Research about the structure of character has largely assessed purported universal attributes. However, character develops within specific social, cultural and institutional contexts. As part of the first wave of a longitudinal study (Project Arete) of character development among cadets at the United States Military Academy (USMA) at West Point,…

Intentional self-regulation (ISR) undergoes significant development across the life span. However, our understanding of ISR's development and function remains incomplete, in part because the field's conceptualization and measurement of ISR vary greatly. A key sample case involves how Baltes and colleagues' Selection, Optimization,…

This study assessed 1574 Grades 5 to 11 youth (63.6% female) from the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development (PYD), a longitudinal study involving U.S. adolescents, to assess if patterns of intentional self regulation (ISR) existed; whether these trajectories differed in relation to several Grade 5 parenting characteristics; and whether ISR…

Intentional self regulation and hopeful expectations for the future are theoretically-related constructs shown to lead to positive youth development (PYD). However, the nature of their relationship over time has not been tested. Therefore, this study explored the associations between hopeful future expectations and intentional self regulation in…

Although the positive youth development (PYD) model initially assumed inverse links between indicators of PYD and of risk/problem behaviors, empirical work in adolescence has suggested that more complex associations exist between trajectories of the two domains of functioning. To clarify the PYD model, this study assessed intraindividual change in…

Theories of positive youth development (PYD) regard such development as bases of both community contributions and lessened likelihood of risk/problem behaviors. Using data from the 4-H Study of PYD, we tested these expectations by examining if PYD in Grade 5 predicted both youth contributions and risk behaviors and depression in Grade 6. Results…

School bullying has negative implications for adolescent academic competence, making it important to explore what factors promote such competence for adolescents who bully and who are bullied. Potential contextual and individual variables linked to academic competence were examined in the context of bullying. Data were derived from the Grades 5…

To gauge the status of connections between the research literature about adolescent development and current theoretical and applied work pertinent to the concept of positive youth development (PYD), we assessed whether the adolescent development literature from 1991 to 2003 reflected a network of terms associated with PYD. A list of 16 terms…