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This qualitative descriptive study analyzed the role that natural mentors had in cultivating a sense of purpose and meaning among 38 diverse male and female high school students. The "types" of mentoring support provided and the students' perceived "experiences" of receiving the support were considered in the analysis. Directed content analysis revealed four initial overarching types of supportive actions that were provided by mentors: emotional, instrumental, informational, and appraisal support. The types of support offered were further categorized across three dimensions of perceived support by the mentees: (a) affirmation (e.g., the experience of emotional and appraisal support), (b) cultivation (e.g., the experience of being challenged and obtaining skills), and (c) guidance (e.g., the experience of receiving information and advice). In order for mentees to perceive and accept cultivation and guidance support, they first needed to experience an affirming relationship with their mentors. Findings may inform best practices for mentoring youth toward lives of meaning and purpose.

A growing number of studies have demonstrated that purpose in life is associated with positive outcomes among adolescents and young adults. The college years represent an important period of both personal and professional growth, including purpose in life. Supportive relationships may play a critical role in the identification and pursuit of purpose. Relationships with mentors, for example, have been linked with purpose among adolescents. The present study examined whether mentoring relationships were linked with purpose among college students (N = 194) from three institutions across the United States. Both aspects of quality (relational health) and quantity (i.e., number of mentors) were examined as predictors of purpose. Students who had at least one mentor reported higher levels of purpose compared to students with no mentors. Among students with at least one mentor, quality of mentoring was significantly associated with a greater commitment to purpose, while the number of mentors was not associated with commitment to purpose. Results are discussed in the context of practical applications regarding student success and purpose formation in higher education settings.

Public education in the United States is increasingly focused on ensuring that all students graduate from high school and matriculate to college. Unfortunately, students themselves have demonstrated widespread academic disengagement across the middle and high school years. This disengagement is associated with a host of negative academic outcomes, including the failure to leverage their educations toward long-term goals. This article presents a youth purpose program called MPOWER designed to increase student engagement, intrinsic motivation, and ultimately college matriculation rates at an urban high school in the greater Boston area. Research and theory that inform MPOWER, as well as insights from the first author's experience as an urban educator implementing purpose curriculum, are discussed. The article highlights ways in which youth purpose interventions, such as MPOWER, are especially relevant for underserved and marginalized student populations.

Scholars have differentiated other-oriented (OO) purpose (i.e., a personally meaningful life aim intended to contribute to the world beyond the self) and self-oriented (SO) purpose (i.e., a personally meaningful life aim without intention to contribute beyond the self). OO purpose is associated with adolescent thriving, yet little is known about how to cultivate it. In a study of 207 adolescent girls, we examined how positive parent--adolescent relationships may contribute to developing OO versus SO purpose; we also tested whether the association between parent--adolescent relationships and OO purpose was mediated by prosocial behavior.

The present study explored the influence of psychological stress on the development of purpose among youth of color living in urban, low-income communities. A qualitative approach based on grounded theory was used to understand how stress-related experiences influence the development of youth purpose in participants' own words. Findings revealed that participants faced substantial psychological stress in their lives resulting from financial, family, academic, vocational, peer, neighborhood, relocation, and immigration-related stressors. Moreover, stress appeared to act as a barrier to purpose development in two common ways: (a) through youths' perceptions of "impossibility" of realizing their goals for the future and (b) through youths' experiences of regularly being "overwhelmed" to the point where purpose engagement was not a priority. However, stress could also serve as a "motivator" to purpose development for youth through (a) "pressure" from important others who held high expectations and (b) strong desires to escape from contextual stressors, such as violence or financial strain. Four patterns emerged from the data indicating that social support could serve to mitigate stress, propelling youth to develop a sense of purpose.

Purpose in life is linked with numerous positive outcomes among adolescents and emerging adults. Peer relationships may play an important role in the cultivation of purpose, especially among first-generation college (FGC) students. The present study examined the association between the quality of peer relationships and commitment to purpose among students from three universities (N = 195). Analyses also examined whether FGC student status moderated this association. The results indicated that the quality of peer relationships significantly predicted commitment to purpose. FGC status moderated this association; high-quality relationships with peers helped close the gap in purpose commitment between FGC students and their counterparts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public education in the United States is increasingly focused on ensuring that all students graduate from high school and matriculate to college. This article presents a youth purpose program called MPOWER designed to increase student engagement, intrinsic motivation, and ultimately college matriculation rates at an urban high school in the greater Boston area. The article highlights ways in which youth purpose interventions, such as MPOWER, are especially relevant for underserved and marginalized student populations. [Extracted from the article]

The authors analyzed 300 stories about adolescents’ friendship challenges in order to explore the roles of digital technologies in contemporary friendship conflicts. An initial round of analysis facilitated the identification and subsequent classification of stories by five commonly described challenges: betrayal, isolation, meanness and harassment, concern about a Friend, and Maintenance Challenges. Drawing on previously identified features of exchanges in and through digital contexts, including scalability, persistence, replicability, and anonymity, the role of technology was then explored in the context of the five friendship challenges. Scalability, leveraging the affordance of efficiently reaching a broad audience, was the most common way technology amplified friendship challenges. However, technology also often functioned solely as the medium for communication. Additionally, adolescents described difficulties related to sexting as a contemporary friendship challenge. Implications for supporting youth in their friendships are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is considerable interest in ways to support adolescents in their digital lives, particularly related to the relational challenges they face. While researchers have explored coping with cyberbullying, the scope of relevant digital issues is considerably broader. Through the lens of online peer responses to personal accounts posted by adolescents, this study explores recommended strategies for coping with different experiences of socio-digital stress, including both hostility-oriented issues and digital challenges related to navigating close relationships. A content analysis of 628 comments posted in response to 180 stories of digital stress reveals five common recommendations: Get Help from others, Communicate Directly, Cut Ties with the person involved, Ignore the situation, and Utilize Digital Solutions. The most common recommendation for hostility-oriented issues is to Get Help, while Cut Ties is most common for issues that arise in close relationships. Variations in the pattern of recommendations proposed for different digital issues and for each type of recommendation are described. The findings point to both practical implications for supporting digital youth and next steps for research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This commentary contextualizes potential mental health outcomes for children during and after the COVID-19 pandemic within the risk and resilience literature. Individual, familial, and community-level factors that may increase risk for mental health challenges for children as well as factors associated with positive adaptation in the face of adversity are considered. We highlight the value of considering children's resilience within a systemic perspective by considering family-centered approaches including both short-term and long-term evidence-informed mental health practices. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).