Transpersonal Commitments in Adolescence

Abstract

An expressed desire for commitment beyond self of 1094 adolescents, aged 14-15, from three cultures-Israeli-Moslem-Arab, Israeli Jewish, and American Christian-was examined for its relationship to the nature and intensity of positive experiences, personality traits, and culture. Commitment beyond self (transpersonal commitment) was assessed by means of a Life Aspiration Questionnaire designed for this study. Landsman's Positive Experience Questionnaire (1966), and Cattell's High School Personalitity Questionnaire (1975) were also employed. The major hypothesis was that there will exist a relationship between adolescents' readiness Author's Note: The author wishes to express her gratitude to Professor Ted Landsman of the University of Florida, and to Professors R. Shapira and A. Ziv of Tel-Aviv University for their inspiration and guidance throughout her research. for commitment, their personal attributes, and the nature and intensity of their experiences, beyond cultural differences. The findings show first that adolescents' desire for commitment beyond self was totally unaffected by their cultural background, and second, that adolescents in all cultures who reported positive experiences of high intensity expressed the greatest desire for such commitment.

Adolescents from disadvantaged neighborhoods: Personal characteristics as related to volunteer involvement

“…An additional direction of research has examined the phenomenon of such willingness as related to personality The authors would like to thank Dee B. Ankonina for her editorial assistance. traits, higher self-image, greater sense of competence, and the ability for more intense positive experiences (Bar-Tal & Raviv, 1982;Eisenberg & Miller, 1987;Isen, Shalker, Clark & Karp, 1978;Magen, 1983bMagen, , 1985. Major findings have supported the link between a person's ability to experience life to its fullest and his or her willingness to be devoted to causes beyond self.…”

“…As active participation in community involvement has been shown to be related to a higher intensity of positive experiences among various adolescent samples (Magen, 1983a;1983b;Magen & Aharoni, 1991), the current study addressed the question of whether adolescents involved in a continual, long-term commitment to helping others would experience positive events more intensely than their nonvolunteer peers.…”

Wild epiphany: Turning youth care inside out.

“…Wild Epiphany 26 Hoffman's (1998) supposition that children and youth are as equally capable as adults of having peak experiences supports Magen's (1983) claim that some children and youth purposefully structure their lives in order to experience situations that could be considered epiphanal. Magen (1983) states, "...adolescents with high intensity experiences expressed significantly more than others, a desire for transpersonal commitment.…”

“…Peak experience phenomena have been predominantly studied within adult populations and researchers (Hoffman, 1998;Hoffman & Muramoto, 2007;Magen, 1983) suggest that children and youth are as capable of experiencing the phenomena, and in a similar manner, as adults. Hoffman (1998) has delineated a typology of nine distinct categories of childhood epiphany, or peak experience.…”

“…Magen (1983) states, "...adolescents with high intensity experiences expressed significantly more than others, a desire for transpersonal commitment. The higher the intensity of the positive experiences, the higher the readiness to be devoted to a purpose beyond self (p. 107).…”