{"title":"Why youth are more purposeful than we think","authors":"Patrick L. Hill, Anthony L. Burrow","doi":"10.1111/cdep.12432","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>A core attribute of the positive youth development movement has been to nullify negative perceptions of youth’s capacities. Toward this end, measurement and classification systems benefit from efforts to view youth’s capacities as assets contextualized by developmental potentials and opportunities. In this article, we consider this point with respect to whether youth are purposeful. The prevailing sentiment of some researchers holds that few adolescents have a purpose in life, perhaps reifying negative beliefs about their capacity. We assert an alternative view that focuses on <i>sense of purpose</i>, which relies on abundant evidence that adolescents generally perceive themselves to be purposeful, thus offering a more inclusive and positive portrayal of young people. This different perspective also opens the door to new opportunities for studying the development of purpose among marginalized adolescents, as well as how interventions may motivate a sense of purpose among youth.</p>","PeriodicalId":150,"journal":{"name":"Child Development Perspectives","volume":"15 4","pages":"281-286"},"PeriodicalIF":5.1000,"publicationDate":"2021-10-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"10","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Child Development Perspectives","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cdep.12432","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, DEVELOPMENTAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 10
Abstract
A core attribute of the positive youth development movement has been to nullify negative perceptions of youth’s capacities. Toward this end, measurement and classification systems benefit from efforts to view youth’s capacities as assets contextualized by developmental potentials and opportunities. In this article, we consider this point with respect to whether youth are purposeful. The prevailing sentiment of some researchers holds that few adolescents have a purpose in life, perhaps reifying negative beliefs about their capacity. We assert an alternative view that focuses on sense of purpose, which relies on abundant evidence that adolescents generally perceive themselves to be purposeful, thus offering a more inclusive and positive portrayal of young people. This different perspective also opens the door to new opportunities for studying the development of purpose among marginalized adolescents, as well as how interventions may motivate a sense of purpose among youth.
期刊介绍:
Child Development Perspectives" mission is to provide accessible, synthetic reports that summarize emerging trends or conclusions within various domains of developmental research, and to encourage multidisciplinary and international dialogue on a variety of topics in the developmental sciences. Articles in the journal will include reviews, commentary, and groups of papers on a targeted issue. Manuscripts presenting new empirical data are not appropriate for this journal. Articles will be obtained through two sources: author-initiated submissions and invited articles or commentary. Potential contributors who have ideas about a set of three or four papers written from very different perspectives may contact the editor with their ideas for feedback.