The development of youth purpose was explored in a qualitative, cross-sequential study. Interviews about life goals and reasons for pursuing them were conducted with 146 adolescents from four age groups (6th grade, 9th grade, 12th grade, and college sophomores or juniors). Participants completed the interview twice in 2 years. Each cohort focused on different aspects of purpose: middle school youth desired to be empathic; high school youth focused on finding a role to engage their purpose; high school graduates focused on re-evaluating their priorities through transitions; and college students focused on developing pathways to support their purpose. These phases were impacted by several factors, including transitions, identity formation processes, and external supports and influences.

This article introduces civic purpose as a construct for learning about civic development in adolescence. Civic purpose, defined as a sustained intention to contribute to the world beyond the self through civic or political action, integrates the components of motivation, civic activity, and future-oriented civic intention. We present results from a mixed methods longitudinal study that used the civic purpose framework in which 1,578 high school seniors took a survey, 50 participated in an interview, and 9 additional adolescent “civic exemplars” participated in both the survey and the interview. Two years later, 480 participants took the survey again, and 34 participated in a second interview. A small percentage of the study subjects exhibited full civic purpose across three different types of civic activity (political, community service, expressive), while a larger percentage demonstrated precursory forms of civic purpose, with evidence of some but not all components of civic purpose. Key contributors to the development of civic purpose were: identity salience, beliefs and values, and invitation from one or more adults.

Prior studies have found that youth reporting a general sense that “I have a purpose” also describe having social supports that enhance thriving. This study links specific social supports to specific purposes described by youth. We examined whether developmental level, social-structural supports of gender and ethnicity, and close relationship supports of family and friends explained (a) how likely youth were to describe three dimensions of a specific purpose content (intention, engagement, and beyond-the-self reasons), and (b) how youth with specified purposes used social supports to pursue those purposes. Youth in higher grade levels were more likely to describe their future plans, activities that pursued those plans, and reasons that considered consequences to others as well as themselves. Non-White ethnicity and higher friend support also increased the likelihood of youth expressing future plans. Youth with purposes sought or created—then integrated into a tailored support network—purpose-specific benefits from their families, opportunities to engage, and institutions.

Character development in adolescence is of growing interest among psychology researchers and educators, yet there is little consensus about how character should be defined and studied among developmental scientists. In particular, there is no fully developed framework for investigating the developmental relationships among different character strengths. This study examines the developmental relations between purpose and three other key character strengths that emerge during early adolescence: gratitude, compassion, and grit. We analyzed survey (n = 1005, 50.1% female, 24.1% Caucasian, 43.6% African American, 18.9% Hispanic, 11.9% Asian American) and interview (n = 98) data from a longitudinal study of character development among middle school students from the United States. Data were collected over the course of 2 years, with surveys conducted four times at 6-month intervals and interviews conducted twice at 12-month intervals. Data analyses showed small but significant correlations between purpose and each of the other three character strengths under investigation. Interview data revealed patterns in ways that adolescents acted on their purposeful aspirations; and interview analyses identified qualitative differences in expressions of gratitude and compassion between adolescents who were fully purposeful and those who were not. The findings suggest that character development can be better understood by investigating the multidirectional developmental relationships among different character strengths.

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