Positive Youth Development and Spirituality

From Theory to Research

Richard M. Lerner, Robert W. Roesner, Erin Phelps, Richard M. Lerner, Robert W. Roesner, Erin Phelps

• Publisher: Templeton Press
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781599472454
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Bringing together a never-before-assembled network of biologists, psychologists, and sociologists, Positive Youth Development and Spirituality scientifically examines how spirituality and its cultivation may affect the positive development of adolescents.

Chapters provide groundbreaking new discussions of conceptual, theoretical, definitional, and methodological issues that need to be addressed when exploring the relationships between spirituality and development. Throughout the book, contributors recommend ways in which the research on the spirituality/positive youth development connection may be integral in building the larger field of spiritual development as a legitimate and active domain of developmental science. This volume, which is sure to be seen as a seminal contribution to a field in need of theoretical underpinnings, will be of interest to scholars and scientists in the fields of biology and the social and behavioral sciences.

Contributors include: Mona Abo-Zena, Jeffrey Jensen Arnnett, Peter L. Benson, Marina Umaschi Bers, Aerika Brittian, William Damon, Angela M. DeSilva, Jacquelynne S. Eccles, David Henry Feldman, Simon Gächter, Elena L. Grigorenko, Sonia S. Isaac, Lene Arnett Jensen, Carl N. Johnson, Linda Juang, Pamela Ebstyne King, Richard M. Lerner, Jennifer Menon, Na'ilah Sued Nasir, Guerda Nicolas, Toma´š Paus, Stephen C. Peck, Erin Phelps, Alan P. Poey, Robert W. Roeser, W. George Scarlett, Lonnie R. Sherrod, Gabriel S. Spiewak, Chris Starmer, Moin Syed, Janice L. Templeton, Heather L. Urry, and Richard Wilkinson.

1

Positive Development, Spirituality,
and Generosity in Youth

An Introduction to the Issues

Richard M. Lerner, Robert W. Roeser, & Erin Phelps

The purpose of this book is to explore the study of spiritual development during the adolescent period (the second decade of life; Lerner and Steinberg 2004) and to ascertain the possible links among spirituality and the healthy, positive development of youth. Adolescence is a time of life when young people are prototypically engaged in finding a self-definition—an identity (e.g., Erikson 1959, 1968; Harter 2006)—that enables them to matter to self, family, and society, both in the teenage years and in their future adult life. The search for such an identity impels the young person to transcend a cognitive and emotional focus on the self (Elkind 1967) and to seek to contribute in important, valued, and even noble ways to his or her world. We believe that generosity that is derived from such transcendence and noble purpose is the essence of spirituality (see, too, Damon 2004; Damon, Menon, and Bronk 2003) and may provide a key foundation for positive youth development (Lerner 2008).

To frame our consideration of the links among positive development, spirituality, and generosity (or contribution) among youth, we use an approach to theory that, today, is at the cutting edge of developmental science, i.e., developmental systems theory (Damon and Lerner 2006; Lerner 2002, 2006). Developmental systems theory is an ideal model within which to explore the integration of self and context that we believe is involved in these links and, as well, to consider the potential impact on positive development and spirituality of the numerous biological, psychological, behavioral, and sociocultural changes converging within the adolescent period. In fact, in affording an integrative perspective to biological through sociocultural levels of organization, developmental systems theory allows science to consider within common research programs the emerging findings pertinent to neural, socioemotional, cultural, and historical influences on adaptive (healthy, positive) adolescent development that, today, are at the fore of the study of this pivotal period of life.

Accordingly, in this book we explore key conceptual and definitional issues useful in framing the understanding of the association between positive development in adolescents, spiritual development, and the attainment of a sense of self that moves the young person to make contributions to (or, in other words, be generous toward) self, family, community, and society. In addition, we discuss the biological covariates of these links among positive youth development (PYD), spirituality, and generosity and, as well, the individual-level, social-level, and cultural-level covariates of this linkage. All chapters in the book focus as well on the research that needs to be done to advance understanding of these linkages.

To prepare for these discussions, the present chapter presents a developmental systems model of the relations among the positive development of adolescents and the development of their spirituality and generosity. In the context of the model, we describe the extant, and admittedly limited, neuropsychological, behavioral, and social-relational data pertinent to the covariation among positive development, spirituality, and generosity. Because of the limits of existing data, we specify also some of the key features of to-be-conducted developmental research that is needed to elucidate these relations; for instance, we discuss the importance of longitudinal research with youth from diverse religious, racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and cultural backgrounds. The chapter ends with a brief overview of the plan of, and the chapters in, this book.

POSITIVE YOUTH DEVELOPMENT AND SPIRITUALITY:
A DEVELOPMENTAL SYSTEMS MODEL

How does human development, in general, and positive and healthy human development, in particular, happen? What are the processes that enable humans to adapt and thrive across their life spans? Are the bases of positive human development ones shared completely by other organisms, or are there features of development that are unique to humans? Are answers to these questions the same across the human life span, or are the explanations of positive development at least in part discontinuous across the course of ontogeny?

Answers to these questions address the foundations of developmental science. We believe that theoretically useful and empirically rich answers can best be derived from models derived from developmental systems theories of human development (Lerner 2002, 2006).

Within the frame of developmental systems theories, positive human development involves adaptive (i.e., health promoting) regulations (Brandtstädter 1998, 2006) involving individuals and the ecology of human development. Represented as individual ↔ context relations, these associations involve mutually influential exchanges between person and context that are beneficial to both entities. Humans’ evolutionary heritage established mutually supportive individual ↔ context relations as integral for human survival (Gould 1977; Johanson and Edey 1981), and this phylogeny is repeated in ontogeny, where individuals must support a context that supports them if humans are to survive and prosper across life (Lerner 2004).

Adaptive developmental regulations involve, for instance, changing the self to support the context and altering the context to support the self. Such efforts require the individual to remain committed to contributing to the context and to possess, or to strive to develop, the skills for making such contributions. In turn, there is a requirement that the institutions of society support people in their individual attempts to find the means across life to thrive. A commitment to maintaining the social institutions that, in turn, provide the person with the opportunity to flourish as a healthy individual is not only the operationalization of adaptive developmental regulation; as well, the continuity of such structural relations across life is the process of positive human development, of “thriving” (Lerner 2004).

Derived from the neotenous phylogenetic history of humans (Gould 1977), that is, the slowing down or “retardation” of the rate of development in comparison to ancestral species, adaptive developmental regulations provide an ontogenetic basis for postulating that, in life periods of marked individual and social change—for instance, in human adolescence (Lerner and Steinberg 2004)—the positive development of people involves convergences in neural, emotional, cognitive, behavioral, and social developments. In adolescence, for instance, when there is new brain growth, as well as qualitative and quantitative changes in individual characteristics (involving affective, cognitive, and behavioral attributes) and social relations (with family members, peers, and the institutions of society), the positively developing young person must use his or her emergent affective and cognitive attributes to integrate all the inner and outer changes being experienced through formulating a sense of self (an identity) that involves a rationale for engaging in mutually beneficial individual ↔ context relations. In order for such relations to function in a manner supporting the adaptation of individuals and context, an individual must define the self as a person who works to enhance entities (people, institutions, the ecology) beyond the self.

For instance, the young person may formulate the belief that one should contribute both to self and civil society, to have a generosity of spirit that integrates self-regarding virtues and other-regarding virtues. In other words, in youth who manifest exemplary, positive development, who are thriving, there should be an integration of moral and civic identity that promotes adolescents’ contributions to mutually beneficial relations between themselves and their social worlds.

Civic participation, civic engagement, and civic contribution (Lerner, Alberts, and Bobek 2007) are associated, then, with a young person developing along a life path marked by what are termed the “Five Cs” of positive youth development: character, competence, confidence, connection, and caring (or compassion). Such youth will pursue the noble purpose of becoming a productive adult member of their community (Damon, Menon, and Bronk 2003), a person showing generosity toward, or contributing positively to, self, others, and the institutions of civil society.

In other words, such youth will develop an integration of generosity to self and to others, or what researchers in the youth development field (e.g., Lerner 2004) would term the “Sixth C” of contribution—of making life better for the self, family, community, and, ultimately, civil society. For instance, a youth showing such generosity or contribution would manifest thriving by attending to both (a) his or her physical and psychological health (e.g., as in Scales et al. 2000), so that he or she would not be a burden on others and, as well, so that he or she could, in fact, have the energy to contribute; and (b) the “healthy” well-being of his or her community (e.g., as in Scales et al. 2000).

Indeed, a commitment to such contribution rests on defining behavior in support of mutually beneficial individual ↔ context exchanges as morally necessary. Individuals’ moral duty to contribute exists because, as citizens receiving benefits from a social system supporting their individual functioning, it is necessary to be engaged actively in maintaining and, ideally, enhancing that social system (Youniss, McLellan, and Yates 1999). This type of developmental regulation—between thriving individuals and their civil society—is the essence of a system marked by liberty (Lerner 2004).

In short, adaptive developmental regulation results in the emergence among young people of an orientation to transcend exclusive self-interest and place value on, and commitments to, actions supportive of a social system promoting equity, democracy, social justice, and personal freedoms. The integration of individual and ecological assets (Benson 2003)—for example, support for positive development from family members and community organizations (e.g., youth-serving programs, faith institutions)—that occurs through adaptive developmental regulation provides the developmental “nutrients” (resources) requisite for thriving. We hypothesize that spirituality is the emotional “fuel” energizing the thriving process.

Thriving and Spiritual Development

Arguably, spirituality and religiosity are the only mental and behavioral characteristics that are distinctly associated with humans (Kalton 2000; Lerner et al. 2004). Characteristics of psychological and behavioral functioning, such as emotions, language, caregiving, cognition, temperament, personality, and goal setting, can be found or operationalized in other species. However, such generalizability does not appear to exist for spirituality and religiosity; these attributes may be the key characteristics that make humans human.

Following Reich (1998) and reflecting one “of the core themes of the monotheistic traditions, and many Asian traditions as well” (Goodenough 2001, 21), we conceptualize spirituality as fundamentally involving the concept of transcendence. Reich notes that transcendence represents a commitment to ideas or institutions that go beyond the self in time and place. He believes that transcendence involves viewing life in new and better ways, adopting some conception as transcendent or of great value, and defining one’s self and one’s relation to others, to nature, and to the universe in a manner that goes beyond provincialism or materialism and expresses authentic concerns about the world.

Kalton (2000) terms such transcendence of self “horizontal transcendence,” and comments that it represents a “radically non-anthropomorphic spirituality” (193) and “a form of transcendence that is characteristic of degrees of abstraction rather than a movement towards some kind of Absolute metaphysical dimension. There is no cosmos posited apart from the historically ongoing one within which we find ourselves …” and “the movement of this kind of spiritual cultivation is horizontal, perfecting our relationship with the world of life about us” (195). Kalton contrasts horizontal transcendence with “vertical transcendence,” by which he means “a metaphysical structure grounding the contingent in the Absolute” (2000, 190), in the “infinite, eternal, personal creator by whose will we may live” (192). Goodenough (2001) indicates that both forms of transcendence are essential to the full religious life. Here, concepts of grace and of the Divine are integral. Similarly, Haight (1999) presents a theology of evolution that integrates both horizontal and vertical concepts of transcendence.

We agree that the subordination of self to institutions that are believed to have relations to the Divine through vertical transcendence is the essence of religiosity. Reich (1998), in fact, operationalizes this hierarchical instantiation of transcendence (Goodenough 2001; Haight 1999) as religiosity and notes that it involves a relationship with a particular institutionalized doctrine about a supernatural power. He indicates that this relationship occurs through affiliation with an organized faith and participation in its prescribed rituals.

There are as yet unaddressed empirical questions about the development of these dimensions of human life that are of paramount importance in providing new spiritual knowledge (Templeton 1995). In addition, while we believe that spirituality and religiosity—or, in the terms of Kalton (2000) and Goodenough (2001), horizontal and vertical transcendence—may be singularly human characteristics, the neural, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral characteristics that operationalize spirituality are, nevertheless, not fully present in the newborn (Lerner et al. 2004). These characteristics develop across the life span. Their development may be reflected in the changing neural (brain), cognitive, emotional, personality, behavioral, and social relationship characteristics of the developing person (e.g., d’Aquili and Newberg 1999). Even more so than infancy, adolescence is the ontogenetic period within the life span within which there is the most profound convergence of quantitative and qualitative changes in these dimensions. As such, it is the ideal portion of the life span within which to seek this new spiritual knowledge.

Moreover, consistent with developmental systems theory, (d’Aquili and Newberg 1999) explain that human adaptability and survival are linked to human religiosity and spirituality, in that these domains of functioning involve both self-maintenance and self-transcendence. In our terms, this dual focus means engagement in the mutually beneficial individual ↔ context relations that define adaptive developmental regulations. d’Aquili and Newberg (1998) hypothesize that, across human evolution, the neural mechanisms that underlie spirituality and religiosity “appear to have become thoroughly ingrained in the human gene pool” (187). Thus, key questions that remain to be addressed are how these two facets of human functioning, which together may mark what is uniquely human about humans, emerge and evolve over the course of adolescence and what may be their biological (genetic, hormonal, and neuronal) covariates.

Theoretical and Empirical Ideas about the Links between Positive Youth Development and Spiritual Development. Despite the need for new knowledge regarding the contributions of the developmental system to the growth in adolescence of adaptive individual ↔ context functioning and spirituality, existing data indicate that both spirituality and religiosity are theoretically and empirically identifiable as important influences on human development across much of the life span (e.g., Koenig and Lawson 2004) and are transformed in personal, cognitive, and adaptive salience across the course of life. There is considerable theoretical reason, but as yet only some indirect empirical evidence, to believe that this transformation is a key feature of the adolescent period (Dowling et al. 2003, 2004; Keating 2004; Lerner, Dowling, and Anderson 2003; Spear 2000).

In regard to theory, Erikson (1959) discussed the emotional “virtues” that were coupled with successful resolution of each of the eight psychosocial crises he included in his theory of ego development. He specified that fidelity, defined as unflagging commitment to abstract ideas (e.g., ideologies) beyond the self, was the virtue associated with adaptive resolution of the identity crisis of adolescence and thus with the attainment of a socially prescribed, positive role (cf. Youniss, McLellan, and Yates 1999). Commitment to a role was regarded by Erikson (1959) as a means for the behaviors of youth to serve the maintenance and perpetuation of society; fidelity to an ideology coupled with a role meant that the young person would gain emotional satisfaction—which, to Erikson (1959), meant enhanced self-esteem—through contributing to society by the enactment of role behaviors (Lerner 2002).

One need not focus only on crisis resolution to suggest that behaviors attained during adolescence in the service of identity development may be coupled with an ideological “virtue,” that is, with a sensibility about the meaningfulness of abstract ideas that transcend the self (Youniss, McLellan, and Yates 1999). From a perspective that focuses on adaptive developmental regulation within the developmental system, it is possible to suggest that spirituality is the transcendent virtue that is coupled with the behaviors (roles) reflecting an integrated moral and civic identity—or the character that is manifested by noble purpose and generosity (contribution) to self and context.

Contemporary researchers (e.g., Flanagan et al. 1998; Lerner, Alberts, and Bobek 2007; Sherrod, Flanagan, and Youniss 2002; Youniss, McLellan, and Yates 1999) show increasing interest in addressing the impact of community contributions and service activities on healthy i...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• 1. Positive Development, Spirituality, and Generosity in Youth: An Introduction to the Issues
• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• List of Contributors