For youth to benefit from many of the developmental opportunities provided by organized programs, they need to not only attend but become psychologically engaged in program activities. This research was aimed at formulating empirically based grounded theory on the processes through which this engagement develops. Longitudinal interviews were…

This article describes positive youth development as a process in which young people's capacity for being motivated by challenge energizes their active engagement in development. The first part of the article discusses the conditions under which this motivation is activated and considers obstacles to its activation in daily life. The second part…

As an outgrowth of the theory of flow, looks at some fine distinctions regarding the adolescent's optimal conditions for growth. Points to the importance of the adolescent's ability to reinterpret conflicts which crop up in raw experience, to overcome psychic entropy with long-term challenges or "life themes," and to find new meaning and…

Fifth through eighth graders completed self-reports in response to pager signals received over one week and again four years later. Responses indicated that thinking about the opposite sex occurs earlier than spending time with the opposite sex alone and that both increase over time. Girls spent more time with opposite sex and more time thinking…

Examined age differences in 9- to 15-year-olds' experiences with families and friends, and by themselves. Amount of time spent with family decreased with age. Affect with family became less positive through seventh grade; affect with friends became more favorable with age; affect when alone did not vary. (BC)

Maintains that knowledge of the temporal organization of adolescents' lives is valuable to the efforts of policymakers, citizens' groups, and others concerned with decreasing risk and improving developmental opportunities in adolescents' lives. Concludes that communities and families can be proactive in changing their rhythms in ways that…

Evaluates how competing philosophies have shaped American adolescents' time use, focusing on peer interaction--particularly partying, sports, and other organized youth activities. Considers implications of free time use for adolescent well-being and development. Finds that there are few or no data to support the idea that abundant unstructured…

There is very little research that directly specifies what programs can do to facilitate positive adolescent development, or how to tailor these programs to the individual needs of adolescents. However, there is a broad base of knowledge about how development occurs that can be drawn upon. Research demonstrates that certain features of the…

Used the experience sampling method to examine emotional structure of the week for adolescents in fifth to eighth grades and again four years later. Found that weekend evenings emerged in middle adolescence as the week's emotional high point, a time for enjoyable peer group and romantic activities, although the scripts for Friday and Saturday…

The functions of solitary media use in the daily emotional lives of adolescents are discussed, suggesting that solitary television watching and music listening give adolescents an opportunity to explore and cultivate a newly discovered private self. Solitary media experiences provide an important context for dealing with stress and negative…