Having a sense of purpose in life has been discussed as a psychological asset for promoting positive youth development. Yet confidence in the benefits of purpose has accumulated faster than rigorous confirmation of their existence among youth, using instruments and methods calibrated to the developmental stage of those under study. Here, the authors illuminate four problems this asymmetry creates for drawing inferences from extant research on youth purpose, namely its reliance on (1) unclear scientific criteria for distinguishing “youth” and measures that include developmentally presumptuous items, (2) single-informant and self-report methods, (3) misapplication of cross-sectional designs to test prospective or causal theories, and (4) analytic techniques insensitive to purpose content. In delineating these problems, the authors consider the extent to which the three empirical contributions included in this issue are responsive to each and may provide templates to guide future studies of youth purpose.

人们已经将生活中的目标感作为促进积极的青年发展的心理资产。然而，使用针对所研究对象的发展阶段进行校准的工具和方法，对目的的益处的信心积累要比严格确认其在青年中的存在快得多。在这里，作者阐明了这种不对称性，这是从对青年目的的现有研究得出的结论中产生的四个问题，即它依赖于（1）区分“青年”的不明确科学标准以及包括发展中的奢侈项目在内的措施，（2）单知情者和自我报告方法；（3）错误使用横截面设计来测试预期或因果理论；（4）对目标内容不敏感的分析技术。在描述这些问题时，