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EMPIRICAL RESEARCH
Adolescent Thriving: The Role of Sparks, Relationships,
and Empowerment
Peter C. Scales •Peter L. Benson •
Eugene C. Roehlkepartain
Received: 15 July 2010 / Accepted: 21 July 2010 / Published online: 3 August 2010
Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010
Abstract Although most social science research on ado-
lescence emphasizes risks and challenges, an emergent field
of study focuses on adolescent thriving. The current study
extends this line of inquiry by examining the additive power
of identifying and nurturing young people’s ‘‘sparks,’’
giving them ‘‘voice,’’ and providing the relationships and
opportunities that reinforce and nourish thriving. A national
sample of 1,817 adolescents, all age 15 (49% female),
and including 56% white, 17% Hispanic/Latino, and 17%
African-American adolescents, completed an online survey
that investigated their deep passions or interests (their
‘‘sparks’’), the opportunities and relationships they have to
support pursuing those sparks, and how empowered they
feel to make civic contributions (their ‘‘voice’’). Results
consistently supported the hypothesis that linking one’s
spark with a sense of voice and supportive opportunities and
relationships strengthens concurrent outcomes, particularly
those reflecting prosociality, during a key developmental
transition period. The three developmental strengths also
predicted most outcomes to a greater degree than did
demographics. However, less than 10 percent of 15-year-
olds reported experiencing high levels of all three strengths.
The results demonstrate the value of focusing on thriving in
adolescence, both to reframe our understanding of this age
group and to highlight the urgency of providing adolescents
the opportunities and relationships they need to thrive.
Keywords Positive youth development Adolescents
Well-being Thriving Support Sparks
Until quite recently, social science research on adolescence
largely has emphasized the risks and challenges young
people face, and how to prevent them from engaging in high-
risk behaviors or help them become resilient in the face of
risk (Benson et al. 2006). Indeed, in their seminal writing on
positive psychology, Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2000)
argued that attention to pathology and deficit has driven
psychology as a whole for at least the last 50 years. Over the
past two decades in particular, however, there has emerged a
science of Positive Youth Development (Benson et al. 1998,
2006; Damon 2004; Larson 2000; Lerner et al. 2002) and
adolescent thriving (Benson and Scales 2009; Lerner et al.
2002; Scales et al. 2000) that have begun to focus the
attention of scholars and practitioners on what young people
need for their optimal development.
A primary example of Positive Youth Development
theory and application is the framework of developmental
assets created by Search Institute in 1990, articulating
40 relationships, opportunities, values, skills, and self-
perceptions that the research literature consistently shows
are related to positive development (Scales and Leffert
This research was supported by a generous grant to Search Institute
from the Best Buy Children’s Foundation. In addition to the authors,
three other scholars served as research advisors for the study, and
their advice and counsel are greatly appreciated: Obie Clayton of
Morehouse College, Jacque Eccles of the University of Michigan, and
Michael Rodriguez of the University of Minnesota. The opinions
expressed herein, however, are solely those of the authors.
P. C. Scales (&)
Search Institute, c/o 940 Chestnut Ridge Road,
Manchester, MO 63021, USA
e-mail: scalespc@search-institute.org
P. L. Benson E. C. Roehlkepartain
Search Institute, 615 1st Avenue NE,
Suite 125, Minneapolis, MN 55413, USA
e-mail: peterb@search-institute.org
E. C. Roehlkepartain
e-mail: gener@search-institute.org
123
J Youth Adolescence (2011) 40:263–277
DOI 10.1007/s10964-010-9578-6
2004). These are arrayed heuristically into eight categories,
with Support, Empowerment, Boundaries and Expecta-
tions, and Constructive Use of Time representing ‘‘exter-
nal’’ assets that adults and peers provide for adolescents,
and Commitment to Learning, Positive Values, Social
Competencies, and Positive Identity representing ‘‘inter-
nal’’ assets adolescents develop as part of their gradual path
toward self-regulation. Studies collectively of nearly 3
million middle and high school students since 1990 have
repeatedly found that the more of these assets adolescents
have, the better off they are on a variety of concurrent and
longitudinal academic, social-emotional, psychological,
and behavioral outcomes, with these patterns holding
across gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status
(e.g., Benson 2006; Leffert et al. 1998; Scales et al. 2000,
2006). Two comprehensive reviews of the youth develop-
ment literature have concluded that the total number of
positive developmental nutrients, resources, or assets youth
report having is related to both positive and negative out-
comes, and that specific kinds of developmental influences
also matter, depending on the outcome in question (Benson
et al. 2006; Eccles and Gootman 2002). These nutrients,
resources, or assets are not simple counts of the number of
times a youth goes to a museum, or the number of times an
adult says hello to them. Rather, each single resource or
nutrient is intended to capture complex patterns of expe-
rience, such as the multiplicity of caring adults in a given
youth’s world, or the time they spend in a typical week—
throughout the year—in high-quality youth programs.
Typically, young people with 31–40 assets do better than
those with 21–30, who in turn do better than those with
11–20, and all those youth tend to do better than youth with
0–10 assets.
Similar linear patterns have been found in studying the
‘‘5C’s of positive youth development (competence, confi-
dence, connection, character, and caring—Lerner et al.
2009), and the five ‘‘promises’’ that the America’s Promise
Alliance advocates all children and youth should experience:
Caring adults, safe places, a healthy start, effective educa-
tion, and opportunities to make a difference. The more
children and youth are exposed to the 5C’s or the five
promises, they better off they are. For example, in a national
sample of 12–17 year olds, their parents, and the parents of
6–11 year olds, children and youth with 4–5 of the five
promises typically had better scores on more than one dozen
concurrent academic, social-emotional, psychological, and
behavioral outcomes than did those with 2–3 of the promises,
who in turn tended to do better developmentally than those
with none or only 1 of the promises (Scales et al. 2008). In
this National Promises Study, the researchers also found that
experiencing high levels of the promises had a compensatory
effect. Males, adolescents of color, and low-income youth
overall had lower levels of the academic, social-
psychological, and behavioral outcomes studied. But if they
had high levels of the promises, then males, adolescents of
color, and low-income adolescents generally had the same
level of outcomes as females, white adolescents, and more
affluent youth. So, whether they are operationalized as the 40
assets, the 5C’s, or the five promises, the sheer number of
youths’ positive developmental experiences matters, both
for absolute levels of well-being and also for reducing dis-
parities in well-being among groups of young people.
The work of scholars such as Csikszentmihalyi (1990)
on ‘‘flow,’’ and Larson on ‘‘initiative’’ (2000) reveals fur-
ther features of the developmental landscape that make a
difference, beyond the general idea of developmental
assets. Using constructive use of time, for example, the
sheer numbers of hours a week youth participate in con-
structive activities matters, but engagement by youth in
activities that are challenging, require intense concentra-
tion for success, and the profound attention which arises
from intrinsic motivation, all are features that add depth,
and so define the optimal use of time.
Benson (2008) and Benson and Scales (2009) have
elaborated this concept further in their description of
‘‘thriving’’ in adolescence. Central to the notion of thriving
is an adolescent’s ‘‘sparks.’’ Sparks are described as a
passion for a self-identified interest, skill, or capacity that
metaphorically lights a fire in an adolescent’s life, pro-
viding energy, joy, purpose, and direction. Thriving is then
seen as the combination over time of sparks, and the action
that the youth and others take to support, develop, and
nurture those sparks.
Thriving as so described emphasizes the bidirectional
development of both person and context. As Lerner noted
(2004), such adaptive developmental regulation is seen as
occurring when there is a balance between the development
of individual strengths and capacities and the development
of strength in the contexts youth inhabit, namely, their
families, schools, peer groups, and communities. Simply,
thriving persons are nurtured by their contexts and also
make positive contributions to those contexts. Extending
this thinking, Benson and Scales (2009) specifically frame
the ‘‘development of prosocial and altruistic capacity and
action as an outgrowth of the identification and nurturing of
an individual’s particular talents and interests’’ (p. 94). In
other words, the aspects of thriving that reflect agency for
social change, doing things for others, and making a dif-
ference in society—all of which may be thought of as
aspects of empowerment—grow out of adolescents’ being
able to identify and nurture those passionate personal
interests—sparks—that are intrinsically energizing to
them. The development and nurturing of those sparks in
relationships experienced throughout the adolescent’s
contexts helps them to construct a confident and secure
‘‘idealized personhood’’ (Lerner et al. 2002) that is better
264 J Youth Adolescence (2011) 40:263–277
123
oriented toward generosity of spirit and empathetic
response to others than are the identities of adolescents
who do not have the intrinsic mooring, direction, and social
embeddedness that come from knowing one’s true sparks
and having them nurtured throughout one’s social ecology.
In this manner, sparks, relational opportunities, and
empowerment are hypothesized to work together to influ-
ence growth in adolescents’ prosociality.
All of these elements of adolescents’ developmental
experience may be especially salient during key periods of
transition in adolescence, particularly as adolescents nego-
tiate the (often competing) developmental tasks of connec-
tion to others and development of relative autonomy
(Collins and Steinberg 2006). One of those periods occurs
around the age of 15. In the United States, age 15 represents
a critical transition time in growing up. When they are 15,
teenagers typically move into high school. Students who
engage well (academically and socially) during their first
year of high school are much more likely to stay in school
and to be academically successful. A recent report, for
example, concluded that the biggest loss of students in the
graduation pipeline occurs for most districts in the 9th grade,
as many students turn 15 (Editorial Projects in Education
2009). By this age, they have been through significant
physical changes, including puberty. They have begun
developing adult reasoning capabilities, although they are
still learning how to exercise judgment. Fifteen-year-olds
are exploring how and why they matter, what they value,
and who and what they believe in. They become more
independent. Many 15-year-olds begin to drive, work, and
spend more time on their own and with their peers. They
take on more leadership roles. Finally, they are exposed to
more high-risk behaviors, such as sexual activity, violence,
and alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use, and increasingly
are called upon to make significant decisions about whether
to engage in such behaviors.
As adolescents grapple with their own identity and voice
during early adolescence and the transition to mid-adoles-
cence and high school, the issues of sparks and empow-
erment become even more vital developmentally, and
could play important roles in their movement toward
adulthood. Longitudinal analyses also have shown that the
developmental assets that provide protection and promote
positive development tend to decrease over the middle
school years (Scales et al. 2006; Roehlkepartain et al.
2003), leaving the typical 15-year-old with a lower level of
assets, and therefore greater vulnerability, than she or he
will experience at any other time in the adolescent years.
Thus, previous research leads to the central theoretical
organizing principle of this article. The identification and
development of one’s sparks in contexts that are filled with
supportive relationships and opportunities for empower-
ment appears to be an especially powerful developmental
experience that orients adolescents toward being on a
thriving path. A thriving path or orientation, in contrast to a
floundering path or even a merely adequate or ‘‘ok’’ path, is
characterized by mutual person-context growth, that is, both
personal and societal well-being. These issues may have
particular developmental salience for adolescents around
age 15, when they are undergoing significant changes and
transitions, and are experiencing fewer developmental
supports than when they were younger, and, based on prior
research, they should hold for youth across racial/ethnic,
gender, and socioeconomic diversity.
Hypotheses and Focus of the Study
Our focus in the current study was on these three interrelated
but distinct concepts: Adolescents’ deep personal interests or
sparks; the opportunities—most often realized through sig-
nificant relationships—youth have to identify and develop
those sparks, talents, and interests; and their self-perception
of being empowered or having ‘‘voice.’’ Based on the liter-
ature reviewed above, we posed two general hypotheses.
First, accumulation of these strengths among 15-year-olds,
as seen in other research on developmental nutrients, assets,
and promises, will be associated with generally more posi-
tive academic, social, emotional, and behavioral concurrent
outcomes, and especially more positive specific develop-
mental outcomes connected to contribution to society,
including leadership, prosocial values such as helping others,
and the importance they give to civic engagement. Second,
the experience of all three of these three developmental
strengths (sparks, relational opportunities, and empower-
ment) will contribute more to concurrent outcomes than do
gender, race/ethnicity, or socioeconomic status.
Methods
Sample
Respondents for this survey were selected from among the
Harris Poll Online database, which includes several million
people who have agreed to participate in Harris Interactive
online surveys. Because the sample is based on those who
agreed to be invited to participate in an online research
panel, no estimates of theoretical sampling error can be
calculated. Email invitations were sent to thousands of
potentially eligible households (i.e., those believed to have
a 15 year old in the household), but unless an error mes-
sage flagged an undeliverable email, there was no way to
tell if potential respondents actually read the invitation, and
thus no way to calculate a traditional response rate. Harris
Interactive’s estimate is that about 10% of invitees to such
J Youth Adolescence (2011) 40:263–277 265
123
online surveys actually participate (conversation with Dana
Markow, June 25, 2009). Qualified respondents were US
residents who were 15 years old. A representative sample
of 1,817 US residents age 15 was surveyed online,
including 1,023 white respondents (56%), 301 Black/
African American respondents (17%), 302 Hispanic
respondents (17%), and 90 Asian/Pacific Islander respon-
dents (0.5%).
Data were weighted by Harris Interactive researchers to
reflect the population of 15-year-olds in the US according
to three race/ethnicity groups: Hispanic, Black/African
American, White/Other (including Asian/Pacific Islander).
Each group was weighted according to key demographic
variables (gender, race/ethnicity, region, and parents’
highest education [a proxy for household income]). These
variables were weighted to known parameters in the United
States. A post-weight was applied to bring the data from all
three groups in line with their proportion in the total pop-
ulation of 15-year-olds in the US, based on race/ethnicity
and gender.
Measures
The survey was self-administered online via the Internet,
averaging about 23 minutes per respondent. Password
protected e-mail invitations asked respondents to partici-
pate in a survey about current events. Survey items were
taken or modified from numerous existing surveys, and
some were created for this study. A number of new ques-
tions were generated through discussions among the Search
Institute research team, research advisors from the Uni-
versity of Michigan, the University of Minnesota, and
Morehouse College, and staff members from the Best Buy
Children’s Foundation, sponsor of the survey. Search
Institute created the survey, and worked with Harris
Interactive research staff to refine and pretest the items to
achieve maximum reliability, validity, and efficiency of
administration.
Sparks
Early questions in the survey asked the youth about their
talents, interest, and hobbies. To determine whether they
had a talent, interest, or hobby that met the criteria for
being named a ‘‘spark,’’ we asked a follow-up question
taken from the Search Institute Thriving Orientation
Survey (TOS, Benson and Scales 2009) that included a
description of those criteria:
‘‘When people are really happy, energized, and pas-
sionate about their talents, interests, or hobbies, we
say they have a ‘‘spark’’ in their life. This spark is
more than just interesting or fun for them. They are
passionate about it. It gives them joy and energy. It is
a really important part of their life that gives them
real purpose, direction, or focus. Do you have this
kind of spark in your life?’’
Respondents could answer with yes, no, or not sure.
Those who answered ‘‘yes’’ were counted as having a spark.
Relational Opportunities and Empowerment
Table 1displays the constructs and sample items that
comprised the Relational Opportunities Index (ROI) and
the Teen Voice Index (TVI).
Relational opportunities. The ROI was constructed by
determining whether adolescents experienced nine features
in their lives that reflected supportive relationships and
chances to develop their interests. The number of constructs
in the index may at first suggest that the index lacks focus,
but upon examination, all can be seen to centrally reflect
either key relationships or life opportunities, or both. The
relationships dimension was captured through items that
focus on youth as resources, the degree to which the com-
munity values youth, and adolescents’ experiences of sup-
portive adult relationships. The opportunities dimension was
captured by examining the availability and use of neigh-
borhood resources, the degree to which youths’ interests help
them achieve at school or learn skills useful in a job or career,
and the actions they personally take to develop their talents.
Time spent in after-school programs, and participation in
high-quality after-school programs were seen as strongly
reflecting both relationships and opportunities. The index
was called ‘‘relational opportunities’’ because these dis-
tinctions about which items tap relationships and which tap
opportunities are more theoretical than practical: The rela-
tionships adolescents develop enhance the likelihood of their
having more opportunities to grow and pursue their interests,
and the opportunities they have invariably introduce them to
potentially helpful relationships.
In general, youth had to score the equivalent of an
‘‘agree’’ on a strongly agree-strongly disagree scale, or
average that level of response to multi-item constructs, in
order to be scored as ‘‘having’’ that feature of the index.
This essentially reflects a standard of meeting about 75% of
the criteria in order to be counted as experiencing the
measure, a common standard that has been shown to pre-
dict levels of well-being among diverse samples of youth
(see Scales et al. 2008). Youth then received one point for
each ROI feature they experienced. Low scorers had 0–3
points; medium had 4–6; and high had 7–9. In addition, one
point was subtracted from the total score if a youth said
they received active discouragement from pursuing their
sparks from their family, other adults, or their friends. For
youth who had been actively discouraged, the modified
266 J Youth Adolescence (2011) 40:263–277
123
ROI scores yielded low scorers with between 0 and 2
points, medium scorers with 3–5 points, and high scorers
with 6–8 points.
Empowerment. The TVI was constructed by determining
if 15-year-olds experienced four features in their lives
presumed to reflect aspects of empowerment: Personal
Table 1 Table of constructs for ROI and TVI measures
Constructs #/Source of items Sample item
Relationships and opportunities index
Youth as resources 3/Search Institute Profiles of Student Life: Attitudes &
Behavior (A&B) survey (Benson et al. 1998; Leffert
et al. 1998)
I’m given lots of chances to help make my town or city a better
place in which to live
Community values
youth
4/A&B survey Adults in my town or city listen to what I have to say
Weekly time in after-
school programs
1/National Promises Study (Scales et al. 2008) How many hours in an average week, including weekends, do
you spend doing the following activities?
*Sports-related clubs, teams, or organizations
*Art, music, or drama lessons, clubs, or performances
Participation in high-
quality after-school
programs
7/National Promises Study When you spend time in after-school or community programs,
how often does each of the following happen? You…
*Develop warm and trusting relationships with adults.
Availability of
neighborhood
resources
9/New What kinds of easy to get to resources are there in your
neighborhood/community for pursuing your talents, interests,
or hobbies? Easy to get to means you can walk or bike to
them, take public transportation without traveling a long time,
or have someone who can take you there
*Youth programs, such as YMCAs, Boys & Girls Clubs, or
Scouts
*Libraries
Use of neighborhood
resources
9/New How often have you used these resources in the last 3 months?
Supportive adults 3/Search Institute Thriving Orientation Survey
(Benson and Scales 2009)
How often do the following people help you develop your
talents, interests, or hobbies by giving you encouragement or
support, or by pushing you to get better at those talents,
interests or hobbies?
*Teachers, counselors, or other adults at your school
*A religious leader or youth leader, coach, or teacher in a
religious organization
Connection of
interests to life
4/New How much has pursuing your talents, interests, or hobbies done
each of the following for you?
*Given me skills that will help me in a job or career
*Helped me get along with other people or deepened my
friendships
Personal actions to
develop talents
7/Thriving Orientation Survey I take the initiative to develop my talents, interests, or hobbies
Teen voice index
Personal power 2/A&B survey When things don’t go well for me, I am good at finding a way to
make things better
Community problem-
solving belief
1/Monitoring the Future (Johnston et al. 2006) Thinking about the problems you see in your community, how
much difference do you believe you can personally make in
working to solve them?
Political activity 7/National Youth Survey (Keeter et al. 2002) Have you ever done or do you plan to do the following things?
*Write to public officials
*Give money to a political candidate or cause
Ideas for the President 1/New Which 3 issues do you want the next president to address? If
you can not think of any issues, please type ‘None’ in the first
box
J Youth Adolescence (2011) 40:263–277 267
123
power or self-efficacy, community problem-solving belief,
political activity, and ideas for the president. The latter was
an open-ended question asking adolescents to name three
things they most wanted the next US President to deal with
(the poll was held shortly before the November 2008
presidential election). If they could describe at least one
such idea as simply as ‘‘the economy,’’ or ‘‘health care,’’
they received credit for having this feature of ‘‘voice.’’
Scoring followed the same algorithms as described for the
ROI. Young people then received one point for each fea-
ture whose criterion level they reached. Low scorers had
0–1 point, medium had 2 points, and high had 3–4.
These measures were designed as indexes, rather than as
scales, and their quality is judged somewhat differently as a
result. Indexes are not the same as ‘‘scales,’’ and so stan-
dard parameters for estimating scale reliability and validity
are not appropriate as applied to indexes. Nevertheless,
each of the components in each index is clearly related to
the umbrella label given the index, suggesting prima facie
evidence for content validity (e.g., leadership is certainly
a reflection of a young person having ‘‘voice’’ or the
expression of their opinions and influence, and being in
quality after-school programs is certainly a reflection of
having ‘‘relationships’’ and ‘‘opportunities’’ for learning
and growth). Moreover, most of the items were taken or
modified from previous surveys with known, acceptable
psychometric properties, providing evidence of construct
validity. However, unlike what would be expected in a true
scale, each of the components of an index is not necessarily
highly related to or correlated with all of the other com-
ponents of that index, particularly in the relationships
and opportunities index. Treating these items as a scale
implicitly assumes more internal consistency than there
may be, and because some components of the index may be
quite unrelated, the alpha or internal consistency reliability
of a group of index items, when treated inaccurately as a
scale, could be low. In treating the component items as
elements of an index rather than as elements of a scale, we
allowed differing profiles of experiencing relationships, or
voice (i.e., differing combinations of index items) to result
in a qualitatively equal score (i.e., low, medium, or high)
on the TVI or ROI. In this way, variability of individual
experience could be reflected between two adolescents, and
yet each attain an identical level of judged quality in their
experience of relationships or voice.
In order to assess the robustness of the indexes, an
independent Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Rasch
analysis was conducted on the two indexes by one of the
study’s scientific advisors, suggesting that the indexes,
component indicators, and items generally functioned quite
well (Rodriguez 2009), with consistent evidence of both
acceptable reliability and validity. Finally, post-hoc evi-
dence for the predictive validity of these two indexes is
found in the results we describe below, showing that young
people with higher levels of the TVI and ROI consistently
scored better on a dozen outcome indicators of develop-
mental well-being. Thus, although they are not scales, these
index measures have acceptable psychometric properties
for this analysis.
Outcomes. Twelve outcomes were measured. The out-
comes covered the four primary domains of youth devel-
opment that typically are the targets of most youth
development programs and the outcomes measured in key
PYD studies (Catalano et al. 2004; Eccles and Gootman
2002; Roth and Brooks-Gunn 2003; Benson et al. 2006;
Scales et al. 2008) including aspects of academic, psy-
chological, social-emotional, and behavioral well-being.
The alpha reliability of the outcome measures was
acceptable to good, ranging from .73 to .89.
Academic Outcomes. To calculate GPA, youth were
asked in how many classes ‘‘in your most recent school
marking period’’ they received grades of A, B, C, D, or
below D. Four points were awarded for As, 3 for Bs, and so
on, and GPA was calculated as the mean grade for the total
number of classes. (The number of classes taken was
controlled for in these calculations, so that small numbers
of classes did not artificially inflate a student’s GPA.)
Mastery goals was a 3-item scale adapted from Anderman
et al. (2005), asking how much statements like this
described the youth: ‘‘One of my goals in school is to learn
as much as I can.’’
School engagement was a single item from the National
Promises Study (Scales et al. 2008) asking how often the
respondent works up to his or her ability at school, on a
4-point never-very often scale. Attendance was a single
item taken from the Search Institute A&B survey (Benson
et al. 1998) asking how many days of school a youth
skipped in the last 4 weeks.
Psychological Outcomes.Sense of purpose was a 6-item
measure taken from the Search Institute TOS (Benson and
Scales 2009), which incorporated conceptual aspects of
purpose described in Damon et al. (2003). It was comprised
of two items on a 4-point scale from ‘‘does not describe me
at all’’ to ‘‘describes me a lot,’’ one item on a 5-point scale
from ‘‘not at all certain’’ to ‘‘extremely certain,’’ and three
items on a 4-point scale from strongly agree to strongly
disagree. Items asked whether the respondent had a sense
of purpose, and for how long they have felt a sense a
purpose. Ethnic identity was modified from Phinney’s
Multi-Group Ethnic Identity Measure (Phinney 1992), and
consisted of three items asking how much youth agreed or
disagreed with statements such as, ‘‘I have spent time
trying to find out more about my ethnic group, such as its
history, traditions, and customs.’’ Worries was a modified
version of items asking about possible worries or con-
cerns, taken from the Washington Post/Kaiser Family
268 J Youth Adolescence (2011) 40:263–277
123
Foundation/Harvard University African-American Men
Study (Washington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation/
Harvard University 2006). Seven items came from that
earlier study, and three new ones developed, asking how
worried they were about things such as their family not
having enough money, or being a victim of crime.
Social Outcomes. Six items measuring prosocial values
were taken from the Monitoring the Future study (Johnston
et al. 2006), asking how important it was to the youth to
improve race relations, or help people who are poor. Civic
engagement values was measured with three items taken
from Flanagan’s Adolescent Civic Commitments Scale
(Flanagan et al. 2007), asking how important it was to
youth that they do such things as make a contribution to
society, or being a leader in their community. Volunteering
was a single item taken from the National Promises Study
(Scales et al. 2008), asking youth how many hours in an
average week, including weekends, they spend doing
‘‘volunteer work to help other people or to help make your
community a better place.’’ Racial respect was comprised
of one item measuring the degree to which youth perceived
being treated fairly as a person of their race (Sellers et al.
1997; using a 4-point scale from strongly agree-strongly
disagree), and six items measuring their experience of
racial/ethnic discrimination (using a 4-point scale from
never-very often, with five items taken from the Wash-
ington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation/Harvard University
African-American Men Study (2006), and one new item).
Behavioral Outcomes.Leadership and anti-social
behavior each were taken from the Search Institute A&B
survey. They were measured with single items on a 5-point
scale from ‘‘never’’ to ‘‘5 or more times,’’ asking, respec-
tively, how many times in the last year youth had been a
leader in a group or organization, and how many times in
the last year they had damaged property just for fun (such
as breaking windows, scratching a car, putting paint on
walls, etc.).
Analysis Plan
Hypothesis 1 predicted that the accumulation of the three
strengths of sparks, relational opportunities, and empow-
erment would be associated with better well-being. To
explore hypothesis 1, five groups were formed: (1) Ado-
lescents who did not meet the criteria for having high levels
of any of the three strengths; (2) Those who had high levels
only on Sparks; (3) Those who had only high levels of TVI
or ROI; (4) Those who had high levels on Sparks plus
either TVI or ROI; and (5) Those who had high levels of all
three of Sparks, TVI, and ROI. (No youth fell into a sixth
possible group: having high levels of TVI and ROI but not
of Sparks.) We then conducted Anovas comparing the
mean scores of these five groups on all outcomes. Because
12 Anovas were conducted, we applied a Bonferonni cor-
rection to guard against Type I errors, thereby yielding a
pB.004 for an F-value to be significant. Tukey HSD post-
hoc comparisons were conducted to clarify the sources of
significant F-values.
Hypothesis 2 predicted that the developmental strengths
would predict the developmental outcomes more strongly
than would demographics. To explore hypothesis 2, we
conducted regressions using the demographic variables of
gender, race/ethnicity, and SES, as well as the total number
of the three strengths, to predict the outcomes. Demo-
graphics were entered first as a block. We then compared the
band amounts of variance of each outcome contributed by
demographics and the number of strengths. Additionally, we
tested for moderation effects of the demographic variables.
To reduce multicollinearity effects, we centered the variables
by subtracting the sample mean for each case on both the
number of strengths variable, and the SES variable, and cre-
ating dummy variables for gender (male =0, female =1),
and two for race/ethnicity (white =0, other =1; African
American =0, other =1). We then conducted regressions
entering the demographic variables first, then the number of
strengths, and then the four interactions of each demographic
variable (SES, gender, and two race/ethnicity dummies) with
the number of strengths.
Results
Relationship of Strengths to Individual Outcomes
and Societal Contribution
Table 2shows the results of the Anovas, with F-values and
means presented for each of the developmental outcomes.
The top row of the table shows that only an extreme
minority of adolescents—9%—experiences a high level of
all three of the strengths. Another 21% experience two of
the three, but nearly three in ten 15 year olds (28%) did not
experience any of these developmental strengths at a high
level. The number of strengths makes a considerable dif-
ference in these concurrent outcomes. For 9 of the 13
outcomes (69%), youth with high levels on all three of the
outcomes fared better than youth with high levels on none
or just one of the strengths (they were also higher on not
being worried, but after the Bonferonni correction was
applied, the p-value was no longer significant). Very few of
these young people missed any days of school in the last
month, or committed acts of vandalism, and so no statis-
tically significant differences were observed regardless of
levels of Sparks, TVI, or ROI (there were no overall dif-
ferences on perceived racial respect, but a separate analysis
showed that for white youth, racial respect was higher
among those with at least one strength). In addition, on
J Youth Adolescence (2011) 40:263–277 269
123
seven of the 13 outcomes (54%), those strength-rich youth
also fared better than adolescents who experienced any two
of the three strengths.
In Table 2, four outcomes specifically related to proso-
ciality are highlighted: Leadership, civic engagement val-
ues, prosocial values about such issues as working for
social justice, and volunteering weekly. On three of these
prosociality outcomes (75%), adolescents who enjoyed all
three strengths had significantly higher mean scores than
all other groups of young people, and on the fourth, those
with all three strengths volunteered more than those with
none or just one of the strengths. These outcomes reflect
prosociality and social integration—the societal well-being
side of the person-context dynamic of thriving—and so
these results provide moderate to strong support for the
hypothesis predicting that accumulation of these strengths
in youth benefits not only the individual youth, but the
larger societal context as well.
Relative Contribution of Strengths and Demographics
to Outcomes
Table 3shows that for eight of the 13 outcomes (62%), the
number of strengths contributes more to outcome variance
than do demographics: The four prosociality outcomes
(leadership, prosocial values, civic commitments, and
volunteering); purpose; two outcomes connected to school
success (mastery goals, and school engagement); and eth-
nic identity. The number of strengths also contributes more
than demographics to anti-social behavior, but even toge-
ther, the strengths and demographics explain barely one
percent of variance. The two predictors of strengths and
demographics contribute about the same level to school
attendance, but together barely explain two percent of that
outcome’s variance. As noted earlier, these results for anti-
social behavior and attendance are to be expected, since
there was very little variation across the sample in the
percentage of youth experiencing those outcomes. Demo-
graphics explain just slightly more of GPA than does the
number of strengths. Only for racial respect was there a
clear dominance of demographics as a predictor, with race/
ethnicity the strongest contributor.
The number of strengths also had a larger bthan any of
the demographics (not shown here) in 9 of the 13 outcomes
predictions (69%), even when the number of strengths did
not contribute as much to variance as did demographics.
Only for school attendance (whites had slightly more
attendance), antisocial behavior (neither demographics nor
Table 2 Effect of accumulation of strengths on concurrent developmental outcomes
Percentage of sample Not high on
any of the
three 28%
Only
Sparks
38%
Only TVI
or ROI 5%
Sparks ?TVI
or ROI 21%
Sparks ?TVI
?ROI 9%
Outcomes/F-values
Grade Point Average F(4,1792) =21.13* 3.11c 3.23c,b 3.37b,a 3.47a 3.55a
Leadership (Have served as leader in the past year)
F (4,1799) =72.18*
-.42d -.17c -.07c .31b .80a
Mastery goals (Have goals to master what they study at school)
F(4,1799) =86.96*
-.41e -.05d .18c .40b .64a
Purpose (Have a sense of purpose & hope for future)
F(4,1799) =140.59*
-.53d -.07c .01c .31b .64a
School engagement (Work up to their ability at school)
F(4,1798) =52.93*
-.43d -.09c .04c .30b .63a
Ethnic identity (Have a positive sense of their ethnic identity)
F(4,1352) =76.69*
-.40d -.08c .04c .36b .73a
Prosocial values (Believe it is important to help others and correct
social inequalities) F (4,1799) =74.96*
-.25d -.06c .03c .29b .57a
Civic engagement values (Believe it is important to be involved
in community issues) F (4,1799) =68.38*
-.25c -.06c .19b .32b .74a
Volunteering F (4,1247) =21.80* -.28c -.13c .17b .26b,a .50a
All means but GPA standardized. GPA based on A =4 points, B =3 points, etc
Cells with different superscripts are significantly different from each other (within the row). Differences in percentages without superscript
numbers were not statistically significant from other percentages in that row
Outcomes without significant differences among groups are not shown here (school attendance, vandalism, worries and concerns, and racial
respect)
Italicized rows: Outcomes that particularly reflect prosociality
*pB.0001
270 J Youth Adolescence (2011) 40:263–277
123
Table 3 Relative contribution
to outcomes variance made by
demographics and number of
developmental strengths
Outcome Predictors DR
2
b
GPA Step 1 demographics
a
.041 .224***
Step 2 # strengths .038
Total R
2
.079
n1,792
Attendance Step 1 demographics
a
.011 .014
Step 2 # strengths .010
Total R
2
.021
n1,792
Leadership Step 1 demographics
a
.032 .317***
Step 2 # strengths .095
Total R
2
.127
n1,799
Anti-social behavior Step 1 demographics
a
.000 -.011
Step 2 # strengths .004
Total R
2
.004
n1,799
Purpose Step 1 demographics
a
.006 .357***
Step 2 # strengths .109
Total R
2
.115
n1,799
Mastery goals Step 1 demographics
a
.026 .290***
Step 2 # strengths .112
Total R
2
.138
n1,799
School engagement Step 1 demographics
a
.019 .166**
Step 2 # strengths .058
Total R
2
.078
n1,798
Ethnic identity Step 1 demographics
a
.016 .335***
Step 2 # strengths .124
Total R
2
.146
n1,352
Prosocial values Step 1 demographics
a
.023 .225***
Step 2 # strengths .063
Total R
2
.086
n1,799
Civic engagement values Step 1 demographics
a
.017 .286***
Step 2 # strengths .075
Total R
2
.092
n1799
Worries and concerns Step 1 demographics
a
.043 .052
Step 2 # strengths .007
Total R
2
.050
n1,799
Racial respect Step 1 demographics
a
.062 .126*
Step 2 # strengths .016
Total R
2
.078
n1,799
J Youth Adolescence (2011) 40:263–277 271
123
number of strengths were significant), worries (whites,
males, and more affluent youth had fewer worries), and
racial respect (whites reported more racial respect) did any
demographics have a larger bthan did the number of
developmental strengths experienced. The effects of the
number of strengths also were largely similar across
demographic groups. After the Bonferonni correction was
applied, there was only one significant interaction (not
shown), between gender and the number of strengths as
predictors of hopeful purpose, suggesting that girls with a
high number of strengths had more hopeful purpose than
did boys with a high number of strengths. Overall then,
hypothesis 2 received substantial support.
Discussion
The emergence of Positive Youth Development as a broad
theoretical and applied framework for understanding and
influencing adolescent development—a focus on their
optimal development and not only on prevention and
reduction of risk behaviors—has been a relatively recent
phenomenon, and within PYD, the articulation of the
concept of adolescent thriving is an even newer area of
theoretical and applied focus, with a research base that is
still small, but that is growing rapidly. In this study, we
examined how adolescents’ experience of three develop-
mental strengths that communities can promote is related
not only to adolescents’ own, individual well-being, but to
the betterment of wider society, a combination of outcomes
that is a defining feature of thriving. We posed two specific
hypotheses. First, we predicted that the accumulation in
youth of the strengths of sparks or deep interests, relational
opportunities to nurture those sparks, and empowerment is
associated with concurrent academic, psychological,
social-emotional, and behavioral well-being, and that the
socially integrative nature of these strengths should be
reflected in the linkage they have with outcomes reflecting
youths’ actual and potential contribution to society. Sec-
ond, we predicted that the number of the three develop-
mental strengths youth experience is more important in
predicting most outcomes than are the demographics of
gender, race/ethnicity, or SES. The data presented here
strongly support both of these hypotheses.
Validity of the Results
Before addressing the implications of the findings, an addi-
tional discussion of the validity of the results, beyond the
index psychometrics presented earlier, is warranted. The
extremely low percentage with all three strengths (9%) begs
the question, were the scoring guidelines for these measures
unrealistically stringent? We think not. The criteria for the
Teen Voice Index describe adolescents who have confi-
dence, who believe they are resources, who want to be
involved as problem solvers, and who have at least a minimal
knowledge of public affairs such that they could name just
one issue, even in very general terms (e.g., ‘‘education,’’
‘‘health care’’) for a new president to tackle. These hardly
seem to be overly ambitious hopes for adolescents. In the
same way, the Relational Opportunities Index criteria
describe youth who have support to develop their talents and
interests, and whose pursuit of those interests, helps them
prepare for a career, improve their relationships, stay moti-
vated to learn, and have opportunities to contribute. They
feel respected as youth with something to offer, and useful
in their families, schools, and communities. They live in
communities with plentiful resources, and they use those
resources. They participate at a modest couple hours a week
in after-school programs that help them learn useful skills,
have good relationships, and make some decisions. If any-
thing, these standards for a ‘‘high’’ ROI score seem more like
the minimum level of hopes and aspirations we as a society
should have for the relationships and opportunities available
to all our youth. Recall too that youth needed only meet three
of every four criteria here, not all of the criteria, in order to
obtain a ‘‘high’’ score on the TVI or ROI. That so few were
able to say they meet these generous standards underlines the
wide gap between our hopes and adolescents’ realities, and
the nature of the challenge we must meet.
If there is any good news in the low figures for ‘‘high’’
scoring on these indexes, it is that 29% of the sample got
medium scores on the TVI and 33% on the ROI. This
suggests that, with a fairly modest social commitment to
build these strengths, many of those in the medium groups
could be propelled into the most developmentally advan-
taged ‘‘high’’ group. Nevertheless, even if all those scoring
at the medium level suddenly enjoyed a high level of these
strengths, that still would leave roughly half of American
Table 3 continued
*pB.05; ** pB.01;
*** pB.001
a
Demographics included SES,
gender, and race/ethnicity
Outcome Predictors DR
2
b
Volunteering Step 1 demographics
a
.031 .307****
Step 2 # strengths .100
Total R
2
.131
n1,247
272 J Youth Adolescence (2011) 40:263–277
123
15-year-olds experiencing a low level of developmental
strengths, a level significantly linked with poor develop-
mental outcomes.
The Accumulative Power and Socially Integrative
Nature of the Three Strengths
These findings are consistent with a large body of research
showing the value to adolescents of their experiencing
across multiple contexts a variety of developmental assets
or nutrients such as empowerment, supportive and caring
relationships, and opportunities to use their time con-
structively (reviewed in Benson et al. 2006,2003; and
Eccles and Gootman 2002). This study extends that
research by introducing the effects of ‘‘sparks’’ into that
equation: When empowerment and relational opportunities
are combined with adolescents having and pursuing a spark
or deep passion, the likely benefit connected to such
positive experiences does not accrue only to youth, but to
larger civil society.
These results support the theory of thriving articulated by
Benson and Scales (2009), and their initial research findings
on adolescent thriving: Adolescents who can identify a
spark or passionate interest, and who have people in their
lives who help them nurture that spark (as measured in the
current study by the Relational Opportunities Index), also
are more likely to have other values and commitments to
social contribution that bring benefit to their communities
and wider society. Having passionate interests or sparks,
alone, offered about the same benefit to individual well-
being as having relational opportunities or empowerment,
alone. But the highest levels of potential benefit to others, as
reflected in young people’s leadership, prosocial values, and
civic engagement intentions, occurred only among those
with all three of the strengths, and volunteering, the other
outcome reflecting societal contribution, was highest among
those with two or all three strengths. In the current study,
adolescents experiencing all three strengths at high levels
were much more likely to report being leaders in the last
year, to have prosocial values around the importance of
helping others and working to promote social justice, and to
have commitments to be involved civically, both currently
and in the future. They, and those with two of the strengths,
also were more likely to volunteer weekly. Thus, the
accumulation of the particular strengths studied here—
sparks, relational opportunities, and empowerment—may
help to produce the bi-directional positive growth of both
the individual and his/her social context that Lerner (2004)
has described as the essence of thriving and adaptive
developmental regulation. In other words, when inner
strengths, such as sparks, are aligned with positive ecolo-
gies, as reflected in plentiful relationships and opportuni-
ties, adolescents are empowered not only to pursue their
own interests but also to use those interests and passions to
contribute to the social good. It is notable that having high
levels of two of the three strengths was good enough for
youth to be in the high outcome group for most outcomes.
But it was only those with high levels on all three strengths
who were in the highest group on three of the four specif-
ically prosocial outcomes. Although not definitive, this
result suggests that individual well-being may be promoted
by experiencing a good but not outstanding level of
developmental strengths, but that societal well-being is
better promoted when youth experience a very high level of
all of these developmental strengths.
This study confirms that not just the accumulation, but
also the nature of, positive developmental experiences is
important. It is noteworthy that all of the developmental
assets, 5C’s, and five promises frameworks of Positive Youth
Development include emphasis on caring relationships,
opportunities for constructive use of time, and empowering
adolescents through making them feel valued, capable, and
useful as resources to others, elements also stressed in the
foundational review of research on community youth pro-
grams prepared by the National Research Council (Eccles
and Gootman 2002). But not all experiences in ostensibly
youth-oriented settings are ‘‘positive youth development’’
experiences that promote such assets. For example, partici-
pation in ‘‘youth programs’’ is one of the 40 developmental
assets that Search Institute has identified, and a simple
measure of hours per week that youth spend participating in
such programs has indeed been related to numerous positive
outcomes for young people (Benson et al. 1999). More
recently, some evidence has been found that high levels of
activity involvement may be inversely linked to positive
youth development for girls in high-asset neighborhoods,
and for boys in low-asset neighborhoods (Urban et al. 2009).
But research does generally find that even simple measures
of youth activity involvement are a net positive. Neverthe-
less, Roth and Brooks-Gunn (2003) showed that many
‘‘youth programs’’ are not truly functioning to their full
potential as youth development programs because they fail to
embed sufficient features shown to be more associated with
positive outcomes, such as opportunities for youth empow-
erment and skill-building, and supportive relationships.
Thus, participation by itself carries some developmental
value as an asset, but participating in high-quality programs
as we defined them in this study, that is, characterized
by caring relationships and empowerment opportunities,
provides even greater value.
The Relative Influence of Developmental Strengths
Over Demographics
The results of this study also suggest, with some excep-
tions, that the three strengths might play a role in helping to
J Youth Adolescence (2011) 40:263–277 273
123
promote equality of developmental outcomes across race/
ethnicity, gender, and SES. A large proportion of policy
and program attention at all levels of civil society, of
course, is paid to attempting to ameliorate differences in
educational achievement and health status, among other
outcomes, that are associated with those three aspects of
an individual’s social location. Thus, it is important to
investigate whether a youth development approach appears
to be efficacious only for certain groups of young people,
or whether it has promise for diverse youth. For example,
nurturing a young person’s sparks could be seen, in a
Maslovian sense, as akin to helping young people with
their self-actualization processes when, for disadvantaged
youth, more pressing instrumental needs exist. But we
found that, regardless of their race/ethnicity, gender, or
SES, youth with high levels of the strengths generally did
better, and youth with lower levels, worse, on nearly all the
outcomes studied. We of course could not determine cause
and effect in this cross-sectional study, but the consistency
of these results and their alignment with similar previous
findings about the explanatory power of developmental
assets over demographics (Leffert et al. 1998; Scales et al.
2000,2006) do suggest that the benefit of experiencing
these strengths accrues to youth across a wide variety of
gender, racial/ethnic, and socioeconomic diversities.
This study’s results are particularly salient, given the
important developmental transitions that are occurring to
many adolescents around the age of 15, the focus age of
this sample. That sparks, relational opportunities, and
empowerment together weave this developmentally sup-
portive web of purpose, connectedness, and contribution at
a time of such potential vulnerability for youth is thus a
finding with special applied resonance. For example, it
argues for the likely positive contribution that targeted
‘‘asset-building’’ programs can make to helping keep stu-
dents ‘‘on track’’ in the first year or two of high school. One
such program, in fact, the Building Assets-Reducing Risk
program of St. Louis Park (MN) high school, has achieved
recognition in the National Registry of Evidence-Based
Programs and Practices as a promising approach through its
focus on promoting these strengths among 9th grade stu-
dents (Johnston and Jerabek 2007).
Improving Relationships and Programs Through
Promoting These Strengths
Because this was not a longitudinal study, the results can
allow us only to speculate about how the three strengths of
sparks, relational opportunities, and empowerment may be
enhanced through informal adult-youth relationships and
formal youth development programs. But these specula-
tions are firmly grounded in both the scientific literature on
positive youth development and PYD programs (Benson
2006; Eccles and Gootman 2002), as well as in applied
experience working with thousands of organizations and
community coalitions on initiatives to build developmental
assets and enhance youth thriving (Benson 2008,2006). In
analyses of several national and other large databases of
adolescents developed over the last 5 years, for example,
we have shown that about 66–80% of youth can name at
least one spark they have (depending on how ‘‘spark’’ is
defined for them), but that less than half experience rela-
tional opportunities to develop that spark (Benson and
Scales, in press). In another national study of US adults, we
concluded that less than 10% of adults have both a strongly
favorable personal attitude toward engaging with adoles-
cents outside their families, and a perception of social
permission or expectation from others to do so (Scales
et al. 2003). In day-to-day interactions, then, there is little
normative support for anything but superficial connection
between most adults and teenagers. Even in schools, youth
organizations, and religious congregations, where adults
are permitted and expected as part of their job descriptions
to get to know youth more personally, only minorities of
adolescents say someone knows their spark there and helps
support it, and less than 20% say their neighbors do (Scales
et al. 2009).
Based on the solid documentation of this quite limited
depth and quality of adult-youth relationships, we speculate
that simply asking adolescents six ‘‘essential questions’’
(Benson 2009) in organizations and programs, and infor-
mally in neighborhood relationships, could go far in
making an impact on two of the three strengths in this study
(sparks and relational opportunities), which arguably could
also help contribute to the third strength (empowerment):
1. ‘‘What is your spark?’’
2. ‘‘When and where do you express it?’’
3. ‘‘Who knows your spark?’’
4. ‘‘Who nourishes your spark?’’
5. ‘‘What gets in your way?’’
6. ‘‘How can I help?’’
As noted above, after-school and community programs
are important sources of all three strengths, but although
participation at all in such programs is common, partici-
pation in high-quality programs is not. Other analyses of
this study’s data showed that, although 68% participated in
such programs, only 35% were in high-quality programs
that emphasized the three strengths of sparks, relational
opportunities, and empowerment. Counting those who did
not participate at all, one can conclude that just 23% of the
nation’s 15 year olds participate in such high-quality pro-
grams (Scales et al. 2009). This estimate is consonant with
the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development’s finding
that only about one-third of 6th graders were in after-
school programs that emphasized the 5C’s (Balsano et al.
274 J Youth Adolescence (2011) 40:263–277
123
2009). More programs—and organizations as a whole—
could be improved by strengthening the elements of pro-
gram operation we used to define ‘‘high quality’’: the
degree to which adolescents develop warm and trusting
relationships through those programs, are involved there in
pursuing their sparks as something they are passionate
about, and have opportunities for feeling empowered
through learning teamwork or leadership skills and being
allowed to help make decisions.
Study Limitations
The limitations of the study pertain to the sampling and to
the study’s cross-sectional design. The sample was limited
to 15-year-olds, and so the findings cannot necessarily be
generalized to adolescents of other ages. The sample also
was drawn from 15-year-olds whose families were already
part of an ongoing panel that receives attention and award
incentives as inducements to enroll in the panel and par-
ticipate in various research studies. Their willingness to be
so involved, especially at a time when researchers are
noting decreasing levels of participation in recent years in
both public opinion surveys and epidemiologic studies
(Keeter et al. 2000; Morton et al. 2006), may point to a
systematic difference between such participants and the
general population. The raw sample prior to weighting also
was more highly educated than US averages, particularly
among the parents of African-American and Hispanic
youth. The sample was weighted to align with census
proportions on a number of salient demographic categories,
which partially ameliorates the bias in the raw sample
proportions, but these 15-year-olds still might not be rep-
resentative of US 15-year-olds by virtue of their willing-
ness to participate in an ongoing panel of this type.
However, if anything, that willingness to participate in
surveys, and their higher than average family education
level, may mean that these 15-year-olds were relatively
less vulnerable and more developmentally advantaged than
a truly representative sample of US 15-year-olds would
have been. If this reasoning is valid, then it actually
underscores and heightens the importance of the findings.
If only 9% of a relatively more highly educated and less
vulnerable population reported experiencing high levels of
all three strengths, the proportion of those who would say
they do in a true representative sample would likely be
even less.
The other principal limitation of this study is that the
design was cross-sectional, and so the linkage documented
between experiencing the three strengths and experiencing
positive development is based on correlational data and thus
cannot conclusively be said to be causal. However, the pat-
tern of these relationships is indeed consistent with that
found in a longitudinal study of developmental assets and
school success (Scales et al. 2006), and in more than two-
dozen longitudinal studies by other scholars that examined
the link between positive developmental constructs very
similar to these three strengths, and outcomes such as those
studied here (reviewed in Scales and Leffert 2004). The
likelihood, therefore, is considerable that these develop-
mental strengths do not merely correlate or co-vary with
positive outcomes, but actually contribute to those outcomes.
Conclusion
We found, as predicted, that the accumulation of three
broad strengths in adolescents—their sparks or deep pas-
sions, their relational opportunities, and their sense of
empowerment—are strongly associated with better aca-
demic, psychological, social, and behavioral well-being for
adolescents, and, specifically, with prosocial outcomes that
reflect engagement with and contribution to community
and society. Moreover, the three strengths generally
explain those concurrent outcomes more strongly than do
demographics such as gender, race/ethnicity, or socioeco-
nomic status.
Although more study is needed to corroborate these
cross-sectional findings, especially by employing longitu-
dinal designs, the evidence is quite promising that helping
adolescents identify their sparks, and providing them car-
ing relationships and opportunities for empowerment dur-
ing this particularly challenging time of transition in
adolescence, may be a fruitful strategy for advancing
positive youth development, and, more specifically, stim-
ulating youth contribution to society, regardless of youths’
race/ethnicity, gender, or socioeconomic status. The data
are sobering, however, in showing that only 9% of these
youth reported experiencing high levels of all three of the
developmental strengths, whereas nearly three in 10
reported high levels of none of the strengths.
These results demonstrate both the value and the
shortage of these developmental nutrients among US
15-year-olds, and the urgency of providing youth the
opportunities and relationships they need to thrive. Poli-
cies, organizations, and programs that affect youth should
be reviewed and improved to accomplish three aims sug-
gested by this study. First, increase the extent to which
individuals, organizations, and programs help adolescents
identify and then nurture their sparks. Second, heighten the
degree to which adolescents have caring, supportive rela-
tionships and opportunities to develop the talents that
interest them deeply and which spark a sense of passion
and purpose in their lives. Third, enhance adolescents’
sense of feeling empowered to participate in community
and civic life. These results suggest that the real ‘‘ROI’’—
return on investment—and benefit to improving youths’
J Youth Adolescence (2011) 40:263–277 275
123
experience of these developmental strengths will be to both
adolescents and the communities in which they live.
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Author Biographies
Peter C. Scales is Senior Fellow, Office of the President at Search
Institute, where he conducts national and international research on the
role that ‘‘developmental assets’’ play in positive child and youth
development. Author of 10 books and more than 80 articles and
chapters in peer-reviewed journals and edited books, he most recently
has led the Search Institute team and research partners from eight
countries in North America, Asia, Africa, and Europe, in creating and
conducting a new global survey of youth spiritual development
among more than 8,000 12–25 year olds. In 1988, he was awarded the
United States Administration for Children, Youth, and Families
Commissioner Award for outstanding leadership and service in the
prevention of child abuse and neglect. He has been listed in many
Who’s Who volumes, most recently, Who’s Who in America 2011.
Peter L. Benson is President and CEO of Minneapolis-based Search
Institute, and co-director for Search Institute’s Center for Spiritual
Development in Childhood and Adolescence. He has inspired and
guided more than 600 community-based initiatives in 45 states and
every Canadian province, and on six continents through his research-
based framework of the developmental assets. Dr. Benson is the
author of 15 books and more than 100 articles and chapters in
scientific journals and edited books. He was the first visiting scholar at
the William T. Grant Foundation (2001–2003) and, in 1989, received
the William James Award for Career Contributions to the Psychology
of Religion from the American Psychological Association.
Eugene C. Roehlkepartain is Vice-President of Search Institute, and
co-director of Search Institute’s Center for Spiritual Development in
Childhood and Adolescence. He has written, edited, or collaborated
on more than 30 books and reports on children, youth, and families.
Among his most recent books is The Handbook of Spiritual
Development in Childhood and Adolescence (Sage 2006), for which
he served as the lead editor. He is currently pursuing his doctorate in
Education, Curriculum, and Instruction—Family, Youth, and Com-
munity at the University of Minnesota.
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