To advance meaning in life (MIL) research, it is crucial to integrate it with the broader meaning literature, which includes important additional concepts (e.g., meaning frameworks) and principles (e.g., terror management). A tripartite view, which conceptualizes MIL as consisting of 3 subconstructs—comprehension, purpose, and mattering—may facilitate such integration. Here, we outline how a tripartite view may relate to key concepts from within MIL research (e.g.,...

Explored adolescents' beliefs that they matter to their parents. Data from 4 large-scale surveys completed by 6,568 junior and senior high school students were analyzed using the research strategy of theoretical replication. Results indicate that "parental mattering" was related to global self-esteem and that this relationship was not attributable to Ss' beliefs that their parents held positive or negative attitudes toward them. Ss' feeling that...

Previous experiments have shown that college students benefit when they understand that challenges in the transition to college are common and improvable and, thus, that early struggles need not portend a permanent lack of belonging or potential. Could such an approach—called a lay theory intervention—be effective before college matriculation? Could this strategy reduce a portion of racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic achievement gaps for entire institutions?...

The efficacy of academic-mind-set interventions has been demonstrated by small-scale, proof-of-concept interventions, generally delivered in person in one school at a time. Whether this approach could be a practical way to raise school achievement on a large scale remains unknown. We therefore delivered brief growth-mind-set and sense-of-purpose interventions through online modules to 1,594 students in 13 geographically diverse high schools. Both interventions were intended to...

Praise for ability is commonly considered to have beneficial effects on motivation. Contrary to this popular belief, six studies demonstrated that praise for intelligence had more negative consequences for students' achievement motivation than praise for effort. Fifth graders praised for intelligence were found to care more about performance goals relative to learning goals than children praised for effort. After failure, they also displayed less task...

Many clinical practitioners today are interested in helping children be more resilient. The authors briefly review the literature and identify protective factors that are related to or foster resilience in children. After discussing individual and family intervention strategies currently in use, the authors present a practical, proactive, resilience-based model that clinicians may use in a group intervention setting. The model entails interactive identification of protective...

The developmental courses of high‐risk and resilient children were analyzed in a follow‐up study of members of a 1955 birth cohort on the island of Kauai, Hawaii. Relative impact of risk and protective factors changed at various life phases, with males displaying greater vulnerability than females in their first decade and less during their second; another shift appears under way at the beginning of their...

Drawing from the foundation of positive psychology and the recently emerging positive organizational behavior, two studies (N = 1,032 and N = 232) test hypotheses on the impact that the selected positive psychological resource capacities of hope, optimism, and resilience have on desired work-related employee outcomes. These outcomes include performance (self-reported in Study 1 and organizational performance appraisals in Study 2), job satisfaction, work happiness,...

The study of resilience in development has overturned many negative assumptions and deficit-focused models about children growing up under the threat of disadvantage and adversity. The most surprising conclusion emerging from studies of these children is the ordinariness of resilience. An examination of converging findings from variable-focused and person-focused investigations of these phenomena suggests that resilience is common and that it usually arises from the...

Children who have experienced environmental adversity—such as abuse, neglect, or poverty—are more likely to develop physical and mental health problems, perform poorly at school, and have difficulties in social relationships than children who have not encountered adversity. What is less clear is how and why adverse early experiences exert such a profound influence on children’s development. Identifying developmental processes that are disrupted by adverse early...