An alarming number of young people are not connected productively to society in terms of education, work, and positive social supports. Typically they neither are in school nor possess a high-school degree, are not employed or affiliated with the formal labor market, lack strong connections to supportive adults and community resources, and often have been involved with the criminal justice system (Lewis & Burd-Sharps, 2015). These young people have been designated disconnected youth. Although high school graduation rates and employment rates for those between ages 16 and 24 appear to be on the rise across the nation, the number of disconnected youth is still extremely high. Nationwide, approximately 6 million 16to 24-year-olds are neither engaged in formal education nor employed (Measure of America, 2018). Unfortunately, the costs and consequences of being disconnected from society are enormous, both to individuals and to the community. It is essential for basic and applied researchers to reexamine and strengthen practices, programs, and policies within our communities that will help these youth minimize engagement in harmful behaviors and maximize their potential. In this commentary, we discuss how our respective experiences studying interventions for at-risk adolescents (Babinski et al., 2018; Blalock et al., under review; Brewster et al., 2016) highlight opportunities and challenges in the application of psychological theories of motivation to real-world settings. We view intervention and prevention research in at-risk populations as an extraordinary and yet underutilized laboratory for two-way translational studies that both validate and challenge our theories. Our question is, Do the scientific principles described in the target article (Scholer, Cornwell, & Higgins, this issue) resonate within an applied, community-based intervention setting? Among the social-cognitive processes documented as important influences on adaptive versus maladaptive behavior, self-regulation—the ongoing process in which individuals pursue personal goals and evaluate their progress toward such goals—is critical (Strauman, 2017). Particularly for adolescents, individual differences in self-regulation may influence the development of maladaptive behavior through effects on social cognition and downstream consequences such as attention to cues for reward versus threat, choices of companions, identification with role models, resisting temptation, and delay of gratification (Lockwood, Jordan, & Kunda, 2002). As we noted previously, these individual differences include both bottom-up (e.g., temperament-based) and top-down (derived from socialization) processes that interact dynamically to influence goal-setting and approach/ avoidance behavior (Strauman & Wilson, 2010). The target article offers a systematic and thoughtful review of how multiple layers of self-regulatory mechanisms operate, and we wish simply to identify here some examples of how knowledge of those mechanisms might be used in intervention and prevention research, with a particular emphasis on providing relevant knowledge to adolescents themselves. Regulatory focus theory (Higgins, 1997) draws upon the assumption that self-regulation operates differently when serving different needs. Promotion-oriented adolescents may prefer social situations that involve taking more risks, whereas prevention-oriented adolescents demonstrate a “conservative” orientation in the same kinds of situations (Lockwood et al., 2002). Regulatory focus operates as both a situational and dispositional influence on vulnerability to substance use and other maladaptive behaviors among adolescents. Individual differences in regulatory focus can influence decision-making in complex social situations (Leone, Perugini, & Bagozzi, 2005). The promotion/prevention salience of particular social situations could increase or decrease the likelihood of engaging in a particular behavior such as trying tobacco, alcohol, or marijuana or engaging in other risky behaviors (Van Ryzin, Fosco, & Dishion, 2012). In addition, regulatory focus has been found to predict the effectiveness of antismoking campaigns among adults and adolescents (Kim, 2006), suggesting the potential utility of assessing individual differences in regulatory focus within preventive interventions. For the past several years, each of us has been engaged in developing and pilot-testing preventive interventions specifically targeting adolescents at a broad range of risk for becoming disconnected. Our projects use techniques and strategies that fit squarely within the self-regulation domain, including goal-setting, metacognition, and self-efficacy. As such, we were excited to have the opportunity to share our observations about the target article in light of our ongoing experiences engaging with at-risk youth in and outside of

中文翻译：

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走上街头：高危青少年生活中的接近/回避动机


数量惊人的年轻人在教育、工作和积极的社会支持方面未能与社会建立有效的联系。通常，他们既不上学，也不拥有高中学位，没有就业或隶属于正规劳动力市场，缺乏与支持成年人和社区资源的牢固联系，并且经常涉及刑事司法系统（Lewis & Burd-夏普斯，2015）。这些年轻人被称为失联青年。尽管全国 16 岁至 24 岁人群的高中毕业率和就业率似乎都在上升，但与外界隔绝的年轻人数量仍然非常高。在全国范围内，大约有 600 万 16 至 24 岁的人既没有接受正规教育也没有工作（Measure of America，2018）。不幸的是，与社会脱节的代价和后果对于个人和社区来说都是巨大的。基础和应用研究人员必须重新审视和加强我们社区内的实践、计划和政策，以帮助这些年轻人最大限度地减少有害行为并最大限度地发挥他们的潜力。在这篇评论中，我们讨论了我们各自研究高危青少年干预措施的经验（Babinski et al., 2018; Blalock et al., under review; Brewster et al., 2016）如何强调心理学理论应用中的机遇和挑战现实世界环境的动机。我们将高危人群的干预和预防研究视为一个非凡但未得到充分利用的双向转化研究实验室，既验证又挑战我们的理论。 我们的问题是，目标文章（本期 Scholer、Cornwell 和 Higgins）中描述的科学原理是否在基于社区的应用干预环境中产生共鸣？在被记录为对适应行为与适应不良行为具有重要影响的社会认知过程中，自我调节（个体追求个人目标并评估其实现这些目标的进展的持续过程）至关重要（Strauman，2017）。特别是对于青少年来说，自我调节的个体差异可能会通过影响社会认知和下游后果来影响适应不良行为的发展，例如对奖励与威胁的线索的关注、同伴的选择、对榜样的认同、抵制诱惑和延迟行为。满足（Lockwood、Jordan 和 Kunda，2002）。正如我们之前指出的，这些个体差异包括自下而上（例如基于气质）和自上而下（源自社会化）的过程，这些过程动态相互作用以影响目标设定和接近/回避行为（Strauman＆Wilson，2010） 。目标文章对多层自律机制的运作方式进行了系统而深思熟虑的回顾，我们希望在此仅举一些例子，说明如何将这些机制的知识用于干预和预防研究，特别强调提供青少年自身的相关知识。监管焦点理论（Higgins，1997）基于这样的假设：自我监管在满足不同需求时运作方式不同。 以晋升为导向的青少年可能更喜欢承担更多风险的社交场合，而以预防为导向的青少年在同类情况下则表现出“保守”倾向（Lockwood et al., 2002）。监管重点对青少年物质使用和其他适应不良行为的脆弱性产生情境和性格影响。监管重点的个体差异可能会影响复杂社会情况下的决策（Leone、Perugini 和 Bagozzi，2005）。特定社会情境的促进/预防显着性可能会增加或减少参与特定行为的可能性，例如尝试烟草、酒精或大麻或参与其他危险行为（Van Ryzin、Fosco 和 Dishion，2012）。此外，监管重点已被发现可以预测成人和青少年反吸烟运动的有效性（Kim，2006），这表明在预防干预措施中评估监管重点的个体差异的潜在效用。在过去的几年里，我们每个人都致力于开发和试点测试预防性干预措施，专门针对处于各种脱节风险的青少年。我们的项目使用完全适合自我调节领域的技术和策略，包括目标设定、元认知和自我效能。因此，我们很高兴有机会根据我们与国内外高危青少年打交道的持续经验，分享我们对目标文章的观察。