Helping Adolescents Thrive
Adolescence is often viewed negatively — as a difficult time of transition that exposes youth to a range of risk factors. Indeed, research has demonstrated that children are at increased risk for drug and alcohol use, sexual risk behavior, and physical fights as they transition into adolescence (Brooks, Harris, Thrall, Woods, et al. 2002). However, while adolescents face increased risk factors, most do not succumb to them.
Benson, P., & Scales, P. (2009). The definition and preliminary measurement of thriving in adolescence. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 4(1), 85-104.
Benson, P. L., Scales, P. C., Hamilton, S. H., & Sesma, A. Jr. (2006). Positive youth development: Theory, research, and applications. In W. Damon, & R. M. Lerner (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology, Vol. 1 (6th ed., pp. 894-941). New York: Wiley.
Boykin, A. W., Jagers, R. J., Ellison, C. M., & Albury, A. (1997). Communalism: Conceptualization and measurement of an Afrocultural social orientation. Journal of Black Studies, 27(3), 409-418.
Brook, J. S., & Pahl, K. (2005). The protective role of ethnic and racial identity and aspects of an Africentric orientation against drug use among African American young adults. The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 166(3), 329-345.
Damon, W. (2004). What is positive youth development? The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 591(1), 13.
Dowling, E. M., Gestsdottir, S., Anderson, P. M., von Eye, A., Almerigi, J., & Lerner, R. M. (2004). Structural relations among spirituality, religiosity, and thriving in adolescence. Applied Developmental Science, 8(1), 7-16.
Furrow, J., King, P., & White, K. (2004). Religion and positive youth development: Identity, meaning, and prosocial concerns. Applied Developmental Science, 8(1), 17-26.
Jagers, R., Sydnor, K., Mouttapa, M., & Flay, B. (2007). Protective factors associated with preadolescent violence: Preliminary work on a cultural model. American Journal of Community Psychology, 40(1), 138-145.
Gooden, A. S. (2013). Individual and community factors associated with thriving among African American adolescents in the context of stressors. College of Science and Health Theses and Dissertations, Paper 59. http://via.library.depaul.edu/csh_etd/59
King, P., & Boyatzis, C. (2004). Exploring adolescent spiritual and religious development: Current and future theoretical and empirical perspectives. Applied Developmental Science, 8(1), 2-6.
King, P., & Furrow, J. (2008). Religion as a resource for positive youth development: Religion, social capital and moral outcomes. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality (1), 34-49.
Lerner, R., Dowling, E., & Anderson, P. (2003). Positive youth development: Thriving as the basis of personhood and civil society. Applied Developmental Science, 7(3), 172-180.
Scales, P. C., Benson, P. L., Leffert, N., & Blyth, D. A. (2000). Contribution of developmental assets to the prediction of thriving among adolescents. Applied Developmental Science, 4(1), 27-46.
Scales, P. C., Benson, P. L., & Mannes, M. (2006). The contribution to adolescent well-being made by nonfamily adults: An examination of developmental assets as contexts and processes. Journal of Community Psychology, 34(4), 401-413.
Smith, C. (2003). Theorizing religious effects among American adolescents. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 42(1), 17-30.
Theokas, C., Almerigi, J. B., Lerner, R. M., Dowling, E. M., Benson, P. L., Scales, P. C., et al. (2005). Conceptualizing and modeling individual and ecological asset components of thriving in early adolescence. The Journal of Early Adolescence, 25(1), 113.
Woods, L., & Jagers, R. (2003). Are Cultural Values Predictors of Moral Reasoning in African American Adolescents? Journal of Black Psychology, 29(1), 102-118.