1. Classifying adolescents' conceptions of purpose in life.
- Author
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Hill, Patrick L., Burrow, Anthony L., O'Dell, Amanda C., and Thornton, Meghan A.
- Subjects
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ANALYSIS of variance , *HAPPINESS , *HIGH school students , *LIFE , *MULTIVARIATE analysis , *PSYCHOLOGY & religion , *RESEARCH funding , *STATISTICS , *T-test (Statistics) , *DATA analysis , *THEMATIC analysis , *REPEATED measures design , *ADOLESCENCE - Abstract
Motivating youth to find a purpose in life promotes positive youth development. However, it is as yet uncertain whether adolescents think of purpose in ways similar to researchers. This study addressed this deficit by asking 229 adolescents from a Catholic and a public high school to define what it means to have a purpose in life, using a free-response format. Almost all adolescents suggested that having a purpose gives one a foundation and a direction for life, and over half mentioned that it led to increased happiness. In addition, adolescents often mentioned elements from multiple coding categories, suggesting that they hold multifaceted conceptions of purpose. In addition, definitions were marked by their similarities rather than differences across the sample. Overall, these results suggest that adolescents hold mature and complex conceptions of purpose that are in line with those presented in the existing research literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2010
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