Treating and Preventing Adolescent Mental Health Disorders: Treating and Preventing Adolescent Mental Health Disorders

Book Title: Treating and Preventing Adolescent Mental Health Disorders > pp. [505]-[509]

UNDEFINED: AUTHORS

Treating and Preventing Adolescent Mental Health Disorders

Print ISBN 9780195173642, 2005
pp. [505]-[509]

p. 1175) proposed that “self-efficacy beliefs function as an important set of proximal determinants of human motivation, affect, and action. They operate on action through motivational, cognitive, and affective intervening processes.” Strategies associated with self-efficacy beliefs include personal goal setting, which is influenced by self-appraisal of one's capabilities (Bandura, 1986, 1993). Others have documented that the stronger the perceived self-efficacy, the higher the goals people set for themselves and the firmer their commitment to them (Locke, Frederick, Lee, & Bobko, 1984).

Nurturing a clear and positive identity.

Clear and positive identity is the internal organization of a coherent sense of self. The construct is associated with the theory of identity development emerging from studies of how children establish their identities across different social contexts, cultural groups, and genders. Identity is viewed as a “self-structure,” an internal, self-constructed, dynamic organization of drives, abilities, beliefs, and individual history, which is shaped by the child's navigation of normal crises or challenges at each stage of development (Erikson, 1968). Erikson described overlapping yet distinct stages of psychosocial development that influence a child's sense of identity throughout life, but which are especially critical in the first 20 years. If the adolescent or young adult does not achieve a healthy identity, role confusion can result. Developmental theorists assert that successful identity achievement during adolescence depends on the child's successful resolution of earlier stages.

Stages of identity development are linked to gender differences in childhood and adolescence, revealing a series of identity aspects for girls that are not strictly parallel to those of boys (Gilligan, 1982). Investigations of the positive identity development of gay and bisexual youth have become a focus for some researchers (Johnston & Bell, 1995). For youth of color, the development of positive identity and its role in healthy psychological functioning is closely linked with the development of ethnic identity (Mendelberg, 1986; Parham & Helms, 1985; Phinney, 1990, 1991; Phinney, Lochner, & Murphy, 1990; Plummer, 1995), issues of bicultural identification (Phinney & Devich-Navarro, 1997), and bicultural or cross-cultural competence (LaFromboise, Coleman, & Gerton, 1993; LaFromboise & Rowe, 1983). Some researchers have suggested that it is healthy for ethnic minority youth to be socialized to understand the multiple demands and expectations of both the majority and minority culture (Spencer, 1990; Spencer & Markstrom-Adams, 1990). This process may offer psychological protection through providing a sense of identity that captures the strengths of the ethnic culture and helps buffer experiences of racism and other risk factors (Hill, Piper, & Moberg, 1994). This may also enhance prosocial bonding to adults who can help youths to counter potential interpersonal violence in their peer groups (Wilson, 1990).

Fostering belief in the future.

Belief in the future is the internalization of hope and optimism about possible outcomes. This construct is linked to studies on long-range goal setting, belief in higher education, and beliefs that support employment or work values. “Having a future gives a teenager reasons for trying and reasons for valuing his life” (Prothrow-Stith, 1991, p. 57). Research demonstrates that positive future expectations predict better social and emotional adjustment in school and a stronger internal locus of control, while acting as a protective factor in reducing the negative effects of high stress on self-rated competence (Wyman, Cowen, Work, & Kerley, 1993).

Recognizing positive behavior.

Recognition for positive involvement is the positive response of those in the social environment to desired behaviors by youths. According to social learning theory, behavior is in large part a consequence of the reinforcement or lack of reinforcement that follows action (Akers, Krohn, Lanza-Kaduce, & Radosevich, 1979; Bandura, 1973). Reinforcement affects an individual's motivation to engage in similar behavior in the future. Social reinforcers have major effects on behavior. These social reinforcers can come from the peer group, family, school, or community.

Providing opportunities for prosocial involvement.

Opportunity for prosocial involvement is the presentation of events and activities across different social environments that encourage youths to participate in prosocial actions. The provision of prosocial opportunities in the nonschool hours

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has been the focus of much discussion and study (Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development, 1992; Pittman, 1991). For a child to acquire key interpersonal skills in early development, positive opportunities for interaction and participation must be available (Hawkins, Catalano, Jones, & Fine, 1987; Patterson, Chamberlain, & Reid, 1982; Pentz et al., 1989). In adolescence, it is especially important that youth have the opportunity for interaction with positively oriented peers and for involvement in roles in which they can make a contribution to the group, whether family, school, neighborhood, peer group, or larger community (Dryfoos, 1990).

Establishing prosocial norms.

Social institutions that foster prosocial norms seek to encourage youth to adopt healthy beliefs and clear standards for behavior through a range of approaches. These may include providing youth with data about the small numbers of people their age who use illegal drugs, so that they decide that they do not need to use drugs to be normal; encouraging youth to make explicit commitments in the presence of peers or mentors not to use drugs or to skip school; involving older youth in communicating healthy standards for behavior to younger children; or encouraging youth to identify personal goals and set standards for themselves that will help them achieve these goals (Hawkins, Catalano, & Miller, 1992; Hawkins, Catalano, Morrison, O'Donnell, Abbott, & Day, 1992).

WHAT IS POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY?

The field of positive psychology was christened in 1998 as one of the initiatives of Martin Seligman in his role as President of the American Psychological Association (Seligman, 1998, 1999). The trigger for positive psychology was the premise that psychology since World War II has focused much of its efforts on human problems and how to remedy them. The yield of this focus on pathology has been considerable. Great strides have been made in understanding, treating, and preventing psychological disorders. Widely accepted classification manuals—the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) sponsored by the American Psychiatric Association (1994) and the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) sponsored by the World Health Organization (1990)—allow disorders to be described and have given rise to a family of reliable assessment strategies. There now exist effective treatments, psychological and pharmacological, for more than a dozen disorders that in the recent past were frighteningly intractable (Barrett & Ollendick, 2004; Hibbs & Jensen, 1996; Kazdin & Weisz, 2003; Nathan & Gorman, 1998, 2002; Seligman, 1994).

But there has been a cost to this emphasis. Much of scientific psychology has neglected the study of what can go right with people and often has little more to say about the good life than do pop psychologists, inspirational speakers, and armchair gurus. More subtly, the underlying assumptions of psychology have shifted to embrace a disease model of human nature. Human beings are seen as flawed and fragile, casualties of cruel environments or bad genetics, and if not in denial then at best in recovery. This worldview has crept into the common culture of the United States. We have become a nation of self-identified victims, and our heroes and heroines are called survivors and nothing more.

Positive psychology proposes that it is time to correct this imbalance and to challenge the pervasive assumptions of the disease model (Maddux, 2002). Proponents of positive psychology call for as much focus on strength as on weakness, as much interest in building the best things in life as in repairing the worst, and as much attention to fulfilling the lives of healthy people as to healing the wounds of the distressed (Seligman, 2002; Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). The concern of psychology with human problems is of course understandable. It will not and should not be abandoned; people experience difficulties that demand and deserve scientifically informed solutions. Positive psychologists are merely saying that the psychology of the past 60 years is incomplete. But as simple as this proposal sounds, it demands a sea change in perspective. Psychologists interested in promoting human potential need to start with different assumptions and to pose different questions from their peers who assume only a disease model.

The most basic assumption that positive psy

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chology urges is that human goodness and excellence are as authentic as disease, disorder, and distress. Positive psychologists are adamant that these topics not be secondary, derivative, illusory, epiphenomenal, or otherwise suspect. The good news for positive psychology is that our generalizations about business-as-usual psychology over the past 60 years are simply that—generalizations. As already noted, there are many good examples of psychological research, past and present, that can be claimed as positive psychology.

Positive psychologists do not claim to have invented notions of happiness and well-being, or even to have ushered in their scientific study. Rather, the contribution of positive psychology has been to provide an umbrella term for what have been isolated lines of theory and research and to make the self-conscious argument that what makes life worth living deserves its own field of inquiry within psychology, at least until that day when all of psychology embraces the study of what is good along with the study of what is bad.

Within the framework of positive psychology (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000) one can find a comprehensive scheme for understanding and promoting positive youth development. Research and practice efforts should include the domains identified by positive psychology as critical in thriving. We can parse the concerns of positive psychology into three related topics: the study of positive subjective experiences (happiness, pleasure, gratification, fulfillment), the study of positive individual traits (strengths of character, talents, interests, values), and the study of enabling institutions (families, schools, businesses, communities, societies). A theory is implied here: Enabling institutions facilitate the development and display of positive traits, which in turn facilitate positive subjective experiences (Park & Peterson, 2003).

The term facilitate deliberately avoids strict causal language. It is possible for people to be happy or content even in the absence of good character, and people can have good character even when living outside the realm of enabling institutions. The example of apartheid's demise in South Africa shows that citizens can do the right thing even in the face of historical prece dent. The example of whistleblowers shows that employees do not always conform with workplace norms. And the example of excellent students from underfunded school districts shows that intellectual curiosity is not always stamped out by educational mediocrity.

But matters are simpler when institutions, traits, and experiences are in alignment (cf. Gardner, Csikszentmihalyi, & Damon, 2001). Indeed, doing well in life probably represents a coming together of these three domains and demonstrates why positive psychology and positive youth development programs are potentially good partners.

Psychologists have only recently devoted their full attention to the conceptualization and measurement of core positive psychology constructs such as life satisfaction and strength of character. And even more recent is the examination of these constructs among young people. Regardless, we believe that these are important. They contribute to a variety of positive outcomes and at the same time work as a buffer against a variety of negative outcomes, including psychological disorders. Life satisfaction and character strengths serve not only as key indicators of positive youth development but also as broad enabling factors in the promotion and maintenance of optimal mental health among youth. The task in applying these notions to the field of youth development is to understand how they confer benefits and, ultimately, how they can be deliberately encouraged.

YOUTH DEVELOPMENT FROM THE POSITIVE PERSPECTIVE

Despite its initially radical notions about young people, the positive youth development perspective has become so widely endorsed, at least in the abstract, that the label is sometimes used to describe any and all programs that involve young people. The result is that the self-identified positive youth development field is sprawling. In an overview of the youth development field, Benson and Saito (2000, p. 136) went so far as to conclude that “if one commissioned 10 writers to compose reviews of what we know about youth development, 10 very differ

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ent papers would emerge. Perhaps a few studies and a few names would be constant. Ultimately, the overlap in references cited would be minimal.” We are not as dismayed about the coherence of the youth development field as these authors, but we do agree with their conclusion that “the conceptual terrain is murky” (p. 136).

In the contemporary United States alone, the vast majority of the 30+ million adolescents participate in one or more programs or organizations with other young people: middle school, high school, church groups, mentoring programs, Little League baseball, the Boy Scouts of America, and other after-school programs. Many of these programs have adopted “positive” language to frame their goals and rationales. But we stop short of calling all of these programs positive in their actual stance toward youth. Consider, for example, juvenile boot camp programs that try to scare children “straight” (Tyler, Darville, & Stalnaker, 2001). And we certainly refrain from saying that all of these programs succeed; otherwise 99+% of our young people would be doing extremely well.

Part of the human condition, in the contemporary United States as well as elsewhere, is the embeddedness of individuals in multiple social systems—some that encourage thriving and some that do not. A close and analytic look is needed, not just at existing outcome evidence but also at the actual programs in which young people participate and the active ingredients in those programs that work (Larson, 2000). Positive psychology provides a way to think about the goals of positive youth development and how they are achieved. If we are trying to develop young people, just what is our destination, and how will we know that we have arrived—that positive development has indeed occurred?

Everyday people may equate happiness with momentary positive affect, but positive psychology proposes that “authentic” happiness is a broad concept that includes three distinct orientations to life (Seligman, 2002). First is the pursuit of pleasure, the venerable doctrine of hedonism and the underpinning of psychoanalysis and all but the most radical of the behaviorisms. We may not want our children to become hedonists or epicureans, but we certainly want them to be full of cheer, free of worry, and content with the choices they have made. Second is the pursuit of engagement, involvement and absorption in activities that produce the state of flow. We want our children to find activities at school, at play, and eventually at work in which they can lose themselves. Third is the pursuit of meaning in which one attempts to connect with external factors or forces larger than the self by embracing social responsibility or experiencing the immaterial and transcendent. We want our children to make a life that matters to the world and creates a difference for the better.

The vision of the thriving youth that emerges here is a young person who experiences more positive affect than negative affect, who is satisfied with his or her life as it has been lived, who has identified what he or she does well and uses these talents and strengths in a variety of fulfilling pursuits; and who is a contributing member of a social community. And, of course, safety and health are importantly in place as the context of this vision. From the perspective of positive psychology, a positive youth development program is one that effectively targets one or more of these facets. It is worth noting that business-as-usual clinical psychology and psychiatry have been concerned with but one of these features: the reduction of negative affect (i.e., depression and anxiety).

As explained already, youth development proponents have also addressed the vision of a healthy child, and their lists of desirable attributes overlap considerably with what we have just specified:

•	Benson (1997) proposed a number of developmental assets (discussed earlier).
•	Also popular are the alliterative five Cs: caring, competence, character, connection, and confidence (cf. Roth & Brooks-Gunn, 2003).
•	The National Research Council Committee on Community-based Programs for Youth similarly proposed that positive youth possess good health habits; knowledge of life skills; emotional self-regulation; optimism; prosocial values; spirituality or a sense of purpose; trusting relationships with peers, parents, and other adults; attachment to positive institutions; and commitment to

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	civic engagement (Eccles & Gootman, 2002).
•	Weissberg and O'Brien (2004) described positive youth in terms of core social and emotional competencies: self-awareness, social awareness, emotional self-management, relationship skills, and responsible decision making.
•	Finally, as described in detail, Catalano et al. (2004) pointed to such features as attachment and commitment to social relationships in the family, peer group, school, community, or culture; resiliency; competence (social, emotional, cognitive, behavioral, and moral); self-determination; spirituality; clear and positive identity; optimism; opportunities for involvement; recognition for positive behavior; and prosocial norms.

These different visions of thriving by a young person overlap substantially. Taken together, they currently guide the development of comprehensive ways to measure their components. Both positive youth development (e.g., Arthur, Hawkins, Pollard, Catalano, & Baglioni, 2002; Moore, Lippman, & Brown, 2004) and positive psychology (e.g., Lopez & Snyder, 2003; Ong & van Dulmen, 2005; Peterson & Seligman, 2004) provide useful research tools. These measures and indices allow important matters to be addressed that are unanswerable if our only vision is a list of unsorted desiderata. For example:

•	How are positive characteristics distributed in the population of young people?
•	How do various positive characteristics covary?
•	Are some positive characteristics primary and others derivative?
•	Are some more crucial than others in predicting the presence of good outcomes or the absence of bad outcomes?
•	Are there levels of positive characteristics that are “good enough” as judged by the individual or society in terms of what they produce, or is more always better?
•	Which positive characteristics are the easiest to nurture, and which are the most difficult?
•	Are there critical, or at least optimal, periods for the cultivation of positive characteristics?
•	What sorts of competencies—intellectual, behavioral, emotional, social, and moral—need to be in place for other positive characteristics to be nurtured?
•	What sorts of settings lend themselves to the development of positive characteristics, and what sorts of settings hinder them?
•	How do positive characteristics interact with risk factors?
•	What is the relative strength of positive characteristics compared to risk factors in promoting healthy outcomes and preventing adverse ones?

In sum, the availability of reliable and valid research instruments draws our attention to mechanisms and pathways by which optimal development occurs. Interventions that do less than throw the proverbial kitchen sink at youth then become possible (Linley & Joseph, 2004).

If we are successful in merging positive youth development and positive psychology, the initial stages may be awkward. Positive psychology is a new perspective within academic psychology. Positive youth development is a more established subject matter embraced by multiple disciplines. The integration of these approaches will result from deliberation, negotiation, and tradeoffs.

Positive psychologists will need to “get real” about the fuzzy world in which youth live and to do more than bracket social institutions for study by other disciplines (Nicholson, Collins, & Holmer, 2004). Positive psychologists must do more than generalize downward to adolescents from empirical studies of young adults in introductory psychology subject pools (cf. Hawkins, Catalano, Kosterman, Abbott, & Hill, 1999). Positive youth development practitioners in contrast must become more comfortable with the notion of individual agency and take their own rhetoric seriously that young people are indeed resourceful and resilient (Larson, 2000). Some youth development proponents seem to have an ambivalent relation with the notion of personality traits and especially character, perhaps because of its implication that youth would be okay if they only learned to say no.

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doi:10.1093/9780195173642.003.0027