r. Richard Lerner likes to joke that when he started working in the field of youth development, he was still young himself. That may be true, but the man who holds Bergstrom Chair in Applied Developmental Science at Tufts University has traded his youth for a leadership position in the field of developmental psychology. Dr. Lerner has received numerous awards, including the New England Psychological Association (NEPA) Distinguished Scholar Award in 2002. A prolific author in his chosen field, he is also the founding editor of the Journal of Research on Adolescence and of Applied Developmental Science. Like many of the thinkers and scientists drawn to work with the Foundation, Professor Lerner was interested in branching out and creating a new field of study in an already established discipline.

“There is almost a studied aversion to including ideas of spirituality and religiosity as important components of youth development,” says Lerner. “Think about that for a second. There is no human characteristic we can specify, other than spirituality and religiosity, that defines a human as human: language exists in other species, personality, temperament, motivation, learning, intelligence, all exist in other species. What makes us human? It’s the fact that we’re the only species that have characteristics of spirituality and religiosity.”

Lerner’s ambition for the project is to further the study of spirituality in youth by performing high quality science that will serve as the underpinning for a new field called Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence. Lerner hopes to create a methodology for measuring spiritual development, much in the same way IQ and personality are used as standard tools to understand adolescent development. “If you called any psychology department around and said, ‘Is the study of personality development in childhood and adolescence important?’ They would say, ‘Of course.’ If you said, ‘Is the study of intelligence in childhood and adolescence important?’ They would say ‘Yes, of course.’ If you said to them, ‘Is a study of spiritual development in childhood and adolescence important?’ Most would say, ‘We don’t know what you’re talking about,’” says Lerner. “That’s what we want to change.”

With the support of a new Foundation grant of $1.5 million, Lerner and his Tufts University colleague Robert Roeser have begun a three-year, cross-sectional study called “The Role of Spiritual Development in Growth of Purpose, Generosity and Psychological Health in Adolescence.” Lerner and his colleagues intend for their work to be both “field building” and “field defining.” To accomplish this, they will develop state-of-the-art measures to assess the nature of spiritual growth and psychological health, generosity and purpose across the adolescent years. They also plan a pilot research study.

Lerner and Roeser are confident they can study something as unobservable as spirituality and as ever changing as adolescence. “Social science has made a career out of studying intangible things. Have you ever seen a personality walking down the street? Or self-esteem? Or depression? No. We look for ways of measuring through behavior, through observations, through questionnaires, through interviews things that we can’t directly see, but can infer because of our theory of what those indicators relate to,” says Lerner.

In fact, adolescence can often provide a unique window to explore questions of spirituality. “Adolescence is a time when young people are actively engaging with their inner lives and asking questions that are at the heart of what spirituality is about,” says Roeser. “Who am I? What is the purpose of my life? What should I be doing with it?”

Although America’s adolescence is often misrepresented in the media as confused, or in constant conflict, Lerner and Roeser are starting from a different perspective. “We believe young people have a drive—because of the changes they are undergoing—to really understand who they are, what their world is and how they make a match between themselves and the world,” says Lerner. “What young people really want to figure out are ways of creating a sense of significance for themselves. A sense that they can contribute to the world. That’s what we mean by spirituality, a sense of transcendence, of going beyond the self.”

After completing the pilot study, Lerner intends to leverage the research results to do a national longitudinal study that traces a cohort of young people’s spiritual development across the second decade of their lives. “This is a very ambitious project and we’re grateful for the opportunity to both, do this study, and to contribute to the building of a field. Robert and I are both scientists who believe that science and application are part of the same fabric,” says Lerner.

Where does Lerner see the field of Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence in the future? “Ten years from now people will be getting a doctorate in this field, just like personality psychology or psychotherapy. I also want to see a change in the way America discusses all the positive contributions that healthy spiritual development can have in the life of a young person. I also want to impact the conversation nationally, on television, in newspapers and magazines. And in the livingrooms and kitchens of America. And I want to develop tools parents, teachers and practitioners working with youth can use to nurture healthy spiritual development in young people.” With that the author of more than 50 books and 400 scholarly articles pauses. “I just hope I live long enough to see it!”

Click here for a list of the Spiritual Development Advisory Board Members .

ase.tufts.edu/iaryd/