful future expectations, transcendence, and contribution were used for validation of the known and loved measure within the nomological net of constructs proposed in the Lerner and Lerner PYD model. Confirmatory factor analyses supported the use of the model within the El Salvador data set (n = 1,205, M age = 13.03, 51% CI-supported). Results: Robust psychometric properties were established in both national settings. Measurement invariance was found across age, gender, urban-rural location, CI-enrollment status, and nations, and involved both mean differences and correlations among latent factors. Conclusions: The results provide evidence for a theory-predicated measure of youth perceptions of being known and loved and that scores for this construct covary within a nomological net specified in the Lerner and Lerner model of PYD. These findings serve international development organizations seeking theory-predicated measures for use in evaluating PYD programs in low- and middle-income countries. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10566-022-09725-6.

Does Prior Night's Sleep Impact Next Day's Executive Functioning? It Depends on an Individual's Average Sleep Quality.

Executive functioning (EF) is a series of fundamental goal-directed cognitive abilities that enable effective learning. Differences in daily sleep quality may covary with fluctuations in EF among youth. Most studies linking sleep to EF rely on between-person differences and average effects for the sample. This study employed an intensive longitudinal design and examined the within-person relations between self-reported prior night's sleep quality and next day's EF. Students from Grades 4 to 12 (M age= 14.60, SD = 2.53) completed three behavioral EF tasks repeatedly across approximately one semester. The final analytic sample included 2898 observations embedded in 73 participants. Although, on average, sleep did not significantly covary with EF, there was heterogeneity in within-person sleep-EF relations. Moreover, individuals' average sleep quality moderated within-person effects. For individuals with low mean sleep quality, a better-than-usual sleep quality was linked to better EF performance. However, for individuals with high mean sleep quality, better-than-usual sleep quality was linked to worse EF performance. Understanding person-specific relations between sleep and EF can help educators optimize EF and learning on a daily basis and produce positive academic outcomes across longer time periods.

Positive Youth Development in 2020: Theory, Research, Programs, and the Promotion of Social Justice.

We use Hamilton's (1999) tripartite conception of the positive youth development (PYD) literature - that is, PYD as a theoretical construct, PYD as a frame for program design, and PYD as an instance of specific youth development programs - as a framework for reviewing scholarship involved in the PYD field across the second decade of the 21st century. Advances were made in all three domains and, as well, new issues emerged; chief among them was a focus on the promotion of social justice. We discuss ways in which social justice issues are being addressed within each of these domains and we present a vision for enhancing the PYD-social justice relation in future scholarship involving theory, research, program design, and community-based PYD programs.

Intraindividual Fluctuations in Sleep Predict Subsequent Goal Setting in Adolescents.

The purpose of this study was to investigate within- and between-person associations between sleep and subsequent goal setting in adolescents. We conducted an intensive repeated measures longitudinal study to assess intra- and inter-individual associations between sleep and goal setting and potential moderators of such associations. Thirty-nine seventh through 12th graders reported on their sleep quality and propensity to set goals in their daily lives several times per week for approximately four months. We used a combination of multilevel modeling with time-varying covariates and centering techniques to partition within- and between-person variance. We found significant and positive associations between sleep and goal setting within individuals, but no such associations between individuals. That is, students were more likely to set goals for their work after getting a good night's sleep relative to their own average sleep quality, but getting good sleep on average relative to other individuals showed no association with average goal setting. These relationships were not moderated by participant age, gender, or sociodemographic status as indexed by maternal education. Differences in average sleep between adolescents matters less for their propensity to set goals than whether they experienced better- or worse-than-usual sleep the previous night given their own average. This finding represents the first evidence documenting effects of sleep on goal setting, which is an important psychological precursor to many youth behavioral and achievement outcomes. Our findings highlight the individuality of sleep needs and point to new directions for sleep-related practice and policy aimed at youth.

Tough Teams and Optimistic Individuals: The Intersecting Roles of Group and Individual Attributes in Helping to Predict Physical Performance.

This study tested the effects of individual and group-level characteristics on performance during a mandatory and challenging physical education course at the United States Military Academy (USMA). We focused on attributes related to mental toughness, and examined both self-report and utilized an other-rating scale that measures mental toughness-related characteristics and is important to USMA generally. We examined course scores for 5,581 first-year students over five academic years, accounted for background physical fitness, and determined how mental toughness attributes at the group and individual-level contributed to overall course score and scores on constituent events (e.g. obstacle course, rope climbing). Self-reported optimism, self-reported resilience, and mental toughness items from a peer rating scale, but not self-reported grit, significantly improved course performance. The average score across class section on optimism or the peer rating scale also positively covaried with course score, over and above the individual-level impact of that attribute. Analyses of individual events demonstrated that "group-level character" was important for some events, whereas individual attributes were most important for others. Findings suggested an emergent group character capable of influencing individual physical performance scores. Being a member of a tough group may have comparable effects to individual mental toughness.

Exploring Idiographic Approaches to Children's Executive Function Performance: An Intensive Longitudinal Study.

Traditional variable-centered research on executive functions (EFs) often infers intraindividual development using group-based averages. Such a method masks meaningful individuality and involves the fallacy of equating group-level data with person-specific changes. We used an intensive longitudinal design to study idiographic executive function fluctuation among ten boys from Grade 4. Each of the participants completed between 33 and 43 measurement occasions (M = 38.8) across approximately three months. Data were collected remotely using a computerized short version of the Dimensional Change Card Sort task. Multi-group analyses of three participant pairs (Participants 5 and 3, 5 and 2, and 5 and 6) demonstrated that Participant 5 differed from Participants 3 and 2 in different ways but Participants 5 and 6 were similar in all comparisons. Dynamic structural equation modeling demonstrated unique individual trajectories, which were not represented by the trajectory of group-averages. Although more than half of the participants showed a negative association between EFs and inattention, two participants showed a positive association between EF and inattention. This study demonstrated meaningful person-specific trajectories of EFs, suggesting that future study should undertake the analysis of individual development before data-aggregation or generalization from aggregate statistics to individuals.

School engagement and intentional self-regulation: A reciprocal relation in adolescence.

Students' gradual disconnection from school in adolescence, as reflected in decreased school engagement, has been demonstrated in several cultures and is of great concern to educators. At the same time, intentional self-regulation (ISR) has been shown to be a precursor, mediator, and outcome of school engagement. However, the relation between school engagement and ISR during adolescence is poorly understood. In this research, we explored the reciprocal relation between school engagement and ISR during adolescence. Based on a sample of 561 adolescents in Iceland (46% girls; Mage at Wave 1 = 14.3 years; SD = 0.3) and four waves of data collected during Grades 9 and 10, the results demonstrated a reciprocal relation between school engagement and ISR after controlling for several covariates (e.g., gender and academic achievement). The results suggest that school engagement and ISR are highly related, yet distinct concepts, which mutually reinforce each other during adolescence.

Adolescent Athletic Participation Patterns and Self-Perceived Competence: Associations With Later Participation, Depressive Symptoms, and Health.

Physical activity is important for well-being across the life span. However, links between patterns of adolescent activity, competence perceptions, and young adult outcomes are underexplored. We used data from seven waves of the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development (N = 5,961) to assess patterns of adolescent athletic participation, whether these patterns were associated with self-perceived athletic competence and young adult physical activity, depressive symptoms, and health, and associations between changes in participation across adolescence and young adult outcomes. Competence perceptions were associated with increased participation, and more active adolescents had higher rates of adult athletic activity, with links to better health and fewer depressive symptoms. We discuss results in light of the importance of using person-centered analyses to understand active lifestyles.

Is the Scoutreach Initiative of Boy Scouts of America Linked to Character Development among Socioeconomically, Racially, and Ethnically Diverse Youth?: Initial Explorations.

Youth development programs represent key tools in the work of youth-serving practitioners and researchers who strive to promote character development and other attributes of youth thriving, particularly among youth who may confront structural and social challenges related to their racial, ethnic, and/or economic backgrounds. This article conducts secondary analyses of two previously reported studies of a relatively recent innovation in Boy Scouts of America (BSA) developed for youth from low-income communities, Scoutreach. Our goal is to provide descriptive and admittedly preliminary exploratory information about whether these data sets-one involving a sample of 266 youth of color from socioeconomically impoverished communities in Philadelphia (M age = 10.54 years, SD = 1.58 years) and the other involving a pilot investigation of 32 youth of color from similar socioeconomic backgrounds in Boston (M age = 9.97 years, SD = 2.46 years)-provide evidence for a link between program participation and a key indicator of positive development; that is, character development. Across the two data sets, quantitative and qualitative evidence suggested the presence of character development among Scoutreach participants. Limitations of both studies are discussed and implications for future longitudinal research are presented. We suggest that future longitudinal research should test the hypothesis that emotional engagement is key to creating the conditions wherein Scoutreach participation is linked to character development.

Commentary: Studying and Testing the Positive Youth Development Model: A Tale of Two Approaches.

Interest in promoting positive development among children and adolescents has always been a focus of developmental science. Historically, many researchers framed this interest using a deficit model that sought to optimize positive development by reducing problems. In the context of the articles in this special section, the author discuss a different conception of positive youth development that has emerged across the past 25 years, one that capitalizes on human plasticity and tests a strength-based model (instead of a deficit one). This model seeks to identify the process that could enhance the attributes of young people that are valued by them and others (e.g., parents, peers, teachers, mentors, coaches, and faith leaders), as compared to processes that reduce or prevent undesirable characteristics.

Theoretical and Empirical Bases of Character Development in Adolescence: A View of the Issues.

Traditional models of character development have conceptualized character as a set of psychological attributes that motivate or enable individuals to function as competent moral agents. In this special section, we present seven articles, including two commentaries, that seek to make innovative conceptual and methodological contributions to traditional understandings in the extant scholarship of character and character development in youth. In the introduction to this special section, we provide overviews of these contributions, and discuss the implications of these articles both to the current scholarship and to applications aimed at promoting character and positive youth development.

Modeling Pathways of Character Development across the First Three Decades of Life: An Application of Integrative Data Analysis Techniques to Understanding the Development of Hopeful Future Expectations.

There were two purposes of the present research: first, to add to scholarship about a key character virtue, hopeful future expectations; and second, to demonstrate a recent innovation in longitudinal methodology that may be especially useful in enhancing the understanding of the developmental course of hopeful future expectations and other character virtues that have been the focus of recent scholarship in youth development. Burgeoning interest in character development has led to a proliferation of short-term, longitudinal studies on character. These data sets are sometimes limited in their ability to model character development trajectories due to low power or relatively brief time spans assessed. However, the integrative data analysis approach allows researchers to pool raw data across studies in order to fit one model to an aggregated data set. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the promises and challenges of this new tool for modeling character development. We used data from four studies evaluating youth character strengths in different settings to fit latent growth curve models of hopeful future expectations from participants aged 7 through 26 years. We describe the analytic strategy for pooling the data and modeling the growth curves. Implications for future research are discussed in regard to the advantages of integrative data analysis. Finally, we discuss issues researchers should consider when applying these techniques in their own work.

Commentary: Theoretical and Methodological Dimensions of Convergence and Divergence of Adolescent and Parent Reports about Youth Development and Family Structure and Function-A Relational Developmental Systems Perspective.

Using ideas associated with relational developmental systems metatheory, we discuss the links among the operation triad model of adolescent report-parent report convergence, divergence, or compensation and the research reported in this special issue. These contributions highlight the important implications for adolescent adjustment of youth and parent reports about adolescent development and family structure and function. Relational developmental systems metatheory raises both theoretical and methodological issues for research framed by the operation triad model. These issues emphasize the specificity (non-ergodicity) of mutually influential relationships between a youth and his/her parent, that is, the specificity of the adolescent-parent relationship. Relational developmental systems -based ideas may enable the operation triad model to be a means through which the study of adolescent self-reports and parent reports will have a more central place in the construction of key features of the dynamics of adolescent-parent relationships.

Character Development within Youth Development Programs: Exploring Multiple Dimensions of Activity Involvement.

We examined links among three dimensions of youth involvement (intensity, duration, and engagement) in Boy Scouts of America (BSA), an international out-of-school time (OST) youth development program designed to promote moral and performance character in boys. Using data from 737 youth and their parents who participated in one of 40 BSA program sites (commonly referred to as "packs"), we first considered how individual- and pack-level measures of program involvement were differentially linked with character development. Next, we examined whether pack-level involvement characteristics moderate individual-level involvement characteristics, hypothesizing that highly involved packs would serve to further enhance the positive effects of high levels of individual involvement. Results indicated engagement was the strongest, most frequent predictor of increases in both moral and performance character. Although there were no direct effects of pack-level intensity, duration, or engagement, the effects of individual-level engagement were moderated by pack-level engagement, suggesting that the largest increases in moral and performance character occurred among highly engaged youth who were enrolled in highly engaged packs. These results highlight the need to examine multiple dimensions of OST program involvement simultaneously, and suggest that strengthening youth engagement in programming may provide a means for enhancing the positive effects of high-quality youth programming.

Developmental Trajectories of Youth Character: A Five-Wave Longitudinal Study of Cub Scouts and Non-Scout Boys.

Youth development programs, such as the Boy Scouts of America, aim to develop positive attributes in youth (e.g., character virtues, prosocial behaviors, and positive civic actions), which are necessary for individuals and societies to flourish. However, few developmental studies have focused on how specific positive attributes develop through participation in programs such as the Boy Scouts of America. As part of the Character and Merit Project, this article examined the developmental trajectories of character and other positive attributes, which are of focal concern of the Boy Scouts of America and the developmental literature. Data were collected from 1398 Scouts (M = 8.59 years, SD = 1.29 years, Range 6.17-11.92 years) and 325 non-Scout boys (M = 9.06 years, SD = 1.43 years, Range 6.20-11.81 years) over five waves of testing across a two-and-half-year period. Latent growth-curve analyses of self-report survey data examined the developmental trajectories of the attributes. Older youth rated themselves lower than younger participants on helpfulness, reverence, thriftiness, and school performance. However, all youth had moderately high self-ratings on all the attributes. Across waves, Scouts' self-ratings increased significantly for cheerfulness, helpfulness, kindness, obedience, trustworthiness, and hopeful future expectations. Non-Scout boys' self-ratings showed no significant change for any attributes except for a significant decrease in religious reverence among non-Scout boys from religious institutions. We discuss implications for positive youth development and for the role of the Boy Scouts of America programming in character development.

Promoting positive human development and social justice: Integrating theory, research and application in contemporary developmental science.

The bold claim that developmental science can contribute to both enhancing positive development among diverse individuals across the life span and promoting social justice in their communities, nations and regions is supported by decades of theoretical, methodological and research contributions. To explain the basis of this claim, I describe the relational developmental systems (RDS) metamodel that frames contemporary developmental science, and I present an example of a programme of research within the adolescent portion of the life span that is associated with this metamodel and is pertinent to promoting positive human development. I then discuss methodological issues associated with using RDS-based models as frames for research and application. Finally, I explain how the theoretical and methodological ideas associated with RDS thinking may provide the scholarly tools needed by developmental scientists seeking to contribute to human thriving and to advance social justice in the Global South.

Using relational developmental systems theory to link program goals, activities, and outcomes: the sample case of the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development.

In contemporary developmental science, relational development systems models have been used to frame the positive youth development (PYD) perspective, which posits that youth will thrive when there is alignment between their strengths and ecological resources in their context. Evidence from the 4-H Study of PYD indicates that out-of-school-time youth development programs are key ecological resources enhancing youth thriving. This chapter discusses the particular facets of youth development programs (the "Big Three"-positive and sustained adult-youth relationships, skill-building activities, and youth leadership opportunities) involved in promoting youth thriving. The importance of using theory to design and implement programs is also discussed, and challenges of reaching the diversity of American youth with effective programs are noted.

Special issue introduction: Thriving across the adolescent years: a view of the issues.

Framed within a relational developmental systems model, the 4-H Study of positive youth development (PYD) explored the bases and implications of thriving across much of the second decade of life. This special issue pertains to information derived from the recently completed eight waves of the 4-H Study of PYD, and presents findings about the relations between individual and contextual variables that are involved in the thriving process. This introduction briefly reviews the historical background and the theoretical frame for the 4-H Study and describes its general methodology. We provide an overview of the articles in this special issue and discuss the ways in which the articles elucidate different facets of the thriving process. In addition, we discuss the implications of this research for future scholarship and for applications aimed at improving the life chances of diverse adolescents.

Illuminating trajectories of adolescent thriving and contribution through the words of youth: qualitative findings from the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development.

Theory and research in adolescent development have emphasized that contributing to self, others, and community is important to the success of society and predictive of positive youth and later adult development. Despite this emphasis, there is a lack of qualitative and youth-centered research exploring whether adolescents themselves value contribution as part of their daily lives or future goals. Understandings of contribution are, thus, limited in their generalizability. To lessen this gap, we implemented qualitative analyses of open-ended responses from youth in the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development. We addressed questions about what is meaningful to youth and about their future goals through descriptive and thematic analyses of responses from 56 youth (66% female) who participated in the 4-H Study in each of three grades (6, 9, and 12). Findings indicated that most youth in this study valued acts and/or ideologies of contribution at some point in their adolescence, and several were committed to facets of contribution across grades. The analyses also identified other aspects of these youth experiences (e.g., athletics, family relationships, and academic competencies) that were described as meaningful across adolescence. Findings are discussed in relationship to youth programming aimed at encouraging well-being and contribution in adolescence.

Longitudinal analysis of a very short measure of positive youth development.

As developmental scientists cease to perceive adolescence as a period of inevitable turmoil and adopt the Positive Youth Development (PYD) perspective, psychometrically sound measurement tools will be needed to assess adolescents' positive attributes. In this article we examine the longitudinal stability of the very short version of the PYD scale developed as part of the 4-H Study of PYD. Using a sample of 7,071 adolescents (60% female) followed between Grades 5 and 12, our results suggest general stability of PYD across adolescence, both in terms of mean levels and rank-order stability. We also show that both a global measure of PYD and the individual Five Cs of PYD consistently correlate with important criterion measures (i.e., contribution, depressive symptoms, and problem behaviors) in expected ways. Although our results suggest weak relationships among our three criteria, we especially note that across adolescence PYD becomes more strongly correlated with contribution but less strongly correlated with depressive symptoms, and that confidence becomes more strongly related to depressive symptoms. We discuss implications for use of the present PYD measure in youth development programs.