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A neuropsychological exploration of low-SES adolescents’ life goals and their motives

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A NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLORATION OF
LOW-SES ADOLESCENTS’ LIFE GOALS AND THEIR MOTIVES.
by
Rodrigo Andres Riveros Miranda

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(PSYCHOLOGY)

August 2020

Copyright 2020 Rodrigo Andres Riveros Miranda

ii
Acknowledgments
My heartfelt gratitude goes to Dr. Mary Helen Immordino-Yang for welcoming me to the
Brain and Creativity Institute (BCI), the USC Rossier Center for Affective Neuroscience,
Development, Learning and Education (CANDLE), and the USC Department of Psychology.
Since our very first videoconferences, Mary Helen’s supporting guidance has expanded the ways
in which I think about the brain, psychology, and culture.
I would like to specially thank Drs. Antoine Bechara, Erika Patall, and John Monterosso
for their suggestions and comments to this research. Their kind support helped me focus on what
is most important.
All members of the BCI and CANDLE became my intellectual community and home.
Practitioners and participants from Sages and Seekers showed me the arts of community-based
work and the pleasures of conversing. For that and more, thank you all.
Thanks to Segundo, Magdalena, Cony, Joaquín, and my growing extended family, who
showed me that a loving and supporting home is the fabric that makes life meaningful.
My final thanks go to Claudia and Eloisa, omnipresent companions in this journey.
Claudia, the love of my life, showed me that as a family we could do anything. Eloisa, for her
eagerness to explore, play, learn, and destroy (in that particular order).

iii
List of Tables
Table 1. Mean and standard deviation for participants’ measures……………………… 22
Table 2.
Correlations between formulated life goals and cognitive, psychosocial and
educational measures…………………………………………………………..
23
Table 3. Participants’ demographic information………………………………………... 40
Table 4. Adolescents’ initial scores and changes pre to post-testing by condition…....... 45
Table 5. Correlation of adolescents’ scores at pre-testing……………………………… 46
Table 6
Counts of adolescents’ qualitatively coded responses about sense of civic
participation……………………………………………………………............
50
Table 7. Older adults’ initial scores and changes pre to post-testing by condition…....... 51
Table 8. Correlation of older adults’ scores at pre-testing……………………………… 51
Table 9. Mean and standard deviation for participants’ measures……………………… 71
Table 10.
Voxel clusters whose intrinsic connectivity correlated with mentions of
adolescents’ values-based life goals……………………………………….......
71

iv
List of Figures
Figure 1. Histogram distribution for adolescents’ life goals……………………………. 22
Figure 2.
Scatter plot for significant correlations between adolescents’ life goals and
cultural orientation…………………………………………………………….
24
Figure 3.
Scatter plot for significant correlations between adolescents’ life goals and
vertical collectivism…………………………………………………………...
24
Figure 4.
Scatter plot for significant correlations between adolescents’ life goals, and
academic mindsets and learning strategies……………………………………
26
Figure 5.
Changes in adolescents’ social connectedness as a function of initial score by
condition………………………………………………………………………
47
Figure 6.
Changes in adolescents’ psychological wellbeing as a function of initial
score by condition……………………………………………………………..
48
Figure 7.
Changes in adolescents’ purpose in life as a function of initial score by
condition………………………………………………………………………
49
Figure 8.
Increases in adolescents’ purpose in life after the storytelling intervention are
mediated by increases in adolescents’ values-based life goals………………..
50
Figure 9.
Changes in older adults’ generativity as a function of initial score by
condition……………………………………………………………………...
52
Figure 10.
Changes in older adults’ working memory as a function of initial score by
condition……………………………………………………………………...
53
Figure 11. BGN template (A) and participants’ selected BGN component (B).……........ 69
Figure 12.
Intrinsic functional connectivity in the BGN component to the precuneus (A)
and right insula (B) correlated with mentions of values-based life goals....…..
72

v
Abstract
Adolescents build all sorts of life goals in preparation for adulthood. Some goals help
adolescents deal effectively with the here-and-now, and manage concrete tasks that are necessary
to successfully navigate daily life and school. But other goals are more abstract, values-based.
These values-based goals help adolescents transcend the here-and-now to envision the kind of
adult they would like to be, and the kind of relationships and future they would like to have.
Differentiating between these two sorts of goals and supporting the development of the abstract
reasoning that undergirds values-based life goals is an important task of developmental science
and education.
The ability to reason abstractly and to build identity around life goals is important for
adolescents’ healthy psychosocial development and transition to adulthood. Adolescents struggle
in forming values-based life goals, and newly developing capacities to engage in values-based
reasoning are likely associated with newly developing patterns of neural connectivity. This is
especially important for low-SES adolescents from minoritized ethnic backgrounds, as they often
lack access to instrumental and institutionalized social support from mentors and other adults
who can support them in envisioning and pursuing their goals.
In a series of three studies working with a community sample of well-adjusted, urban,
low-SES adolescents in their late teen years, I integrate psychosocial theories with
neurocognitive models to conduct lab-based and intervention studies focused on youths’ life
goals. In the first study, I use qualitative content-coding of participants’ freely described life
goals and standardized measures of cognitive and psychosocial development to show that
adolescents who form more values-based life goals more strongly endorse beliefs and mindsets
that facilitate school learning, cultural affiliation, and social interconnectedness. In study 2, I
vi
apply the qualitative coding scheme created in Study 1 to focus on the influence of social support
in forming values-based life goals using an 8-week intergenerational storytelling intervention
conducted in community settings. The program supports adolescents and older adults from their
communities in building positive social relationships and constructing life narratives. Compared
to youth who participated in an intergenerational movie-watching control activity, those who
completed the program increased their social connectedness, wellbeing, and purpose in life.
Importantly, the increases in adolescents’ purpose in life were mediated by their developing
tendencies to formulate values-based life and community goals. Notably, the older adult
participants also benefitted, improving their working memory and their generativity. The study
provides proof of concept that inexpensive intergenerational community-based programs, when
done well, can promote adolescents’ healthy psychosocial development, while also contributing
to the wellbeing of elderly community members.
In study 3, I show that adolescents’ tendencies to describe values-based goals in a
supportive laboratory interview are associated with functional connectivity in the brain at rest
between subcortical networks involved in motivation and reward, and cortical regions involved
in processing of values, self, and emotions. These results hold after controlling for IQ and SES.
The findings support the notion that adolescents’ developing abilities to decrease the salience of
hedonistic and immediate rewards, and increase processing of internally directed values-based
and abstract cognition, undergird patterns of healthy psychosocial development.
These studies examine how adolescents reason about values-based life goals, how this
reasoning can be supported through social intervention, and how this reasoning is associated with
neural maturation. Taken together, these three studies provide a more nuanced understanding of
vii
adolescents’ development of capacities for thinking about values-based life goals, a skill that is
important for a healthy and fulfilling adulthood.
Keywords: adolescence, life goals, social support, basal ganglia, default mode network
viii
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements ……………………………………………………………………..... ii
List of Tables ……………………………………………………………………………... iii
List of Figures ……………………………………………………………………………. iv
Abstract …………………………………………………………………………………... v
Introduction..……………………………………………………........................................ 1
Research questions ……………………………………………………………….. 5
Chapter 1. The psychosocial correlates of values-based life goals in low-SES
adolescents………………………………………………….……………………………..
7
Abstract …………………………………………………………………………... 7
Introduction ………………………………………………………………………. 8
Methods ………………………………………………………………………....... 17
Results ………………………………………………………………………......... 21
Discussion ………………………………………………………………………... 26
Chapter 2. Values-based life goals in intergenerational conversations increase purpose in
life in low-SES adolescents ………………………………………………….....................
33
Abstract …………………………………………………………………………... 33
Introduction ………………………………………………………………………. 34
Methods ………………………………………………………………………....... 38
Results ………………………………………………………………………......... 45
Discussion ………………………………………………………………………... 53
Chapter 3. Cortico-subcortical intrinsic functional connectivity predicts low SES-
adolescents’ values-based life goals ………………………………………………………
58
Abstract …………………………………………………………………………... 58
Introduction ………………………………………………………………………. 59
Methods ………………………………………………………………………....... 65
ix
Results ………………………………………………………………………......... 70
Discussion ………………………………………………………………………... 72
Conclusions....…….………………………………………………………………………. 77
Bibliography …………………………………………………………………………........ 81
1
Introduction
Life goals are future states that adolescents work to obtain, maintain and avoid (Emmons,
Colby, & Kaiser, 1998). These visionary goals influence decision-making in the short-term and
form a basis for youths’ values, sense of purpose, and identity that can sustain them into
adulthood. The motives or reasoning undergirding adolescents’ life goals (Fiske, 2004), guide
adolescents’ efforts toward building a successful and fulfilling adult life and relationships
(Burrow & Hill, 2011; Kryza-Lacombe, Tanzini, & O’Neill, 2019; Lee & Vondracek, 2014).
The study of adolescents’ life goals and their motives is an urgent need today. National
surveys point out that adolescents show all-time high rates of depression and anxiety (Mojtabai,
Olfson, & Han, 2016), and report higher rates of loneliness and social disconnection compared to
other age groups (Twenge, Spitzberg, & Campbell, 2019). Pursuing life goals counters these
disturbing trends, as it is associated with greater wellbeing along with other desirable health
indicators (Schaefer et al., 2013). Youths with articulated life goals have lower likelihood of
mortality and less engagement in risky behaviors, higher educational achievement and economic
attainment, and become more civically active as adults (Hill & Turiano, 2014; Hill, Turiano,
Mroczek, & Burrow, 2016; Lee, McInerney, Liem, & Ortiga, 2010; McCabe & Barnett, 2000;
Oyserman, Bybee, & Terry, 2006).
Although all adolescents struggle when formulating life goals, youths experiencing
poverty and from minoritized groups are the ones that most lack social support, including
support around building a vision for their future (Alim et al., 2008; Garcia, 2014). Compared to
adolescents who have well thought-through goals for their futures, adolescents who do not hold
or hold fewer life goals tend to have higher rates of school drop out, psychopathology, risky
behaviors, and incarceration (Aloise-Young, Hennigan, & Leong, 2001; Roepke & Seligman,
2
2016; Waisberg & Porter, 1994). The lack of social support around building life goals threatens
adolescents’ healthy development and the cultivation of their communities’ social capital,
compromising adolescents’ future economic and social participation (Eccles, Wigfield, &
Schiefele, 1998; Zarrett & Eccles, 2006).
Psychosocial research on adolescents’ life goals has been mainly focused on the extent to
which youths hold, adhere to and achieve specific life goals (Massey, Gebhardt, & Garnefski,
2008). Sadly, due to this emphasis, the reasoning underlying adolescents’ life goals has been
relatively neglected. Studying the quality of adolescents’ reasoning about their life goals can
provide novel insights into healthy development that goes beyond merely assessing their
commitment to achieving specific goals (Soenens, Berzonsky, Dunkel, Papini, & Vansteenkiste,
2011). Given this, this dissertation focuses on adolescents’ life goals and in particular on the
personal ways in which adolescents feel and think about their future aspirations. A premise of the
work is that it is not what goals adolescents hold that is most important for their development,
but how they have come to decide upon and understand their goals (Erikson, 1968).
Though adolescents think in many ways about their goals, their thinking can be
understood as either values-based or concrete. Values-based life goals involve intentions that are
intrinsically meaningful or that seek to positively transform the lives of others (Damon, Menon,
& Bronk, 2003). Adolescents describe these goals as being driven by core ethical and prosocial
motives that align with facets of their identities (Bronk, 2012; Liberman & Trope, 2008; Soenens
et al., 2011). Such ethical and prosocial motives are abstract (Talevich, Read, Walsh, Iyer, &
Chopra, 2017). By contrast, concrete life goals involve extrinsic intentions that adolescents
describe as driven by hedonic and pragmatic motives (Damon et al., 2003; Liberman & Trope,
2008; Vallacher & Wegner, 1987). Though current research has documented adolescents’ need
3
to construct and pursue goals, research on the reasoning behind adolescents’ goal formation, and
in particular on the extent to which their reasoning is grounded in the building of personal
values, is needed.
In this dissertation there is a special emphasis on values-based life goals. Although
concrete life goals are important for managing daily tasks, many of adolescents’ daily tasks are
related to long-term outcomes, such as education, career, and finances, or are identity-relevant,
explaining what type of person youths would like to become as an adult. Holding only concrete
goals can make long-term outcomes feel disconnected from youths’ current activities (Oyserman
et al., 2006). Over emphasis on concrete goals also can come at a cost to wellbeing, as these
goals motivate young people to rigidly adhere to specific external demands and limit youths’
flexibility in changing circumstances (Soenens et al., 2011). In order to overcome this problem
and adopt a longer-term and more resilient view, adolescents also need to think about their life
goals abstractly, centered on core personal values (Damon, 2008; Ryan & Deci, 2000).
Adolescents who formulate more intrinsic, values-based life goals report experiencing greater
wellbeing and less risky behaviors (Lekes, Gingras, Philippe, Koestner, & Fang, 2010), while the
opposite associations have been found in adolescents that hold more extrinsic, concrete life goals
(Schmuck, 2001; Williams, Hedberg, Cox, & Deci, 2000). Forming values-based life goals
supports adolescents’ meaning making and enriches their identity (Damon, 2008). Working with
community samples of urban low-socioeconomic status (SES) youth, this dissertation explores
how adolescents’ life goals reflect their newly emerging abilities to think not only concretely but
also abstractly about the values, beliefs and prosocial motives that will guide their life trajectory.
Despite the importance of values-based life goals, adolescents’ abstract reasoning about
goals, and their development of abilities to construct values-based goals, has been little explored.
4
Adults can identify the type of construal needed in a situation, concrete or abstract, and then
instantiate that mindset in order to motivate their behavior accordingly (Fessel, 2011; Katz &
Byrne, 2019; Lee & Ybarra, 2017). Since abstract thinking abilities undergo substantial
development during adolescence (Dumontheil, 2014), youths require social support to recognize
the importance of values-based goals, and to learn to construct and elaborate such goals.
In adolescence, as social interactions grow in complexity and the young person’s social
sphere widens, youths search to assert their autonomy from their family and to define their life
goals and identity in relation to broader possibilities (Coleman & Hendry, 1990; Lerner &
Steinberg, 2004; Steinberg, 2005). Social support is sought in other adults outside the immediate
family, such as teachers, youth leaders, and mentors (Damon, 2008). The social support that
adolescents receive influences goal pursuit by providing instrumental and emotional resources
(Cohen & Janicki-Deverts, 2009; Oyserman & Destin, 2010) that help young people to build
meaning around the broader and abiding implications of their goals (Damon, 2008).
The building of life goals can be more richly understood by examining adolescents’
reasoning about goals together with their brain functioning. The formulation of goals relies in
interconnected cognitive and affective neural processes (Bechara & Damasio, 2005; Immordino-
Yang, McColl, Damasio, & Damasio, 2009), many of which have evolved to serve social
processes and human survival (Damasio, 2005). Adolescents’ abilities to think about their goals
in increasingly nuanced and abstract ways relies on the maturation of cortico-subcortical circuits
involved in cognitive and affective elaboration of motivational drives. The integrity of functional
connections between cortical and subcortical regions is likely related to adolescents’ reasoning
about goals, though these relations have not, to my knowledge, been demonstrated.
5
Of note, this dissertation is interdisciplinary, integrating psychosocial theories of life
goals with neurocognitive models of motivated behavior. In both fields the term value(s) can be
found, but the two fields use this term with somewhat different meaning. In this dissertation, I
use the term values, as in values-based life goals, to refer to the core beliefs and principles that
an adolescent holds. This is distinct from the standard neuroscientific use, which references the
finely graded computation of utility and hedonic quality.
Though bringing a neuroscientific and psychosocial approach to adolescents’ building of
values is novel, the work builds on contributions of each field that have been conducted
independently. Neuroscience has uncovered developmental mechanisms of motivation, goal
pursuit and abstract thinking, while psychosocial research has explicated the roles goals play in
youths’ lives. As for limitations, both fields have studied these topics using a pre-defined set of
goals and rewards set by the experimenters (Massey et al., 2008), and have mainly used
undergraduate upper-middle class young adults as their samples (Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan,
2010). Both have also focused more heavily on concrete, extrinsic goals and rewards (Di
Domenico & Ryan, 2017; Massey et al., 2008). As for strengths, both fields recognize that
adolescents’ reasoning and social experiences are important influences on their development and
life goals (van Duijvenvoorde, Peters, Braams, & Crone, 2016).
Research questions
All the above leaves open questions to be addressed throughout this dissertation. First,
how do adolescents spontaneously build life goals that are based on ethical and prosocial
motives, and that extend beyond the self? To what extent does an individual adolescent’s
propensity to build values-based life goals reflect their qualities of mind, character development
and psychosocial wellbeing? Second, if we provide adolescents with a systematic opportunity to
6
reflect on personal core values in a conducive social setting, can adolescents be supported in re-
constructing their life goals in values-based ways over time? How might this impact relevant
domains for youth’s future social participation, such as purpose in life and civic participation?
Finally, in their full form, values-based life goals are intrinsically rewarding, and rely on
complex socio-affective and cognitive processes. Do adolescents’ propensities to build values-
based life goals map onto developmental neural profiles in brain systems supporting motivation,
cognition and affect?
This dissertation explores a community sample of adolescents’ life goals from a
neuropsychological perspective, and examines how these adolescents incorporate abstract,
values-based motives into their goals. By recruiting low-SES, culturally diverse youths from the
community, this dissertation enriches the representation of low-SES and ethnic minority youth in
scientific knowledge, while also contributing to understanding urban community adolescents’
strengths and healthy development.

7
Chapter 1.
The psychosocial correlates of values-based life goals in low-SES adolescents.

Abstract
Adolescents’ values-based life goals express intentions of achieving something
intrinsically meaningful, which may also positively contribute to the lives of others (Damon,
2008). Building values-based life goals provides adolescents with the opportunity to
conceptualize their moral beliefs and prosocial purpose. By contrast, adolescents can also hold
concrete goals, justified by hedonistic or pragmatic motives. Though all adolescents likely hold
some of each, values-based goals are thought to have a particularly important role in supporting
adolescents’ wellbeing and healthy transition to adulthood. Because the same goal can be framed
by an adolescent around concrete or values-based motives, and because a predominant focus on
concrete goals is associated with lower wellbeing and increased risky behaviors (Massey et al.,
2008), a measure that captures adolescents’ values-relevant reasoning about their goals is
needed.
Here we develop a theoretically valid coding scheme for the values-based and concrete
life goals adolescents hold and can spontaneously describe in a supportive context, grounded in
humanistic, social, and educational psychological literatures. Using interview data from thirty-
six minority adolescents from urban low-SES areas of Los Angeles, we test the coding scheme
against existing measures of adolescent psychosocial development and cognitive ability. These
measures included self-report surveys of purpose in life, cultural values and orientation, and
academic mindsets and learning strategies, and standardized IQ testing.
8
Results showed that tallies of adolescents’ values-based life goals correlated with
strength of held cultural values, specifically, with stronger endorsement of vertical
collectivism—the conception of self as interdependent with others, yet differentiated. In contrast,
holding more concrete life goals correlated negatively with both vertical collectivism and with
the extent to which adolescents embrace their home culture. Adolescents’ with more values-
based life goals more strongly endorsed mindsets relevant for academic achievement, including
stronger growth mindsets, self-efficacy, intrinsic motivation to learn, and good study habits.
Neither values-based, nor concrete life goals were correlated with IQ.
By developing a theory-driven categorization scheme for adolescents’ life goals, this
work provides evidence that individual differences in adolescents’ formulation of life goals are
associated with adolescents’ orientations to school and other people in ways that are likely to
have implications for their future. The coding scheme we develop could therefore be useful in
examining the developmental trajectory of adolescents’ goal building, as well as the role of
interventions and social relationships.
Keywords: life goals, adolescence, academic mindsets, cultural wellbeing
Introduction
Adolescence is the developmental stage where life goals for a healthy and generative
adulthood are formulated (Zarrett & Eccles, 2006). Life goals are states that adolescents seek to
obtain, maintain, and avoid (Emmons et al., 1998). Life goals are idiosyncratic and show high
variability (Carver & Scheier, 1990), as they reflect adolescents’ exploration of interests and
accumulated knowledge and skills, as well as their value systems (Fuligni, 2019; Nurmi, 1991).
Life goals are also shaped by social and cultural norms (Nurmi, 1993; Oyserman & Fryberg,
2006), as well as by social affordances like resources and relationships (Massey et al., 2008).
9
Of particular importance are life goals that are based on adolescents’ core personal,
relational, ethical and prosocial values, rather than simply on social and physical hedonistic
motives. Formulating values-based life goals provides adolescents with an opportunity to
elaborate on their goals’ intrinsic importance and societal implications, leading adolescents to
experience motivating social emotions (Damon, 2008; Deci & Ryan, 1985). Values-based life
goals also guide adolescents’ behaviors towards superordinate objectives, leading young people
to build purpose and connect meaningfully with the world (Damon et al., 2003; Emmons, 1996).
In contrast, life goals that are based on pragmatic and hedonistic motives, that is concrete life
goals, do not afford youth the experience of building personal meaning, joy and sense of social
connection that is associated with formulating values-based goals, largely because concrete goals
do not deeply enrich identity and purpose (Deci & Flaste, 1995; King, 2020).
Because adolescents’ goals are cultural and reflect situational dynamics and individual
propensities, the formulation of life goals, and particularly values-based life goals, requires
social support and value-rich social relationships. High-quality social support not only promotes
better mental health and subjective well-being (Cohen, 2004; Hefner & Eisenberg, 2009), but
also bolsters life goals by providing instrumental and emotional resources (Cohen & Janicki-
Deverts, 2009). Adolescents whose deliberations on life goals are insufficiently supported
struggle; such conditions represent a serious threat to healthy development, affecting the mental
health and well-being of one of the largest age groups. Adolescents’ anxiety and depression are
at all-time recent highs (Mojtabai et al., 2016), and adolescence has become the age group with
the highest rate of loneliness (Twenge et al., 2019).
Developing the socio-emotional and cognitive skills needed to formulate generative life
goals is challenging for all youth and can affect future social participation and economic
10
opportunities (Eccles, Wigfield, & Schiefele, 1998), especially for youth experiencing poverty
(Garcia, 2014). A staggering 17% of youth between 16-24 years old are not working or studying
(Belfield, Levin, & Rosen, 2012). A nationwide survey amongst high school dropouts indicated
that a large majority do not feel inspired or motivated to work hard (Bridgeland, DiIulio, &
Morison, 2006), and this has been attributed to low levels of appropriate social support (Garcia,
2014). Based on unemployment alone, the societal costs have been estimated at 0.6% of the
Gross Domestic Product in the United States (OECD, 2016).
In short, adolescents’ life goals are powerful motivators, helping youths direct their
efforts and shape their decisions (Lee & Vondracek, 2014). In order to better support adolescents
in building life goals over time, new measures are needed for probing and documenting youths’
motives and meaning-making around goal formulation, and the relationship of these processes to
important academic, cultural, social and emotional indicators (Immordino-Yang, 2010, 2013).
Toward this end, after briefly reviewing the psychological and educational literatures on
goal-building, here we develop a qualitative coding scheme capturing adolescents’ values-based
and concrete life goals from open-ended interviews. We conduct a qualitative study of life goals
in 36 minority adolescents from low-SES Los Angeles neighborhoods, and examine the codes’
relationships to relevant psychological and educational constructs in our sample, including to
standardized cognitive measures and self-report measures of life purpose, cultural values and
orientation, academic mindsets and strategies relevant to effective learning. As the majority of
existing work on life goals has been conducted with undergraduate majority-ethnicity samples of
higher SES (Massey et al., 2008), we specifically chose to focus the development of our coding
scheme on a community sample of academically successful minority youths from low-SES
neighborhoods, from stable family situations.
11
A theory-grounded definition of values-based life goals
There is extensive theoretical and empirical work on the structure and taxonomy of
adolescents’ life goals (for comprehensive reviews see; Eccles & Wigfield, 2002; Massey et al.,
2008; Nair, 2003). The conceptualization of goals includes both approach and avoidance
components. Basic psychological needs are regarded as motivational forces behind goal setting,
and the source of motivation for these goals can be either intrinsic or extrinsic (Deci & Ryan,
1985). These works find that successful goal setting is associated with positive affect and higher
wellbeing, and that affect and wellbeing are undermined when goal setting is impeded (Harris,
Daniels, & Briner, 2003). However, this work is limited by its focus on goal endorsement using a
limited set of life goals (Massey et al., 2008), leaving largely unexplored the underlying motives
that youths use to conceptualize their goals, and their internally generated process of meaning-
making.
Our development of a content-coding scheme for identifying the life goals and
motivations youths generate is most closely informed by four concepts in the psychological and
educational literatures. First, the Possible Selves literature has focused on the content of the
future-self projection, and how it helps to set goals and regulate current behavior (Oyserman &
James, 2009). This literature has documented contextually and developmentally appropriate
goals in adolescents. Second, Construal-Level Theory has examined the cognitive processes
underlying the formulation of values-based goals, as well as generated hypotheses regarding
their accompanying social-emotional feelings (Trope & Liberman, 2010). Third, the Purpose in
Life literature has defined the content of values-based life goals, pointed out limitations in the
current measurement of life purpose, and described how cultural values affect the experience of
purpose (Damon, 2008). Finally, research on Academic Mindsets and learning strategies has been
12
instrumental in characterizing core values relevant to students’ academic success (Farrington et
al., 2012), a central theme for adolescents’ goals.
Possible Selves. Possible Selves refer to the contents of one’s future-oriented self
concept, including beliefs about who one might become in the future (Oyserman & James,
2009). This future projection of the self is important for goal setting and motivation, affording
opportunities for imagined self-improvement, malleability, self-growth and planning (Oyserman
& Destin, 2010). Thinking about future Possible Selves provides adolescents with the
opportunity to mentally experiment with various potential futures, as well as to channel current
efforts to target future states. Possible Selves can guide current actions and improve self-
regulation (Oyserman, Bybee, Terry, & Hart-Johnson, 2004), in particular when Possible Selves
are salient, linked to strategies, and perceived as congruent with other aspects of the self-concept
(Nurra & Oyserman, 2018).
School-focused Possible Selves, as well as life goals related to connecting with others
and developing a sense of self, are central for most youth. The focus on these developmentally-
relevant goals evolves across adolescence and early adulthood, facilitating emergence of new
domains of self, such as occupational and familial Possible Selves (Otto, 1991). Social contexts
that provide access to role models and reminders to focus on goal-congruent behaviors can also
contribute, for example with regard to academic Possible Selves among minority students
(Oyserman & Destin, 2010).
Construal-Level Theory. Goals and the values they precipitate can also be studied based
on the levels of cognitive distancing and complexity they entail (Trope & Liberman, 2010;
Vallacher & Wegner, 1989). That is, goals are influenced by how individuals spontaneously
represent experiences that are distant from here and now by forming abstract mental construals
13
of these distal desired states (Liberman & Trope, 2008; Trope & Liberman, 2003). In this way,
individuals can transcend their direct experience and imagine a desired goal, understand others’
perspectives, and conceive of hypothetical alternatives to current states (Custers & Aarts, 2010;
Liberman, Sagristano, & Trope, 2002).
Values-based life goals among adolescents and young adults are represented in abstract
construals, that is, superordinate goals where each action has a superordinate level answering
why this life goal is held and pursued (Emmons, 1996; Slepian, Masicampo, & Ambady, 2015;
Vallacher & Wegner, 1987). Abstract life goals contain less detail about the type of action to be
performed, and more information about the long-term, deep psychological value and meaning of
the goal (Semin, & Fiedler, 1988; Trope, 1989). When life goals are construed concretely, goals
become more egotistical and focused on more tangible aspects of achievement (Vallacher, &
Wegner, 1987). Such goals are focused on how one should perform in the short-term (Emmons,
1996).
Construal levels of goals have been found to have implications for motivation and
achievement. Individuals prone to construing abstract life goals are more consistent in their
actions and more sensitive to the moral implications of their decisions (Vallacher & Wegner,
1989). In contrast, individuals with stronger propensities toward concretely construed life goals
tend to be less intrinsically motivated, less consistent, and more impulsive (Massey et al., 2008).
Abstract life goals can lead to higher motivation and higher task performance, as they point to
the ultimate reasons to pursue the relevant goal (Higgins, Shah, & Friedman, 1997; Karniol &
Ross, 1996; Torelli & Kaikati, 2009; Vasquez & Buehler, 2007), though the opposite has also
been reported under some conditions (Stock & Cervone, 1990).
14
Purpose in Life. Purpose in Life has been defined as a superordinate life aim, a highly
motivating commitment which organizes and promotes goals, guides behaviors, and gives a
sense of meaning to one’s life (McKnight & Kashdan, 2009). Because purpose is grounded in
goal formation, the quality of the goals that undergird one’s purpose is thought to be critical for
the overall developmental implications, especially for identity formation (Bronk, 2012, 2014;
Ryff & Singer, 2008). While some goals are characterized by a focus on short-term outcomes
without strong social-moral implications (e.g. “to get to the movies on time”), or by a focus on
hedonistic motives, such as personal pleasure, excitement, and comfort (Damon et al., 2003),
values-based goals provide generalized, abstract and stable intentions to achieve something
meaningful for one’s self while positively transforming the lives of others (Damon et al., 2003;
Emmons, 2005; Kashdan & McKnight, 2009). Purpose that is grounded in values-based goals,
known as prosocial purpose, provides a frame for self-generated, socially-relevant intentions and
imbues goals with a sense of higher-order affective value and personal meaning that can be
powerful (Bronk, 2014; Frankl, 1959; Kashdan & McKnight, 2009; Marken, 2002). Prosocial
life-purpose-related goals are, therefore, more stable and far-reaching than lower-level goals
(Damon et al., 2003).
Despite the above, purpose-related measurement tools have largely neglected the
prosocial dimension of goal-setting, and in particular whether one’s goals attempt to impact the
world beyond the self (Bronk, 2014). Instead, the measurement of Purpose in Life has been
largely focused on indices of goal-directedness (Ryff & Singer, 2008), without probing the
nature of the goals one holds.
This weakness in measurement is particularly important given that values-based goals
that invoke Purpose in Life are strongly shaped by culture and context, and can be sought in
15
many culturally-grounded modalities including religious, familial, professional, artistic, civic,
scientific or political spaces (Ballard, Malin, Porter, Colby, & Damon, 2015; Damon, 2008).
Initial work on transnational and cross-cultural comparisons of life purpose suggests that
predominant cultural values can influence priorities when defining one’s purpose and the values
that undergird it. Specifically, how one imagines the self in relation to others varies between
cultures, and these imaginings can operate as cultural scripts that guide life goals in social
relationships (Killen & Wainryb, 2000). Individuals can feel more or less purposeful depending
on how they socially evaluate goals and define purpose (Moran, 2014). For one notable example,
the ways in which an individual’s sense of self involves others, such as family or community
members, differs in collectivist and interdependent societies (Markus & Kitayama, 1991), with
implications for the content of socially oriented life goals. The dynamic nature of societies
affects how youth experience purpose and formulate life goals within cultures and within nations
(Mariano, 2014).
Academic Mindsets and strategies for effective learning. Among adolescents,
formulating values-based goal orientations toward schoolwork can influence academic mindsets,
inspire academic tenacity, and promote effective learning (Damon, 2008). Adolescents who are
motivated to make societal contributions tend to adopt more learning goals, report having a
higher desire to learn the course materials, and obtain higher meaning from schoolwork (Yeager
& Bundick, 2009). They are also less focused on merely avoiding failure (Lee et al., 2010). In
contrast, adolescents primarily holding hedonistic motivations, such as to make money or gain
social status, show less desire to learn and report more concerns about their ability (Yeager &
Bundick, 2009).
16
Values-based goals in school contexts are comprised of beliefs, attitudes and ways to
perceive learning and intellectual work (Farrington et al., 2012). Academic mindsets and
learning strategies that allow students to look to longer-term and superordinate, values-based
goals make school-based learning more effective, and promote perseverance when coping with
challenges (Dweck, Walton, & Cohen, 2011). Such values-based mindsets prominently include a
sense of belonging in school, both academically and socially, which situates school as a route to
prosocial ends such as providing for one’s future family and contributing to one’s community
(Oyserman et al., 2006). Implicit theories of ability, self-efficacy and expectancy value can also
be values-based, as when individuals believe that effort is a virtue because it improves ability,
leads to increased achievement, and is important for one’s future (Bandura, 1986; Eccles et al.,
1983). Together, values-based mindsets about learning promote advantageous learning strategies
by focusing on long-term implications of their work, helping them to transcend more immediate,
competing concerns such as looking smart, avoiding looking foolish, or gaining social status
(Farrington et al., 2012; Nagaoka et al., 2013).
Operational definition of values-based and concrete life goals
Given the above, here we define values-based life goals as those that articulate stable
intentions of accomplishing something intrinsically meaningful, seeking to positively impact the
lives of others, or pursuing goals beyond the self. In opposition, concrete life goals are those that
reflect egotistical intentions, are focused on short-term gains with implications mainly for
personal achievement, social comparisons or hedonistic motives. Formulating values-based goals
requires adolescents to think abstractly about the goals they construct for themselves, in order to
make salient their intrinsic contributions to ethical and personal growth, beliefs, and prosocial
17
ends. In building values-based life goals, adolescents construct personal meaning, experience the
positive affect of fulfillment, and increase their motivation to engage in purposeful behavior.
Methodological aims. Methodologically, adolescents’ goals have been studied using
open and close-ended formats (Nair, 2003). Open-ended formats include recorded interviews
(Sommer & Baumeister, 1998) and written narratives, as well as video recordings (Craik, 2000).
More open-ended formats are better suited to exploring the content of life goals (Oyserman &
Fryberg, 2006), as well as for identifying the values and social emotions on which these goals are
built (Immordino-Yang, 2010). Because we are interested in investigating how adolescents
conceptualize their life goals relative to core values, and specifically the extent to which their
conceptualizations are prosocial and values-based, here we employ content coding of interviews
utilizing standardized open ended-questions.
Methods
This study was part of a larger longitudinal research project on the development of social
emotions (n=55), which also included neuroimaging data and additional participants and social-
emotional tasks not presented here. The current sample overlaps partly with the sample used in
Butler, Yang, Laube, & Immordino-Yang (2018), which focuses on brain development.
Participants
Thirty six adolescents, M
age
=18.02 (SD=1.09), 17 male/19 female, participated in the
current study. Participants were recruited from public high schools in low-SES urban Los
Angeles neighborhoods with high immigrant populations. Thirty of the 36 participants reported
receiving free or reduced lunch at school, a measure of low family SES (Domina et al., 2018).
Nine participants identified as Asian-American, 25 identified as Latinx, and two identified as
African-American. All participants spoke English fluently from childhood. Enrollment criteria
included no history of neurological or psychiatric disease, physical or emotional abuse or
18
neglect, use of psychotropic medication, drugs or alcohol, or presence of any medical condition
that would preclude MR scanning. Enrollment criteria also included full-time enrollment in
school, passing all classes, and not under any disciplinary action. This study was reviewed by the
Institutional Review Board of the University of Southern California (USC), and participants and
legal guardians signed assent and consent forms, respectively. Participants were compensated for
their participation in the study.
Procedure
For the current study, participants listed the life goals they are working on for the next
year, in a video-taped, private life goals interview, in which they also were asked to explain their
motives for holding each goal. Participants also completed IQ testing and self-report surveys
about sense of life purpose, cultural orientation and values, and academic mindsets.
Interviews were conducted by an interviewer of the same cultural background as the
interviewee in most cases. The interview was structured around the Possible Selves
Questionnaire (Oyserman & Markus, 1990). Participants were asked to imagine what they want
to become next year, as well as what they want to avoid becoming next year. Participants were
encouraged to freely assert their goals in an open-ended fashion. After each goal a participant
mentioned, the participant was asked to explain why they want to pursue that goal, and what they
are currently doing to achieve that goal. Each interview lasted approximately 30 minutes,
including establishing rapport. Participants’ videotaped interviews were transcribed and verified,
and adolescents’ named goals and descriptions of their motives for holding that goal were coded,
as described below.

19
Qualitative coding of life goals
Values-based life goals were qualitatively coded from the life goals participants described in
their interview. Values-based goals were defined as goals focused on obtaining values and
personal growth, goals greater than the self, and goals involving service to others. Representative
responses from participants in this study were: “I think I’d still like to help others, so
organizations like Red Cross or just do some kind of volunteer work with my free time”, “And [I
want to] continue being a hard worker and staying humble”. Concrete goals were defined as
goals focused on acquiring goods, gaining popularity, status, social comparisons, and hedonistic
values. Representative responses were: “I don’t wanna be homeless”, “[I want] to have a nice
car”, “I want to have a motorcycle license”. Tallies of values-based and concrete life goals were
calculated for each participant.
Inter-rater reliability analyses were carried out in 27% of the sample. Intra-class
correlation (ICC) was calculated entering the tallied values-based and concrete life goals from
two independent raters. As interrater reliability was strong, at 90%, ratings from the original
reviewer were utilized for the analyses.
Measures
Cognitive performance. Participants completed the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of
Intelligence, Second Edition (WASI-II) (Wechsler, 2011). This abbreviated measure of
intellectual quotient is comprised of Vocabulary and Matrix Reasoning subscales.
General Life Purpose. The self-report General Life Purpose Scale (GLPS) measures the
attempts to pursue one’s life goals (Byron & Miller-Perrin, 2009). Higher scores reflect higher
sense of general life purpose.
20
Cultural orientation. The General Ethnicity Questionnaire, abridged version (Tsai,
Ying, & Lee, 2000), is a self-report measure that surveys how much adolescents engage in
cultural activities associated with their ethnic background (either East-Asian, Latinx, or Black).
The overall level of cultural orientation is calculated by averaging adolescents’ ratings of
participation across the range of activities surveyed. A higher score reflects a stronger cultural
orientation.
Cultural values. Cultural values were measured by using self-report surveys of Vertical
and Horizontal Individualism and Collectivism (Singelis, Triandis, Bhawuk, & Gelfand, 1995).
The Vertical Individualism subscale assesses the perception of the self as an autonomous
individual and acceptance of inequality, whereas Horizontal Individualism subscale surveys
individual autonomy and emphasis on equality. The Vertical Collectivism subscale measures the
perception of the self as a distinctive member of an in-group, but accepting differences amongst
members, whereas the Horizontal Collectivism subscale surveys the perception of the self as part
of the collective, in which all members are equals. A higher score indicates a stronger orientation
toward either vertical or horizontal collectivism.
Academic Mindsets and learning strategies. The Becoming Effective Learners (BEL)
survey assesses four academic mindsets and one learning strategy, among other concepts
relevant to effective learning and academic tenacity (Nagaoka et al., 2013). The School
Belonging subscale assesses the sense that one has a place and can claim membership in the
classroom community. The Theory of Intelligence subscale measures the sense that ability and
competence will grow with effort, as opposed to being fixed and outside of one’s control. For
this scale, higher scores indicate strong growth mindset, while lower scores indicated stronger
fixed mindset. The Self-Efficacy subscale surveys one’s beliefs about their abilities to succeed at
21
academic tasks. The Relevance for the Future subscale assesses the belief that the subject matter
taught in school holds value for meeting a superordinate goal, and that therefore it is important to
do well. The Time Management subscale assesses how well-organized one’s schoolwork is. This
survey has been standardized nation-wide in high schoolers and is Rasch-scored.
Results
We found that participants formulated fewer values-based life goals than concrete life
goals, t(68.95)= -5.48, p < .000; see also Figure 1. Tallies of values-based and concrete life goals
were negatively correlated, r(34)= -.37, p = .02. Age did not correlate with life goals, values-
based: r(32)= .23, p = .17; concrete: r(32)= .002, p = .98. No sex differences were observed,
values-based: t(31.76)= 1.06, p= .29; concrete: t(32.9)= 0.43, p = .66. On average, Latinx
participants (M= 2.92) produced more values-based goals than did Asian participants (M=1) in
our sample, t(19.09)= -3.38, p = .003. The groups showed no differences in concrete life goals,
t(18.6)= -0.41, p = .68. (African-American participants were too few to include in these group-
level comparisons.) Table 1 summarizes adolescents’ scores on standardized measures. Pearson
correlations between values-based and concrete life goals and scores on standardized measures
were calculated; see Table 2.

22
Figure 1.
Histogram distribution for adolescents’ life goals. A. Values-based life goals. B. Concrete life goals.

Table 1.
Mean and standard deviation for participants’ measures.

Variable M SD
Values-based life goals 2.36 1.82
Concrete life goals 4.58 1.61
Cognitive performance - WAIS II Full Scale 101.22 11.08
Cognitive performance - WAIS II Matrix Reasoning 50.72 8.84
Cognitive performance - WAIS II Vocabulary 51.11 7.16
General Life Purpose 67.87 10.69
Cultural Orientation 3.18 0.42
Cultural values - Vertical Individualism 21.67 5.62
Cultural values - Horizontal Individualism 27.69 4.74
Cultural values - Vertical Collectivism 27.39 5.48
Cultural values - Horizontal Collectivism 27.00 4.36
Academic mindsets - Theories of Intelligence -2.93 2.04
Academic mindsets - Self Efficacy 2.91 3.66
Academic mindsets - Relevance to Future 2.18 5.63
Academic mindsets - School Belonging 0.43 2.58
Academic mindsets - Time Management 3.06 4.36

23
Table 2.
Correlations between formulated life goals and cognitive, psychosocial and educational measures.

Variable Values-based life goals Concrete life goals
r 95% CI r 95% CI
WAIS II Full Scale r(34)= 0.09 -0.24 , 0.41 r(34)= 0.02 -0.3 , 0.35
WAIS II Matrix Reasoning r(34)= 0.16 -0.17 , 0.46 r(34)=-0.002 -0.33 , 0.32
WAIS II Vocabulary r(34)=-0.02 -0.35 , 0.3 r(34)= 0.09 -0.23 , 0.41
General Life Purpose r(29)= 0.22 -0.14 , 0.53 r(29)=-0.12 -0.45 , 0.23
Cultural Orientation r(34)= 0.07 -0.26 , 0.39 r(34)=-0.4* -0.64 , -0.08
Vertical Individualism Subscale r(34)=-0.11 -0.43 , 0.21 r(34)= 0.07 -0.25 , 0.39
Horizontal Individualism Subscale r(34)= 0.10 -0.23 , 0.41 r(34)=-0.29 -0.57 , 0.03
Vertical Collectivism Subscale r(34)= 0.40* 0.08 , 0.64 r(34)=-0.33* -0.59 , -0.002
Horizontal Collectivism Subscale r(34)= 0.22 -0.11 , 0.51 r(34)= 0.06 -0.26 , 0.38
Theories of Intelligence Subscale r(26)=-0.47* -0.71 , -0.12 r(26)=-0.14 -0.49 , 0.23
Self-Efficacy Subscale r(26)= 0.56** 0.23 , - 0.77 r(26)=-0.21 -0.54 , 0.16
Relevance to Future Subscale r(26)= 0.40* 0.04 , 0.67 r(26)=-0.01 -0.44 , 0.29
School Belonging Subscale r(26)= 0.27 -0.11 , 0.58 r(26)= 0.10 -0.27 , 0.46
Time Management Subscale r(26)=0.41* 0.04 , 0.68 r(26)=-0.22 -0.59 , 0.16
*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
Note. 95% confidence intervals (95% CI).
Adolescents’ formulated values-based and concrete life goals showed no association with
cognitive performance, as no significant correlations with the WASI-II Full Scale, Matrix
Reasoning and Vocabulary subscales scores were observed. Neither values-based, nor concrete
life goals correlated with Purpose-in-Life.
Adolescents’ values-based and concrete life goals showed specific patterns of association
with Cultural Orientation and Cultural Values. Concrete life goals correlated negatively with
reported participation in cultural practices (see also Figure 2).

24
Figure 2.
Scatter plot for significant correlations between adolescents’ life goals and cultural orientation.

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
Values-based goals correlated with the subscale Vertical Collectivism, that is, with
perceiving the self as part of an in-group, but accepting differences amongst members of the
group. Adolescents’ concrete life goals correlated negatively with Vertical Collectivism (see
Figure 3).
Figure 3.
Scatter plot for significant correlations between adolescents’ life goals and vertical collectivism. A. Values-based
life goals. B. Concrete life goals.

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
25
Values-based goals were associated with mindsets relevant to effective learning at school.
(Note that there was one extreme value on the mindsets questionnaire; analyses were run with
and without this data point and held either way.) Adolescents’ values-based life goals negatively
correlated with the subscale Theories of Intelligence, indicating that values-based goals are
associated with holding a growth mindset, a focus on learning new skills, and malleability of
intelligence with effort. Similarly, values-based life goals were correlated with holding the belief
that one has the abilities to succeed in a task. In addition, values-based goals correlated with the
belief that schoolwork holds value for the future, either as valuable knowledge or as a necessary
means to reach long-term goals. Values-based goals correlated with implementing time
management strategies supporting learning. Formulating concrete life goals did not correlate
with holding these academic mindsets (see Figure 4).

26
Figure 4.
Scatter plot for significant correlations between values-based life goals and academic mindsets. A. Growth
mindset. B. Self-efficacy. C. Relevance to future. D. Time management.

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
Discussion
Life goals that are grounded in abstract, ethical and prosocial motives, so-called values-
based life goals, have the potential to promote adolescents’ wellbeing more than do concrete
goals grounded in hedonistic or concrete achievements (Massey et al., 2008). Nonetheless,
studies examining how adolescents build life goals, and in particular how adolescents build their
goals around broader, abstract values and intrinsic motives, are lacking. Studies of this process
are particularly needed in under-represented and low-SES youth, as holding purposeful and
27
prosocial goals has been shown to mitigate antisocial behaviors (Machell, Disabato, & Kashdan,
2016) and lead to higher achievement in this population especially (Shin & So, 2018).
In this work we asked a low-SES community sample of adolescents to list their life goals
for the next year and developed a coding scheme for categorizing participants’ reasoning about
each goal. Building from humanistic, social and educational psychology research, we classified
participants’ reasoning about each life goal as either (a) values-based, focused on intentions to
achieve something intrinsically meaningful to the self, or seeking to positively transform the
lives of others; or (b) concrete, focused on intentions to achieve a narrowly defined or concrete
task for an ego-oriented, pragmatic or hedonistic reason. We found that adolescents’ reasoning
about their goals was related to their endorsement of effective learning strategies and mindsets at
school and to cultural wellbeing, but unrelated to a standardized measure of IQ. As expected,
describing values-based reasoning for goals was associated with beneficial and adaptive patterns
known to undergird healthy development and achievement, while describing concrete reasoning
was not. Notably, all of the adolescents in our sample spontaneously generated concrete life
goals when asked, but only approximately 61% also generated at least one values-based goal.
Though values-based goals have more potential to support healthy development, these goals may
be more cognitively effortful to generate, and therefore rarer. In our sample, neither sex
differences, nor associations between values reasoning and age, were found.
The results from our study suggest that inter-individual differences in reasoning about
goals do not rely on general cognitive ability, at least in healthy individuals (Bak, 2015).
Thinking either concretely or abstractly about life goals requires cognitive processing (Vallacher
& Wegner, 1987); however, in healthy adolescents, formulating either type of life goals likely is
possible for all youth but depends on dispositions of mind (Immordino-Yang & Knecht, 2020).
28
One important question for educational research concerns the most effective means to promote
dispositions toward value-based reasoning about goals among youth, and especially how such
dispositions can be taught not simply in direct interventions but embedded organically in
scholarly work and other learning-focused experiences (Immordino-Yang, Darling-Hammond, &
Krone, 2019). In adults, situational factors and framing influence the formation of abstract versus
concrete goals (Fessel, 2011; Ledgerwood, Trope, & Chaiken, 2010; Lee & Ybarra, 2017), and
in youth, pedagogical practices that encourage “big idea” goal-oriented thinking can be deeply
motivating (Ritchhart & Perkins, 2008).
This work adds to growing evidence that adolescents’ social and emotional dispositions
and processing outside of school impact academic readiness and success (Hamilton, Doss, &
Steiner, 2019; Jones & Kahn, 2017). Prior work has related adolescents’ academic purposeful
goals to finding schoolwork meaningful (Yeager & Bundick, 2009) and to promoting academic
self-regulation (Yeager et al., 2014). We extend these findings by showing that formulating
values-based life goals of any kind, not only school-focused, is associated with endorsing
mindsets and strategies that are conducive to academic success. In our study, participants who
described holding more values-based life goals also reported stronger mindsets and strategies
underlying effective school-based learning in standardized measures. Consistent with the notion
that values-based goals are a means to reflect on one’s qualities and contributions in order to
improve, adolescents who described more of their goals as related to values rather than to
hedonistic or concrete achievements, reported more strongly holding the belief that intelligence
is malleable, that they have the ability to succeed in school, and that they value expanding their
experiences and knowledge. In addition, these adolescents reported better time management
29
strategies relevant to schoolwork. In contrast, reasoning about life goals in a way that was
concrete showed no such benefits.
Consistent with the connections between values-based goal reasoning and social
wellbeing, we also found that in our minority sample, adolescents’ reasoning about their life
goals was associated with cultural values and orientation, two concepts at the core of cultural
wellbeing. Cultural well-being refers to roles, group affiliations, and identities that provide
adolescents with a sense of shared values and purpose (Gutiérrez & Rogoff, 2003). In our
sample, endorsement of vertical collectivism was positively associated with holding values-
based life goals and negatively associated with holding concrete life goals. Especially vertical
collectivism, which emphasizes hierarchy and interdependence, provides a templated set of
practices, rules and habits of what is valued within a cultural group, and scaffolds youths’
formulation of values-based intentions (e.g. family-oriented goals), and social understandings
(i.e., we are all different but interdependent, and so must help each other; Greenfield, Keller,
Fuligni, & Maynard, 2003). Collectivism has been associated with social connectedness in
relationships (Rodriguez, 2015), as well as with prosocial tendencies (Lampridis &
Papastylianou, 2017). Latinx-American, Asian-American, and African-American youth have
been characterized as more collectivistic, compared to European-American youth (Carson, 2009;
Han, Koh & Scollon, 2015). In addition, adolescents’ concrete life goals correlated negatively
with the extent to which adolescents report engaging in cultural practices specific to their own
ethnic group, in agreement with research suggesting that cultural values and practices constitute
a protective resource for first-generation American youth (Gonzales, et al., 2008). In sum,
endorsing vertical collectivism and their cultural groups, as part of adolescents’ available cultural
30
scripts, seem to be favoring the formulation of community and family-oriented life goals in our
sample.
Interestingly, in our study, adolescents’ life goal reasoning was not associated with a
standard measure of general life purpose, the General Life Purpose Scale (Byron & Miller-
Perrin, 2009). Arguably, the scale captures adolescents’ sense of goal-directedness as a proxy for
life purpose, which our data suggest may or may not map onto values-based reasoning. Our
study coding goes beyond documenting goal-directedness to probe the reasoning that underlies
this goal-directedness, which other work has suggested is instrumental to long-term beneficial
outcomes for adolescents (Schmuck, Kasser, & Ryan, 2000). Given the unique positive attributes
of values-based goal reasoning for adolescents, it has been suggested that the purpose-in-life
literature could benefit from more clearly differentiating the values-based or concrete reasoning
underlying goal orientation that leads to life purpose (Bronk, 2014). Our findings suggest that the
standardized measure of Purpose in Life indexes goal-directedness, but without examining the
extent to which values-based reasoning is at play.
A methodological limitation of this study is the use of a categorical taxonomy to quantify
life goals. As forming values-based life goals is a developing skill, it exhibited a somewhat
skewed distribution (see Figure 1). A dimensional approach can be used to have a more finely
graded description of this developing skill. Dimensional models have been proposed for
examining the internalization of schoolwork goals (Vansteenkiste et al., 2018), and can be better
suited to capture variations across individuals in several psychological domains (Haslam,
McGrath, Viechtbauer, & Kuppens, 2020).
Much is left to be discovered about the development of adolescents’ processing of life
goals, and the implications for cultural connectedness and academic achievement. Especially
31
needed is longitudinal work with broad populations, and work in education and youth
programming that can support young people in their quest to create a values-based life trajectory
based on ethical values and personal interests (Engel, 2011; Fuligni, 2019). In the future, our
coding scheme could be extended to examine the developmental changes in adolescents’
reasoning about values-based life goals from early adolescence to young adulthood, given that
prosocial life goals do not develop in a linear fashion, from self-serving to more other-oriented
forms (Malin, Reilly, Quinn, & Moran, 2014).
By documenting and categorizing adolescents’ life goals, we are advancing the research
on character virtues, operationalizing adolescents’ processing of life goals that involve service to
others and focus on personal ethical and relational values. Focusing on personal values
underlying the psychological experience of formulating life goals fits well with recent efforts for
studying prosocial purpose and joy, among other character virtues that propel positive youth
development (Schnitker, King, & Houltberg, 2019). Prior studies have examined exemplary
purposeful individuals, setting the foundational stone for understanding how purpose emerges in
adolescence (Bronk, 2012; Damon, 2008). A contribution of our approach is the focus on inter-
individual differences among a community sample of diverse youth, allowing us to probe the
formulation of values-based goals in a more typical population.
In sum, adolescence is a critical period in which life and community goals are imagined
and social pursued, in the service of building one’s value-based purpose and social citizenship
(Immordino-Yang et al., 2019). The processes of active meaning-making, abstraction, and
seeking self-transcendence are central facets of adolescents’ everyday psychological lives, and
deserve scientific examination and close societal attention and support. By honoring the
32
perspectives and growth of adolescents themselves, listening to their reasoning and hearing about
their dreams, we can contribute to this important goal.

33
Chapter 2.
Sages and Seekers: Values-based life goals in intergenerational conversations increase low-
SES adolescents’ life purpose and sense of community participation.

Abstract
Intergenerational storytelling is a ubiquitous human activity that helps individuals build
relationships, learn about the social world, and grow their own identity and life goals. Yet, in
modern urban society many are lonely, and do not have such opportunities. Especially in low-
SES contexts, adolescents and seniors often feel isolated, just as individuals in these age groups
are grappling to develop a generative narrative, in effect a new “life story,” for transitioning to a
new life stage (either adulthood or old age). Developing values-based life goals and a sense of
purpose in these age groups is central, and involves reflecting on values-affirming life narratives,
which fosters meaning making and wellbeing. Despite the need for supporting the healthy social
development of adolescents and seniors through this process, and the natural function of
storytelling as a supportive medium, the benefits of intergenerational storytelling as an
intervention in low-SES contexts remain largely unexplored.
This study assessed the effects on adolescents and older adults’ psychosocial
development of an intergenerational storytelling intervention, compared to an intergenerational
movie-watching control activity. Fifty-five adolescents and sixty-two older adults of low-
socioeconomic status, from high minority population areas of greater Los Angeles, participated.
Results showed that the intergenerational storytelling intervention increased adolescents’
reported sense of social connectedness, psychological wellbeing, and purpose-in-life, and
especially so for participants with the lowest initial levels. Moreover, adolescents’ changing
34
abilities to conceptualize their future goals in terms of ethical and relational values, instead of
hedonistic or pragmatic motives, mediated the increases in reported purpose-in-life. Among
older adults, participating in either condition increased generativity and working memory
performance, with those in the storytelling condition benefitting marginally significantly more
than those watching movies. By integrating findings with insights from developmental and
neuropsychological research on meaning making, values, and purpose, our study suggests that
intergenerational programming may be useful in promoting flourishing of two highly vulnerable
age groups—adolescents and older adults.
Keywords: intergenerational storytelling, adolescents, older adults, life goals, purpose
Introduction
Sharing personal narratives is an ancient human activity that supports self-understanding
and the formulation of personal and community values and identity (Bell, 2010; Charmaz, 1999;
Ochs & Capps, 2001). Storytellers reminisce and reflect (McAdams & McLean, 2013; Slater &
Rouner, 2002), which supports them in experiencing transformative revelations and encourages
behavioral and attitudinal change for their future life (Larkey & Gonzalez, 2007). Listeners, in
turn, can support storytellers by encouraging, editing, synthesizing and making meaning of the
life stories they hear. Listeners provide an audience and social support for the storyteller, but also
learn about how to handle various life circumstances, dilemmas and feelings. Personal
storytelling in the context of a close relationship is a major cultural outlet for conveying morals
and expressed values between older and younger people, and an opportunity for both partners to
reflect and extract meaning.
Intergenerational storytelling may be especially useful for adolescents, who are
struggling to develop their identity and a vision for their future adult self (Erikson, 1968).
35
Adolescents’ building of life goals involves the simulation of possible futures and integration of
memories and experiences—both one’s own subjective recollections, and inferred perceptions
about those of others (Charmaz, 2002). This is especially true for values-based life goals, which
involve intentions of achieving something that is intrinsically meaningful or that positively
transforms the lives of others. Unlike the more mundane and concrete goals that adolescents
build to manage day-to-day tasks, acquire goods or status, values-based life goals are abstract
and characterized by ethical and prosocial motives that transcend any one given situation (Yang,
Pavarini, Schnall, & Immordino-Yang, 2018; Vallacher & Wegner, 1987). Though concrete
goals can be beneficial to the self or others, they are utilitarian and involve specific actions and
achievements that can be directly observed. By contrast, values-based goals are not observable—
they reside in the intentions and qualities of mind that motivate dispositions and interpretations,
and therefore transcend any particular circumstance (Yang et al., 2018). For example, an older
adolescent may aspire to become a pediatrician, holding the concrete goal of being responsive to
her patients’ medical needs, and the abstract, values-based goal of helping all children flourish.
Though concrete goals can often be completed in the service of broader, values-based goals, it is
values-based goals that are associated with psychological and cultural wellbeing (Davids, Roman
& Kerchhoff, 2017), life purpose, tendencies toward perspective-taking and dialog, as well as
with effective learning mindsets for growing one’s self inside and outside of school (Yeager &
Bundick, 2009; Yeager et al., 2019) .
In the building of values-based identity and associated life goals, adolescents benefit
from strong, appropriate relationships with adults outside their immediate families who can help
them reflect on their life purpose and build a strong sense of civic participation (Damon, 2008).
High-quality relationships, nurtured either through community organizations, religious or school
36
groups, or in mentoring settings, can provide instrumental and emotional resources for values-
based life goal formation and pursuit, boost adolescents’ motivation to achieve values-based
goals, and promote a prosocially-oriented sense of purpose (Liang, Tracy, Taylor & Williams
2002; Lund, et al., 2019).
Older adults are well positioned to support adolescents in these pursuits. Older adults
tend to be more emotionally stable and positivitely biased (Carstensen, 2014). The wisdom
gained from their extensive lived experience and social problem-solving skills (Grossmann,
Karasawa, Kan, & Kitayama, 2014; Parisi, et al., 2009) can support adolescents in developing
socio-emotional skills and skills for self-reflection (Kessler & Staudinger, 2007).
Engaging with young people around storytelling can also be beneficial for older adults.
Older adults are working on constructing a life review, a dynamic and self-evaluative form of
personal reminiscence (Molinari & Reichlin, 1984) that supports an attitude of generativity in old
age (Erikson, 1980). The deeply emotional and cultural processes that take place when sharing
life stories are experiential and memory-based. Thus, they are also likely to improve seniors’
cognition. The conversations initiated by intergenerational storytelling are also deeply social and
relational, allowing older adults to feel they are giving back to a younger person in their
community—an intrinsically rewarding and developmentally appropriate task (Mager, 2019).
Though in optimal conditions older and younger individuals naturally come together to
build relationships and reflect on personal stories, in many modern communities, especially low-
SES urban communities, individuals may feel lonely and disconnected (Algren, et al., 2020). An
intergenerational storytelling program could be used to foster beneficial social relationships,
provide a safe space for reflection on values-based goals that lead to the construction of purpose,
and support both adolescents’ and older adults’ positive development (Fivush, Bohanek, &
37
Zaman, 2011). Although storytelling interventions have been successfully used in health care
(Haigh & Hardy, 2011) and education (Killick & Thomas, 2007) and have been suggested to
hold promise in intergenerational community settings (Jones, Herrick & York, 2004), studies of
interventions that involve intergenerational storytelling are lacking. Involving elders and youths
in such programming could counter the threat of social disconnection and decline in purpose and
wellbeing so common among members of these age groups (Scott & DeBrew, 2009; Hawkley,
Kozloski, & Wong, 2014; Keyes, 2011; Twenge, Spitzberg, & Campbell, 2019).
As a first test of these ideas, here we partnered with an organization that delivers
intergenerational storytelling interventions (Sages & Seekers; www.sagesandseekers.org) to
adapt the program for an urban low-SES context, and studied the impact on participants. The
Sages & Seekers intergenerational storytelling intervention supports youth—older-adult pairs in
reflecting on values-affirming, emotionally rich personal narratives in a small-group, community
setting. At the culmination of the 8-week program, adolescents formalize their experiences by
writing and sharing a tribute honoring their older adult partner. The control condition was an
intergenerational movie-watching activity with the same number of one-on-one social-contact
hours (length of one-on-one interaction in the intervention=5 hours; control=5.3 hours). Though
watching movies together is enjoyable and promotes companionship, there is no direct support
for the effortful, reflective construction of personally relevant narratives that is the focus of the
intervention.
Using open-ended questionnaires and surveys, we assessed participating adolescents’ life
goals, purpose-in-life, wellbeing, social connectedness, growth mindset and sense of civic
participation before and after the intervention or control activity. We assessed older adults’
wellbeing, social connectedness, generativity, and working memory. We expected that the
38
intervention would increase adolescents’ and older adults’ psychosocial functioning compared to
the intergenerational movie-watching activity. We also expected that the intervention would
specifically promote the development of values-based life goals rather than hedonistic or
instrumental life goals among adolescents, and that increases in values-based life goals (only)
would mediate effects of the intervention on purpose-in-life. We also tested whether the
storytelling intervention would promote more values-based and less concrete conceptions of
civic participation, and if so, whether adolescents who increased their values-based life goals
more were also more likely to think abstractly about civic participation following the
intervention. We expected that the storytelling intervention would improve working memory in
the older adults.
Methods
Study design
This was a quasi-experimental intervention study on the effects of an intergenerational
storytelling intervention on adolescents’ and older adults’ positive psychological development.
The study involved pre-testing, either an 8-week intergenerational storytelling intervention or a
movie-watching intergenerational control activity with the same number of social-contact hours
as the intervention, and post-testing. At the end of the movie-watching control activity,
participants were offered the opportunity to partake in the intergenerational storytelling
intervention.
Recruitment and sampling strategy
Participants were recruited from after-school programs, religious organizations,
retirement homes, and community centers serving low-SES areas in Los Angeles County. To be
included, adolescents needed to be between 14-18 years old, enrolled full-time in school, in good
39
academic standing, and with no serious disciplinary record. Older adults were required to be at
least 65 years old, with no evidence of cognitive or functional impairment as measured by a
screening test we administered prior to enrollment (Brown et al., 2017), and living independently
(Lawton & Brody, 1969).
Sample
A total of 55 adolescents participated (M
age
= 16.39; 22 male/ 30 female; M
self-reported GPA
=
3.27; cultural background: 3 Black/ 2 East-Asian/ 35 Latinx/ 1 Middle-Eastern/ 3 White/ 6
mixed). A total of sixty-two cognitively healthy and functionally independent older adults
participated (M
age
= 72.97; 39 female/20 male; educational level: 11 high school/ 37 bachelor’s
or higher degree; cultural background: 17 Black/ 1 East-Asian/ 5 Latinx/ 30 White/ 4 mixed). Of
these, 47 adolescents and fifty-two older adults took part in the intergenerational storytelling
intervention. Eighteen adolescents and 25 older adults participated in the intergenerational
movie-watching control activity. [Of the control participants, ten adolescents and fifteen older
adults opted to participate in the intervention following the control condition.] Participants and
their legal guardians (if under 18), signed informed consents/assents. Participants did not receive
compensation for their participation, as both programs were considered to provide a benefit.
Table 3 presents descriptive information for participants. Among adolescents, in part
because of neighborhood demographics and in part by chance, intervention participants, though
similar in age to control participants, tended to be in a higher grade at school, χ
2
(4, N= 61)= 15.6,
p < .01, and were more likely to identify as Latinx, χ
2
(6, N= 61)= 13.02; p = .04. Older adults
differed in ethnic heritage distribution across groups, χ
2
(4)= 11.53, p = .02; those in the
intervention groups were more likely to identify as Black or White rather than Latinx. Among
40
older adults, those in the intervention condition reported observing cultural traditions more than
did those in the movie-watching control condition, t(33.65)= 2.49; p = .02.
Table 3.
Participants’ demographic information.

Variable Storytelling intervention Movie-watching activity Statistical test
Adolescents
n 47 18
Sex (female/male) 26 (40%) / 17 (26%) 10 (15%) / 8 (12%) χ
2
(1, N=61)=1.7
Age 16.7 (1.04) 16.1 (1.2) t(28.1)=1.82
Grade χ
2
(4, N=61)=15.6**
9th 1 6
10th 7 2
11th 15 2
12th 20 8
Mean GPA (1-4 scale) 3.25 (0.64) 3.28 (0.55) t(35.44)=-0.17
School classes dropped/failed χ
2
(2, N=60)=4.08
0 27 10
1-3 10 8
4 or > 5 0
Ethnic Heritage χ
2
(5, N=61)=13.02*
Black 3 1
East-Asian 0 2
Latinx 34 9
White 1 2
Middle-Eastern 0 1
Mixed 5 3
Bicultural index 66.67 (10.33) 69.81 (10.72) t(27.04)=-0.99
Older adults
n 52 25
Sex (female/male) 32 (42%) / 17 (22%) 19 (24%) /6 (8%) χ
2
(1, N=74)=0.88
Age 73.82 (11.60) 77.10 (10.85) t(43.52)=-1.08
41
Educational Level completed χ
2
(1, N=61)=3.8
High School 8 6
Bachelor’s degree 31 16
Ethnic Heritage χ
2
(4, N=72)=11.5*
Black 16 1
East-Asian 1 1
Latinx 2 5
White 27 13
Mixed 3 3
Observe cultural traditions (0-100) 73.76 (21.42) 52.9 (30.92) t(33.65)= 2.49*
Embrace cultural values (0-100) 74.78 (23.42) 62.71 (33.98) t(35.10)= 1.35
Proud of cultural heritage (0-100) 87.95 (18.54) 76.00 (31.63) t(33.90)=1.52
*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001
The activities were conducted at neighoborhood gathering places, such as libraries and
senior centers.
Intergenerational storytelling intervention
The eight-week intergenerational storytelling curriculum was designed to foster positive
youth development, and a strong bond between the adolescent and senior partners. One
adolescent and one older adult paired up to complete the semi-structured storytelling activities
facilitated by a trained practitioner. The intervention was run in groups of approximately 13
adolescent-older adult pairs. The first seven sessions lasted 75 minutes and the eighth session
lasted 30 minutes.
In week 1, adolescents and older adults engaged in introductory group activities focused
on examining and overcoming preconceptions about age. In Week 2, each adolescent spent 3-5
minutes with each adult in a “speed-dating” storytelling activity, so that participants could
choose a partner for the remainder of the program. Over the remaining four weeks, the pairs
engaged in specially designed storytelling activities with props, such as memorabilia brought
42
from home. The pairs shared and reflected on commonalities and values that emerged. In Week
7, adolescents composed and shared tributes to their partners. The program concluded in Week 8
with a debriefing to reveal lessons learned and to provide an opportunity for closure. After each
session, adolescents were requested to reflect on their learning and experienced emotions in a
short video-diary activity.
Intergenerational movie-watching control activity
The control condition consisted of intergenerational movie-watching activities that,
though involving stories and spontaneous discussions, did not specifically support reflecting on
personal narratives. The intervention ran in groups of 13 adolescents and 13 older adults and had
the same number of social-contact hours one-on-one as the intergenerational storytelling
intervention. After introductory activities, adolescent-older adult groups watched movies
portraying romance and friendship. Participants watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s (Edwards, 1961),
Casablanca (Curtis, 1942), and Monster-in-Law (Luketic, 2005).
Measures for adolescents
Surveys. Adolescent participants were administered self-reported surveys on
psychological well-being (Ryff, 1989), sense of purpose-in-life (Byron & Miller-Perrin, 2009),
social connectedness (Lee & Robbins, 1995), and growth mindset (Dweck, 2006). At baseline
only, in order to further characterize the participants, adolescents completed the Bicultural Index
(Hunter, 2006).
Qualitative analyses. In order to examine adolescents’ life goals, participants were
administered a modified version of the Possible Selves Questionnaire (Oyserman & Markus,
1990). Life goals and motives formulated by adolescents were qualitatively categorized as either
values-based or concrete, following Riveros & Immordino-Yang (2020; dissertation Chapter 1).
43
Values-based life goals were defined as goals focused on developing character qualities and
personal growth, goals greater than the self such as community-related goals, and goals
involving service to others. Representative responses from participants in Riveros & Immordino-
Yang (2020; dissertation Chapter 1) were: “I think I’d still like to help others, so organizations
like Red Cross or just do some kind of volunteer work with my free time”, “And [I want to]
continue being a hard worker and staying humble”. Concrete goals were defined as goals
focused on acquiring goods, gaining popularity, status, favorable social comparisons, and
hedonistic values. Representative responses were: “I don’t wanna be homeless”, “[I want] to
have a nice car”. Tallies of values-based and concrete based goals were calculated for each
participant. Analyses carried out in a similar sample of low-income LA-area adolescents for
Riveros & Immordino-Yang (2020; dissertation Chapter 1), with the same experimenters and
coders, yielded strong inter-rater reliability (90% ICC).
In order to examine adolescents’ orientation toward civic participation, participants were
administered the item pertaining to civic participation from the Forms of Purpose Determination
validated interview (Malin, 2008). Participants were questioned about what they would like to
change in the world. Responses were coded as either values-based (and abstract) or concrete. A
values-based response was defined as revealing a desire to build a common understanding,
shared belief or value through dialogue, perspective taking and empathy. For example: “I wish
that everyone in the world was more understanding of one another, [...] I think that it is really
important to reach out to others, hear their stories, and put yourself in their shoes”. A concrete
response was defined as stipulating a specific behavioral outcome as a desired change, with an
emphasis on civil behavior rather than on values or ideas. For example: “I want people with
differing opinions to get along.”
44
Measures for older adults
Surveys. Older adult participants completed self-reported surveys on psychological well-
being (Ryff, 1989), sense of purpose-in-life (Byron & Miller-Perrin, 2009), social connectedness
(Hawkley, Kozloski, & Wong, 2014), and generativity (McAdams & de St. Aubin, 1992). To
help characterize the sample, they also rated the degree to which they observe cultural traditions,
embrace cultural values, and hold pride in cultural heritage on a 1-100 scale, where 100 indicated
the highest level of agreement.
Psychometric testing. Older adult participants completed the Digit test from the
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, Third Edition (WAIS-III; Kaufman & Lichtenberger, 1999).
Working memory was measured by the number of digits correctly retrieved in the backward
subscale of the Digit Test.
Analytical Plan
First, descriptive statistics were used to characterize the participants. Independent t-tests
were conducted to compare the groups at baseline. We also tested whether outcome variables
were correlated at baseline.
Next, for the adolescent participants, ANCOVA built-in regression models were used to
test the main effect of treatment condition (storytelling or movie-watching) on the difference
between pre and post scores. We also tested the interaction between the change of scores for
each group and the scores at baseline (i.e. a multiplicative interaction), to control for the group
differences at baseline that we had identified. For the older-adult participants, ANCOVA built-in
regression models were used to test whether the treatment condition and scores at baseline
predicted changes in scores pre to post. (Given that we had found no differences between groups
at baseline for older adults, we did not test for multiplicative interactions.) In all models, the
45
treatment condition was dummy-coded using the movie-watching control activity as the
reference treatment.
Finally, we tested whether change in adolescents’ values-based goals mediated the
change in purpose-in-life score. A post-hoc power analysis was conducted to test the robustness
of the mediation model.
Results
Effects of the intergenerational intervention in adolescents
Summary statistics for all measures collected, and the calculated change of scores used in
the analyses are presented in Table 4. Groups differed on pre-test scores: participants in the
intergenerational storytelling intervention scored significantly lower in social connectedness at
baseline than did the participants in the control group, t(42.2)= -2.1, p = .04. Table 5 presents
correlations for outcome measures.
Table 4.
Adolescents’ scores and changes pre to post by condition.

Variable Storytelling intervention Movie- watching control Group differences
at Pre-testing
Pre Change Score Pre Change Score
M SD M SD M SD M SD
Psychological well-being 83.1 16.1 0.8 13.8 87.3 9.8 1.4 3.4 t(50.8)=-1.3
General life purpose 68.6 14.4 8.7 13.9 74.4 9.6 0.9 3.1 t(46.4)=-1.9
Growth mindset 29.3 5.0 1.1 3.9 30.9 4.4 1.8 4.0 t(35.6)=-1.3
Social connectedness 34.1 11.7 2.7 9.7 40.1 7.6 -3.3 7.9 t(42.2)=-2.1*
Values-based life goals 0.8 0.8 0.4 1.1 0.9 1.0 -0.2 1.0 t(26.1)=-0.3
Concrete life goals 2.7 1.1 -0.5 1.4 2.9 1.3 -0.4 1.5 t(27.5)=-0.5
*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001

46
Table 5.
Correlation of adolescents’ scores at pre-testing.

Variable 1 2 3 4 5 6
1.Psychological well-being -
2.General life purpose 0.8*** -
3.Growth mindset 0.2 0.3* -
4.Social connectedness 0.6*** 0.7*** 0.1 -
5.Values-based life goals 0.1 0.3* -0.1 0.2 -
6.Concrete life goals -0.1 -0.2 0.1 -0.2 -0.6*** -
*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001
Adolescents’ social connectedness improved significantly more in the intervention group,
b= 1.56, SE= 14.91, t(35)= 2.11, p < .05, especially in participants whose pre-test scores were
low (see Figure 5). This model explained 30% of the variance in adolescents’ social
connectedness, R
2
= 0.30, F(3,35)= 5.01, p < .01.

47
Figure 5.
Changes in adolescents’ social connectedness as a function of initial score by condition.

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001
Note. The storytelling intervention increased social connectedness among adolescents, and especially among
participants with the lowest scores at pretesting. No score changes were observed in the control condition.
Adolescents’ psychological well-being improved significantly more in the intervention
group, b= 2.12, SE= 19.28, t(48)= 2.9, p < .01. Among those in the intervention group,
adolescents with the lowest scores at pre-testing showed the greatest growth, b= -2.29, SE= 0.21,
t(48)= -3.18, p < .01; see Figure 6. This model explained 69% of the variance in psychological
well-being, R
2
= 0.69, F(3, 48)= 34.99, p < .001.

48
Figure 6.
Changes in adolescents’ psychological wellbeing as a function of initial score by condition.

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001
Note. Low-scores participants at baseline in the storytelling condition increased their scores in psychological wellbeing.
High-score participants in the storytelling condition decreased in their scores. No score changes were observed in the control
condition.
Adolescents’ sense of purpose-in-life improved significantly more in the intervention
group, b= 2.03, SE= 20.99, t(51)= 2.76, p < .01, especially among those with the lowest scores at
pre-testing, b= -1.9, SE= 0.27, t(51)= -2.67, p < .01; see Figure 7. This model explained 58% of
the variance in sense of purpose-in-life, R
2
= 0.58, F(3,51)= 23.08, p < .001.

49
Figure 7.
Changes in adolescents’ purpose in life as a function of initial score by condition.

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001
Note. In the storytelling condition, adolescents with low initial scores increased their sense of purpose. No score
changes were observed in the control condition.
Regardless of condition, values-based life goals increased more among adolescents with
the lowest initial scores, b= -0.49, SE= 0.26, t(50)= -2.35, p <. 05. This model explained 31% of
the variance in change in values-based life goals, R
2
= 0.31, F(3,59)= 7.6, p < .001.
Increases in values-based goals mediated the effects of the storytelling intervention on
purpose-in-life, b = 0.74, SE = 0.29, p = .014, and increases in values-based goals were a
significant predictor of sense of purpose-in-life, b = 3.66, SE = 0.78, p < .00. The storytelling
intervention was no longer a predictor of sense of purpose-in-life after controlling for the
mediator, values-based life goals, b = 2.29, SE = 1.79, p = .21, consistent with full mediation; see
Figure 8. Approximately 31% of the variance in sense of purpose-in-life was accounted for by
50
the predictors, R
2
= 0.31, F(2,51)= 11.72, p < .00. The indirect effect was formally tested using
the Sobel test, and indicated that the indirect coefficient was significant, b= 2.15, SE = 1.06, p =
.03. A post-hoc analysis of the power of this finding, taking into account an α= .05 and R
2
= 0.31,
leads to a power of .99, indicating the robustness of this result.
Figure 8.
Increases in adolescents’ purpose in life after the storytelling intervention are mediated by increases in
adolescents’ values-based life goals.

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001
Adolescents’ conceptualizations of social and community problems to the prompt “what
in the world would you like to be different?” shifted from concrete (e.g. “I wish everyone got
along”) to abstract (e.g. “we should use dialog and empathy to understand others”) only
following the storytelling condition, χ
2
(3, N=113)= 7.8, p < .04. Table 6 presents frequencies for
coded responses on civic participation pre and post-testing.
Table 6.
Counts of adolescents’ qualitatively coded responses about sense of civic participation.
Coded responses Pre Post
n % n %
Storytelling intervention
Abstract understanding 5 4.4 15 13.2
Concrete understanding 37 32.7 26 23
Movie-watching activity
Abstract understanding 5 4.4 4 3.5
Concrete understanding 13 11.5 8 7
Note. Cell numbers provide tallies for the numbers of participants whose response fell into the relevant category.

Storytelling
Intervention
Increases in values-
based life goals
Increases in sense of
purpose in life
b=2.2(1.06)*
b=3.66(0.78)***
b=0.74(0.2)*
51
Effects of the intergenerational storytelling intervention in older adults
The storytelling and control participants did not significantly differ on psychosocial
measures at baseline (all p> .05). A summary of the results for older adult participants is
presented in Table 7. Table 8 presents the correlations for outcome measures at pre-testing.
Table 7.
Older adults’ initial scores and changes pre to post-testing by condition.

Variable Storytelling intervention Movie- watching activity Group differences
at Pre
Pre Change Score Pre Change Score
M SD M SD M SD M SD
Psychological well-being 91.2 7.5 0.3 7.1 87.4 12.5 3.2 12.0 t(32.5)=1.4
General life purpose 78.5 7.7 0.89 6.87 77.8 0.9 1.1 5.1 t(41.6)=0.3
Generativity 41.1 7.48 5.8 7.3 40.5 8.2 2.3 8.6 t(41.7)=0.3
Social connectedness 18.2 2.5 0.4 1.71 17.1 3.5 0.4 2.9 t(34.9)=1.4
Working memory 4.5 1.3 0.2 1.3 4.2 1.2 -0.2 1.1 t(45.5)=1.0
*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001
Table 8.
Pearson correlations of older adults’ scores at pre-testing.

Variable 1 2 3 4 5
1.Psychological well-being -
2.General life purpose .4*** -
3.Generativity .3* .6*** -
4.Social connectedness .5*** .3* .3 -
5.Working memory .2 .01 -.2 .2 -
*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001
No changes were observed to psychological wellbeing, general purpose-in-life, and social
connectedness among the older adults (all p > .05).
Among the older-adult participants, those who participated in the intervention improved
their generativity more than those who participated in the control condition, b= 4.06, SE= 1.86,
t(60)= 2.18, p = .03. This was especially true for those with the lowest scores at pre-testing, b= -
52
0.44, SE= 0.1, t(58)= -4.05, p < .00. It is worth noting that older adults with the lowest
generativity at pre-testing also improved more following the control condition (see Figure 9).
This model explained 25% of the variance in generativity, R
2
= .25, F(2,60)= 10.04, p <.001.
Figure 9.
Changes in older adults’ generativity as a function of initial score by condition.

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001
Note. Low-scoring participants in the intervention and control condition increased their sense of generativity.
A similar result was found for working memory. Among the older adults, participating in
the intervention marginally significantly improved working memory, b= 0.52, SE= 0.20, t(59)=
1.86, p = .06, and this effect was especially strong among those with the lowest working memory
at pre-testing, b= -0.48, SE= 0.51, t(58)= -4.64, p < .00; see Figure 10. This model explained
29% of the variance in change of working memory scores, R
2
= .29, F(2,59)= 11.78, p < .001.

53
Figure 10.
Changes in older adults’ working memory as a function of initial score by condition.

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001
Note. Working memory increases in low-score participants in the intervention and control condition.
Discussion
This research examined the effects of an intergenerational storytelling intervention on
adolescents’ and older adults’ psychosocial development. In the study, the intergenerational
storytelling intervention was compared to an intergenerational movie-watching activity that,
while involving stories and social camaraderie, did not specifically support participants’
reflecting on their life narratives or thinking deeply about their values and beliefs. The
intervention promoted social connectedness among the adolescent participants, and, especially
among participants with the lowest scores at baseline, it promoted wellbeing and purpose-in-life.
54
Among the older-adult participants, the intervention condition was associated with stronger
improvements in working memory. However, among the older adults, both the intervention and
the movie-watching activity promoted generativity and working memory performance,
suggesting that intergenerational activities in general, or possibly simply organized opportunities
for friendly social interaction, promoted social-emotional and cognitive health in this age group.
For both adolescents and older adults, the results across the study were especially strong for
participants with the lowest levels of functioning at the start of the study, supporting the
suitability of this intervention in vulnerable groups (Palacios et al., 2015). Overall, the results
suggest that our intergenerational storytelling intervention was beneficial, and especially so for
the adolescent participants.
One reason that the storytelling intervention was more effective than the movie-watching
condition for the adolescents appears to be that the intervention afforded needed opportunities to
reflect on core values, and to embed these values in life narratives. Though adolescents who
participated in the storytelling activities increased their number of values-based life goals only
marginally more than did adolescents who watched movies with their partner, the amount of
increase in values-based goals mediated the effects of the intervention on life purpose only in the
storytelling condition. Further, only in the storytelling condition were participants more likely to
change their conceptualization of civic participation from more concrete to more abstract and
values-based. These findings suggest that reflecting on ethical and relational values underlying
life narratives, with the guidance of a sympathetic older-adult partner, might help adolescents to
operationalize their values into plans for themselves and their communities. Doing so is known
to heighten adolescents’ sense of goal-directedness and motivation (Merrill & Fivush, 2016),
which is consistent with our finding that life purpose increased in this age group.
55
Our study contributes to advancing understanding of how adolescents’ reasoning as they
formulate life goals supports their wellbeing. Our findings underscore the importance of probing
not simply what adolescents’ life goals or civic contributions are, but how they have arrived at
those goals and how they conceptualize their civic contributions. As others have suggested
(Kasser & Ryan, 1996), goals and reasoning that are underlain by values-based deliberations
rather than by instrumental aims may be more beneficial for psychosocial growth.
Among older adult participants, the main effect of scores at baseline for both generativity
and working memory suggests that any form of social connection may be helpful for low-scoring
participants. A wide variety of intergenerational programs have been found to support older
adults’ physical and mental health by providing a sense of meaningfulness and by supporting
shared opportunities for relationship building and growth (Murayama et al., 2015; Teater, 2016).
When proper training is provided for participants and facilitators, intergenerational programs are
feasible, straightforward, inexpensive and beneficial for older adults (Canedo-García, García-
Sánchez, & Pacheco-Sanz, 2017), and even for those experiencing cognitive decline and
dementia (Chung, 2009; Galbraith, Larkin, Moorhouse, & Oomen, 2015; Gualano et al., 2018).
Intergenerational programs can leverage the strengths of elders to support the development of
teenagers, and benefit the elders in the process.
For intergenerational programming to be effective, it is important to follow best practices.
For example, our study offered proper training for participants and practitioners, which oriented
them to address stereotypes about age (Jarrott, 2011; Larkin & Rosebrook, 2002). The program’s
length, having adolescents choose their partner, and the performative aspect of publicly reading a
tribute, were designed to promote emotional investment and make the program more attractive to
adolescents (Epstein & Boisvert, 2006). Recruiting adolescent and older adult participants from
56
the same neighborhoods made participation convenient, and generated credibility and trust
among the participants (Small, 2009). Though in-person administration is preferred, this
approach could be extended by the use of inclusive technology supporting meaningful
engagement (Boger & Mercer, 2017), and some have suggested that well constructed online
programs can have similarly beneficial outcomes (Canedo-García et al., 2017).
This work, though modest, is important. Adolescents and seniors are among the groups
with the highest rates of social isolation (Twenge et al., 2019) and lowest rates of mental health
(Mojtabai et al., 2016; Reynolds, Pietrzak, El-Gabalawy, Mackenzie, & Sareen, 2015). Across
ages, individuals’ sense of purpose, also called generativity among the elderly, is an important
predictor of health and life expectancy (Steptoe, Deaton, & Stone, 2015). Our findings are
consistent with work showing that among older adults, cognitive functioning is supported by
social engagement (James, Wilson, Barnes, & Bennett, 2011; Krueger et al., 2009). Especially
given the low cost of this intervention and its adaptability to any community, our study suggests
the utility and promise of intergenerational storytelling programs. Taken together, our study
along with others (e.g. Mager, 2019), provide compelling evidence that opportunities for
relationship-based reflection can promote healthy development, recuperation of social capital
and flourishing of communities (Morita & Kobayashi, 2013; Murayama, Murayama, Hasebe,
Yamaguchi, & Fujiwara, 2019).
In many ways, our project opens as many questions as it answers. The finding that
adolescents’ changes in purpose-in-life were mediated by their developing propensity to
formulate values-based goals underscores the importance of opportunities for high-level
reflection in this age group (Immordino-Yang, 2016); the implications of this finding should be
more broadly investigated in schools and further work in this vein is needed. Further work is also
57
needed to study how such programming could be integrated into school activities by practitioners
and school administrators. Storytelling could expand the repertoire of educational practices that
promote social-emotional learning and vocational mentorship, contributing to enriching the
social and community orientation of schools. Viable, evidence-based programming that
establishes partnerships with community members and community-based organizations is a
known way to make schools and communities stronger (DeVore, Winchell, & Rowe, 2016).
Overall, though much is left to be done, this work underscores the promise of
intergenerational programs in community settings. Both adolescents and older adults are in need
of social connection (Hawkley et al., 2014; Twenge et al., 2019); setting them up to support each
other seems like an obvious strategy for building community social resources. By engaging a
grassroots-style small opportunity-cost program, intergenerational storytelling activities leverage
the natural power of conversations and relationships, and are culturally sensitive for a range of
users (Palacios et al., 2015). This intervention approach mirrors opportunities for cultivating
purpose and virtues that adolescents and older adults are likely to find in natural relationships,
but that may be lacking in the modern age.

58
Chapter 3.
Intrinsic cortico-subcortical functional connectivity predicts low-SES adolescents’ values-
based life goals

Abstract
Adolescents’ values-based life goals are intentions of achieving something intrinsically
meaningful over the long term, which may also positively contribute to the lives of others.
Formulating values-based life goals requires adolescents to cognitively elaborate the motives that
undergird their life plans, and to relate these plans to affectively powerful ethical and prosocial
aims. The rewarding experience of forming values-based life goals motivates and inspires
adolescents, and promotes psychosocial development and adult identity formation.
The basal ganglia are involved in processing ethical and prosocial rewards, and in
motivating behaviors. This subcortical region is richly interconnected with various cortical areas,
including especially areas that serve as anterior and posterior hubs of cortical network
connectivity in regions involved in the Default Mode (DMN) and Salience networks (SN).
Across adolescent development, the maturation of these networks’ cortical-subcortical
connections is thought to enable and stabilize new capacities for emotion regulation and abstract
thinking. Understanding sources of inter-individual variability in neural connectivity patterns as
they relate to real-world capacities important for adolescent psychosocial health is a major focus
of current research.
This study examined the relationship between adolescents’ self-articulated values-based
life goals and the functional connectivity of the Basal Ganglia Network (BGN) to cortical
regions in a whole-brain analysis. A community sample of urban low-income adolescents
59
described their life goals and reasoning about associated motives in a private interview and
underwent a 7-minute resting state fMRI scan and structural brain imaging. Participants also
underwent IQ testing.
Results show that higher intrinsic functional connectivity between the BGN and the
precuneus, a key hub of the DMN, and lower intrinsic functional connectivity between the BGN
and the right ventral anterior insula, a hub of the SN, was associated with a tendency toward
reasoning about life goals in a values-oriented way. Results held after controlling for IQ and
SES. By integrating a qualitative analysis of adolescents’ life goals with resting state brain
imaging, our work contributes to understanding patterns of neural maturation that underlie
beneficial habits of mind in adolescence.
Keywords: values - precuneus- insula - basal ganglia - life goals- adolescents
Introduction
Adolescents build life goals around all sorts of motives in preparation for a successful
adult life. The deliberations supporting adolescents’ life goals motivate adolescents to explore
what feels most important and valuable to them, and big questions about the kind of adult they
want to become (Becht et al., 2018; Lee & Vondracek, 2014).
Adolescents’ life goals and their underlying motives can be categorized as either values-
based, or concrete and instrumental. Values-based life goals involve stable intentions of
accomplishing something intrinsically meaningful over the long term, which may also seek to
positively transform the lives of others (Damon et al., 2003; Trope & Liberman, 2010). In
describing these life goals, adolescents mention core ethical and prosocial values as their key
motives. In contrast, concrete life goals are focused on short-term gains, personal achievement,
60
and social status. Adolescents describe concrete goals as driven by pragmatic and hedonistic
motives (Damon et al., 2003; Trope & Liberman, 2010).
Although concrete goals are necessary to manage daily activities, values-based life goals
serve as a superordinate objective that can give structure and meaning to concrete goals, and
make hard work feel rewarding (Vallacher & Wegner, 1989). In forming values-based life goals,
adolescents experience positive feelings of fulfillment and increase their motivation to engage in
purposeful behavior (Torelli & Kaikati, 2009; Vasquez & Buehler, 2007). In contrast, concrete
life goals, while important, pleasurable and motivating, do not afford youths the experience of
personal meaning, joy and deep social connection that is associated with formulating values-
based goals, largely because concrete goals are immediate and instrumental, and do not deeply
enrich adolescents’ identity or life purpose in the long term (Deci & Flaste, 1995; King, 2020).
The ability and inclination to focus on values-based life goals, and not only on concrete
goals, is important for adolescents’ healthy developmental transition to adulthood. Adolescents
who report more intrinsic, values-based life goals are more consistent and perseverant, and more
sensitive to the moral implications of their actions and decisions (Vallacher & Wegner, 1989). In
contrast, adolescents who predominantly endorse extrinsic, concrete life goals report lower
wellbeing, and more mental health issues and risky behaviors (Kasser & Ryan, 1996). The
development of values-based life goals is especially important for urban youth from low-SES
circumstances, since these youth often face a tougher road to rewarding higher education and
work opportunities, and more obstacles to achieving adult success (Garcia, 2014).
Reward processing is the backbone of motivation toward life goals, as it induces
approach behaviors, positive feelings and learning (Schultz, 2004). Neurocognitive models
describe developmental changes in sensitivity to potential extrinsic and intrinsic rewards in
61
adolescence, compared to other developmental periods. Higher sensitivity to reward-related
motivation has been associated with poor decision-making and risk taking behaviors, but also
can motivate adolescents to explore new, more adult-like social roles in society, expanding
learning and fostering commitment to future goals and positive social behavior (Crone & Dahl,
2012; Telzer, 2016). Though much of the research on adolescents’ goal seeking has been focused
on risk, adolescents’ newly developing abilities to think complexly about goals over the longer
term form the foundation for beneficial values-based goals that lead to purpose, prosociality, and
wellbeing. Differentiating propensities toward these two sorts of motivated goals in the brain in
adolescence is important for mitigating risk and supporting adolescents’ healthy growth.
At the brain level, adolescents’ motivated and goal-directed behavior is supported by the
development of cortico-subcortical loops (Gee et al., 2018). These circuits involve the basal
ganglia, thalamus, amygdala and cortical areas, such as the orbitofrontal cortex, insula, and
posterior cingulate cortex. The morphology and functional network connectivity of these
structures undergo substantial development during adolescence. There is overall gray matter
volume reduction in a time- and region-specific manner (Giedd et al., 1999), combined with
increased white matter volume and structural connectivity changes (Lebel & Beaulieu, 2011).
These morphological changes are associated with parallel changes in cortical and subcortical
functional connectivity that can be measured during rest (Fareri et al., 2015; Gabard-Durnam et
al., 2014; van Duijvenvoorde, Blankenstein, Crone, & Figner, 2016). In particular, changes in the
Basal Ganglia Network (BGN), including the basal ganglia and thalamus, are important for
affective-motivational functioning (Damasio et al., 2000), especially via connectivity with
cortical structures involved in the regulation of thoughts and conscious emotional experiences
(Somerville, Jones, & Casey, 2010; Steinberg, 2008). Together, these morphological and
62
functional changes in cortico-subcortical connectivity are thought to support the network
specialization and internetwork connectivity important to the more complex, goal-oriented and
long-term thinking that is essential for values-based goals.
Because values-based life goals reflect core beliefs embedded in life narratives and
motivating social emotions, a likely cortical candidate to be engaged with the BGN in their
processing are posterior nodes of the Default Mode Network (DMN) (Immordino-Yang et al.,
2009; Kaplan et al., 2016; Yang et al., 2018), such as the precuneus. The precuneus is a key
posterior hub of the DMN (Utevsky, Smith, & Huettel, 2014), and as part of this network is
involved in internally-directed thinking, narrative processing, and the social and affective
operations that support transcending the here-and-now (Bertossi, Aleo, Braghittoni, &
Ciaramelli, 2016; Immordino-Yang, Christodoulou, & Singh, 2012; Raichle, 2015; Simony et al.,
2016). In contrast to studies that utilize more direct rewards and or social tasks that does not
require complex social reasoning, like passively viewing faces or playing games for money
(Sescousse, Caldú, Segura, & Dreher, 2013), the precuneus is routinely engaged in studies of
social-emotional and moral processing that use tasks, rewards, and stimuli that are cognitively
abstract, such as social relevance and identity-based reciprocation. These studies have shown that
experiencing the kinds of social rewards that undergird values-based life goals involves both the
basal ganglia and the precuneus (Han, Chen, Jeong, & Glover, 2016; Kawamichi et al., 2016;
Watanabe et al., 2014).
In addition to the growing connectivity between the BGN and the posterior DMN across
adolescence (Solé-Padullés et al., 2016), the BGN also increases connectivity to the inferior
anterior insula (Uddin, Supekar, Ryali, & Menon, 2011), a key node of the Salience Network
(SN). Overall, the increased connectivity between the right anterior insula and basal ganglia
63
shown in adolescent longitudinal studies is thought to support cognitive control and awareness in
direct social interactions. The SN comprises the fronto-insular, anterior insular, dorsal anterior
cingulate, and temporal lobe cortices, as well as the dorsomedial thalamus, substantia
nigra/ventral tegmental area, extended amygdala, and periaqueductal gray matter (Seeley et al.,
2007; Uddin, 2017). The SN supports the integration of interoceptive-autonomic processing,
vicero-motor signals and hedonic markers (Damasio, 1999) necessary to monitor current
motivated-behavior (Seeley et al., 2007; Uddin, 2014). The anterior insula is essential for the
appraisal and conscious affective experience of social emotions in context (Bechara & Damasio,
2005; Immordino-Yang et al., 2009; Immordino-Yang, Yang, & Damasio, 2014; Tusche,
Bockler, Kanske, Trautwein, & Singer, 2016). Connectivity between the anterior insula and basal
ganglia increases in cooperation tasks that offer immediate social reciprocation, in contrast to
tasks that recruit identity-based and reputational reciprocation that preferentially involve the
basal ganglia and precuneus (Watanabe et al., 2014).
Though abilities to attend in real-time to social interactions and interoceptive sensations
are surely useful in navigating day-to-day, it has also been suggested that increased connectivity
from the anterior insula to the basal ganglia suppresses the basal ganglia- precuneus pathway,
(Sridharan, Levitin, & Menon, 2008; Vatansever, Manktelow, Sahakian, Menon, & Stamatakis,
2016; Watanabe et al., 2014). For adolescents to manage both daily social interactions and
longer-term values-based reflections is thought to require flexibility to appropriately trade off
between these modes (Crone & Dahl, 2012; Immordino-Yang et al., 2012; Yang et al., 2018).
Because the insula is involved in monitoring one’s self in real time and orienting to the here-and-
now, it is possible that stronger connectivity at rest between the basal ganglia and insula could be
associated with less tendency toward the reflective thinking that is the hallmark for building
64
values-based long-term goals (Immordino-Yang, 2016; Immordino-Yang et al., 2012, 2009). To
our knowledge, this possibility has not been studied.
Despite growing neuroscientific interest in investigating the processing of intrinsic, social
and moral rewards, most research to date on adolescents’ reward processing and goals has
focused on concrete and hedonistic goals and associated risk taking and social referencing. While
processing of extrinsic, hedonic rewards can be studied using tasks such as playing games for
money or improving social image which are relatively straightforward to utilize with adolescent
participants (Di Domenico & Ryan, 2017), life motives can only be studied using tasks that are
personally relevant and that leave room for an adolescent’s own open-ended reflections (Di
Domenico & Ryan, 2017). The motives and values that undergird life goals are shaped by socio-
cultural factors and reflect individual propensities that are difficult to measure using standardized
rewards (Walter, Abler, Ciaramidaro, & Erk, 2005). Because of this, open-ended questions are
better suited to probe the content of adolescents’ self-articulated life goals, as well as the values
and social emotions on which these goals are built (Immordino-Yang, 2010; Oyserman &
Fryberg, 2006).
Given the above, here we combine open-ended interview methods with subsequent
resting state functional connectivity methods, affording us a starting point for examining the
neural developmental profiles that are associated with adolescents’ propensities toward values-
based life goal formulation. Although functional connectivity studies related to reward processes
are scarce (Richards, Plate, & Ernst, 2013), they hold promise in uncovering individual
differences in the formulation of adolescents’ value-based life goals. To the best of our
knowledge, no studies have studied adolescents’ self-generated life goals and motives in relation
to neural measures.
65
Working with a community sample of low-SES urban youth, we examined the
relationship between adolescents’ propensities to form values-based and concrete life goals in a
supportive, open-ended interview and the intrinsic functional connectivity of the BGN to the
whole brain in a subsequent resting-state scan. We hypothesized that resting state functional
connectivity between the BGN and key posterior nodes of the DMN would correlate with
adolescents’ propensities to describe value-based life goals, but not with adolescents’
propensities to describe concrete goals. Conversely, we hypothesized that connectivity of the
BGN to key nodes of the SN would be negatively correlated with descriptions of values-based
goals, and positively correlated with participants’ tendencies toward formulating concrete life
goals.
Methods
Data for the current study were collected as part of the second wave of a longitudinal
project investigating the development of adolescents’ social emotions and their neurobiological
correlates (n = 55), which involved a range of surveys and interviews about various social topics,
and standardized testing. From this dataset, we included 23 participants who had a complete life
goals interviews and neuroimaging protocols. This sample partially overlaps with the sample
used in Butler et al. (2018), which describe unrelated aspects of the data set. The coding of life
goals utilized in the current study was completed as part of Riveros & Immordino-Yang (2020
dissertation Chapter 1).
Participants
The sample included 23 right-handed adolescents (M
age
=18.0, SD=1.2; 10 male/13
female). Seven participants self-identified as Asian and 16 self-identified as Latinx. Seventeen
reported receiving free lunch (73%), and one (4%) reported receiving reduced price lunch at
66
school, an indicator of low family SES. Participants were recruited from public high schools in
low-SES urban Los Angeles neighborhoods with high immigrant populations, and all
participants had at least one immigrant parent. All participants had been raised in the United
States and spoke English fluently from childhood (and not enrolled in English-learner classes at
school). Enrollment criteria included no history of neurological or psychiatric disease, physical
or emotional abuse or neglect, no use of psychotropic medication, drugs or alcohol, no medical
condition that would preclude MR scanning. Additional enrollment criteria included full-time
enrollment in school, passing all classes, and not under any disciplinary action. The Institutional
Review Board of the University of Southern California (USC) reviewed this study, and
participants and legal guardians signed assent and consent forms, respectively. Participants were
compensated for their participation.
Procedure
Adolescent participants completed a one-on-one interview about their life goals, as well
as IQ testing. An interviewer of the same ethnic background as the interviewee conducted the
interviews. The interview was structured around the Possible Selves Questionnaire (Oyserman &
Markus, 1990), following the procedure described in Riveros & Immordino-Yang (2020;
dissertation Chapter 1). Participants’ videotaped interviews were transcribed and verified, and
adolescents’ formulated goals and descriptions of their motives for holding that goal were coded,
as described below.
Qualitative coding of life goals
Life goals and their motives were qualitatively coded from the life goals participants
described in their interview. Values-based goals comprised goals focused on personal growth
and developing character virtues over the long-term, goals greater than the self, and goals
67
involving service to others. Representative responses from participants in this sample were: “I
think I’d still like to help others, so organizations like Red Cross or just do some kind of
volunteer work with my free time”, “And [I want to] continue being a hard worker and staying
humble”. Concrete goals were composed of goals focused on acquiring goods, gaining social
status, and short-term pragmatic and hedonistic motives. Representative responses obtained in
this sample were: “I don’t wanna be homeless”, “[I want] to have a nice car”, “I want to have a
motorcycle license”. Tallies of values-based and concrete life goals were calculated for each
participant. Prior work on this coding scheme has shown an appropriate inter-rater reliability
(90% agreement in intra-class correlation; Riveros & Immordino, 2020; dissertation Chapter 1).
Cognitive performance
In a private assessment with an experimenter, participants completed the Wechsler
Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence, Second Edition (WASI-II; Wechsler, 2011), which provides a
measure of intellectual quotient.
rsfMRI Acquisition and Preprocessing
On the same day as the interview, in the early afternoon, participants underwent a 7-
minute rsfMRI scan, in which they were asked to “relax with eyes open and let your mind
wander”. Due to scheduling constraints, half of the sample was interviewed before the MRI
session, and the other half was interviewed afterwards. As these data are part of a larger study,
resting state scans were acquired after four 8-minute runs in which participants viewed short
clips of videos eliciting social emotions (not analyzed here; see also Immordino-Yang et al.,
2009 for information on social-emotional stimulus presentation).
Neuroimaging data were collected at USC Dana and David Dornsife Neuroimaging
Center. Whole-brain images were acquired using a Siemens 3 Tesla MAGNETON Prisma
68
scanner with a 20-channel matrix head coil. Functional scans were acquired using a T2*
weighted Echo Planar (EPI) sequence with the following parameters: TR=2 s, TE=25 ms, flip
angle= 90
o
, acquisition matrix: 64 x 64, FOV= 192 mm, with a voxel resolution of 3 x 3 x 3 mm.
Forty-one continuous transverse slices were acquired to cover the whole brain and brainstem.
Anatomical images were acquired using a magnetization-prepared rapid acquisition
gradient echo (MPRAGE) sequence, with the following parameters: TI=800 ms, TR= 2530 ms,
TE= 3.13 ms, flip angle= 10
o
; 180 coronal slices were acquired to cover the whole brain, the
dimensions were 256 x 256 matrix, with an isotropic voxel of 1 mm.
Neuroimaging data were preprocessed using Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM 12)
(Wellcome Department of Cognitive Neurology, London, UK) in Matlab 2015b (MathWorks,
Inc.). Functional data were slice-timing corrected, aligned to the first volume acquired and co-
registered to the anatomical image. Co- registrations were individually examined for each
participant in native space to ensure quality alignment. Anatomical images were segmented and
non-linearly normalized to MNI (Montreal Neurological Institute) space using standard
probabilistic tissue maps provided in SPM12. The same normalization transformation was
applied to functional scans, which were resampled into a resolution of 2mm x 2mm x 2mm and
smoothed using an 8 mm full-width, half-maximum Gaussian kernel.
Selection of the BGN Component
The BGN was identified at the group-level using ICA, and back-reconstructed for each
participant using the Infomax algorithm from the GIFT toolbox (version 4.0a) (Calhoun, Liu, &
Adalı, 2009). GIFT separates each subject’s fMRI data into independent spatial components and
their respective time courses. Twenty components were estimated in this dataset in order to
assure the stability of the analysis (Li, Adalı, & Calhoun, 2007). A spatial correlation was
69
performed between each of the twenty components and a BGN template (Laird et al., 2011).
Given the strong anatomical connectivity between BGN and thalamus, both structures were
included in the component. The component that most strongly correlated with the template was
chosen as the BGN component in our sample. The selected component for each individual was
visually inspected to ensure that it included canonical regions of the BGN. Figure 11 depicts the
selected component.
Figure 11.
BGN template and participants’ BGN component. A. Representative view of the BGN template used to spatially identify each
participant’s BGN component. B. Selected BGN component.

Correlation between life goals and BGN intrinsic connectivity
A multiple regression model was set to regress the participants’ z-score maps on the
frequency of values-based and concrete life goals. On the group-level results, a statistical
threshold of p < .005 and a cluster extent threshold of 164 voxels was set. This corresponds to an
70
α < .05, controlling for multiple comparisons. The cluster extent threshold was determined by
10,000 Monte Carlo simulation iterations conducted using the AlphaSim program in AFNI
(http://afni.nimh.nih.gov/afni/). The criteria input to AlphaSim were: uncorrected p-value of
.005, voxel size of 2x2x2, spatial smoothing kernel of 8 mm, and the number of voxels included
in the whole brain analyses (164,723 voxels). Finally, we extracted the average connectivity
scores for a 8mm sphere placed on the peak coordinates for each surviving cluster using the
MarsBar toolbox in SPM (Brett, Anton, Valabregue, & Poline, 2002), and tested how the
connectivity to the BGN component of that cerebral cluster was associated with adolescents’
mentions of values-based and concrete life goals.
Results
Table 9 summarizes tally of life goals and IQ scores for the current sample. Participants
described fewer values-based life goals than concrete life goals, t(43.7)= -6.1, p < .00. Tallies of
values-based and concrete life goals were not correlated, r(21)= -.16, p = .45. Older participants
produced more values-based life goals, r(21)= .46, p = .02, but concrete life goals were unrelated
to age, r(32)= .06, p = .77. No gender differences were observed, values-based: t(33.1)= -0.7, p =
.52; concrete: t(33.9)= -0.4, p = .7. Though the sample sizes were uneven in the current analysis,
Latinx participants (n=16) produced marginally more values-based goals than did Asian
participants (n=7) in our sample on average, although the difference does not reach significance
(M
Asian
=1.3, M
Latinx
= 2.6; t(13.9)= -2.0, p = .07. The groups showed no differences in concrete
life goals, t(14.3)= -1.52, p = .15.

71
Table 9.
Mean and standard deviation for participants’ measures.

Variable M SD
Values-based life goals 2.2 1.82
Concrete life goals 5.1 1.61
WAIS-II Full Scale 103.2 11.08

We found two surviving clusters in the whole brain, one in left inferior precuneus and
one in right anterior inferior insula, extending to posterior insula (see Table 10). Both were
associated with values-based life goals, and neither was associated with concrete life goals.
Specifically, participants who showed stronger resting state intrinsic functional connectivity to
the BGN at the inferior-posterior precuneus, and who showed weaker connectivity between BGN
and the anterior insula, reported more value-based life goals (see Figure 12). All findings held
after controlling for participants’ IQ scores and SES.
Table 10.
Voxel clusters whose intrinsic connectivity correlates with the counts of adolescents’ values-based life goals.

Brain region Coordinates Cluster size z-Score 95% CI of rho
x y z
Left Precuneus -10 -60 48 181 3.73 0.34, 0.84
Right Insula 40 8 -12 171 3.25 -0.72, -0.04

72
Figure 12.
Intrinsic functional connectivity in the BGN component to the precuneus (A) and right insula (B) correlated
with mentions of values-based life goals. Shown are representative views of the significant clusters and scatterplots of extracted
parameters from 8mm spheres at the peak of the effect.

*p < .05, *** p < .0001
Discussion
Adolescents’ newly developing abilities to formulate goals based on values and prosocial
aspirations, rather than simply on concrete strategies for achieving instrumental goals and
managing daily tasks, are important for psychosocial health, avoiding risky behaviors, and adult
wellbeing (Kasser & Ryan, 1996). In parallel with this developing ability, adolescents undergo
extensive neural development, including development of connectivity between basic reward and
73
motivation processing structures in the basal ganglia network and cortical regions involved in
executive functioning, emotion and higher order thinking (Gee et al., 2018). Working with a low-
SES sample of healthy, well-adjusted urban community youth, we found that individual
variability in adolescents’ descriptions of their values-based life goals, but not their concrete and
instrumental life goals, correlated with resting state functional connectivity between the basal
ganglia network and a key nodes of the default mode (positively) and right salience network
(negatively). Though further work is needed, the findings suggest that adolescents’ propensities
to engage in values-based goal setting, and to derive motivation and rewarding feelings from
such plans, is associated with their neural development.
These findings are consistent with prior work on the role of the BGN on representing
rewards in imagining future goals, as well as with social rewards promoting social learning
(Gilbert & Wilson, 2007; Sescousse et al., 2013; Walter et al., 2005). Studies on the functional
organization of the adult human brain during rest have shown a functional connection between
the basal ganglia and precuneus, among other medial parietal regions (Draganski et al., 2008;
Pauli, O’Reilly, Yarkoni, & Wager, 2016; Zhang & Li, 2012). Although the anatomical
connectivity between the basal ganglia and the precuneus develops across childhood and
adolescence (Solé-Padullés et al., 2016), the psychological significance of this development is
still a matter of debate (Vatansever et al., 2016). Here we find that the formulation of values-
based life goals is related to the connectivity from the BGN to the precuneus, a region that we
and others have shown supports internally-directed thinking, experiencing moral and social
emotions, and evaluating the values that undergird life narratives (Dehghani et al., 2017;
Immordino-Yang et al., 2009; Kaplan et al., 2016; Yang et al., 2018). The precuneus together
with the retrosplenial cortex is also involved in processing autobiographical memory and in
74
prospection (Vann, Aggleton, & Maguire, 2009), key processes important for the formation of
long-term and values-based goals (Gilbert & Wilson, 2007; Immordino-Yang, 2016).
Connectivity between the basal ganglia and the precuneus, as well as co-activity of these areas,
has been found to support the processing of social rewards relevant to identity in adults, and to
cultural collectivism, the conceptualization of the self as socially interdependent (Kawamichi et
al., 2016; Watanabe et al., 2014). Taken together, the results suggest that the formation of
values-based goals may rely on and possibly develop functional connections between regions
involved in reward-related, motivational processing and those involved in reasoning in a value-
based way about one’s own identity, social interdependence and the future.
Engaging in values-based reasoning requires propensities to disengage from emotionally-
driven, context dependent rewards of the sort that activate the Salience Network and are
associated with reciprocity and other more direct and non-identity-relevant social goals
(Sridharan et al., 2008; Watanabe et al., 2014). Though we did not confirm our hypothesis that
increased connectivity between the BGN and the anterior insula was associated with greater
propensity to mention concrete life goals, our finding that BGN connectivity to the right ventral
anterior insula was weaker among participants with stronger propensities toward formulating
values-based goals is consistent with this idea.
Establishing an identity is a central developmental task in adolescents (Erikson, 1968).
Adolescents form an identity by searching, exploring, and conceptualizing values and
commitments across life domains (Crone & Fuligni, 2020; Soenens et al., 2011). Adolescence is
a period of heightened sensitivity to social rewards relevant for identity construction (Jankowski,
Moore, Merchant, Kahn, & Pfeifer, 2014; Pfeifer & Peake, 2012), but much of the neural
research on rewarding feelings in adolescents has been focused on acquisition of here-and-now
75
hedonistic and social status rewards. Our findings contextualize social rewards in terms of the
longer term and more abstract life goals that become part of adolescents’ identity. Prior work has
shown that adolescents’ subcortical morphological changes predict longitudinal changes in
motivation to pursue goals, which in turn predict adolescents’ later identity formation, though
past studies did not differentiate values-based from other goals (Becht et al., 2018). Our study
along with others (Manza et al., 2015; Tomasi & Volkow, 2014) shows that the integrity of the
relatively less explored functional connection between the BGN and the precuneus is related to
an important skill for adolescents’ psychosocial health and transition into adulthood.
It is well documented that supportive environments for adolescents contribute to their
ability to engage values-based reflections (Damon, 2008) and promote social brain development
(Nelson, Jarcho, & Guyer, 2016; van Duijvenvoorde, Peters, Braams, & Crone, 2016). Our data
link neural and psychosocial development in a way that could contribute to explaining individual
variation in adolescents’ growth trajectories, especially given that our findings hold above and
beyond IQ and SES. As expected, though the relation we uncover between adolescents’ value-
based goals and neural connectivity holds across the ages in our sample, we also found main
effects of age on both variables. Future work should investigate the role of supportive family and
school environments in promoting this coordinated growth pattern and test the efficacy of
psychosocial interventions for improving it (see also Riveros & Immordino-Yang, 2020;
dissertation Chapter 2).
A limitation of this study is the use of a categorical coding-scheme. Formulating values-
based life goals is a developing skill, and the categorical scheme may not have adequately
captured the nuance in skill among adolescents with lower propensities or abilities to formulate
such goals. The code tallies in our study showed a somewhat skewed distribution, as 3
76
participants (13%) did not formulate any life goals coded as values-based (see Riveros &
Immordino, 2020; dissertation Chapter 1). Future work should explore the potential application
of non-parametric analysis, or refine the coding scheme to capture goal formulations that are
intermediate between concrete and abstract.
Understanding rewards, motives and identity is central to understanding and explaining
human behavior (Crone & Fuligni, 2020; Walter et al., 2005). Adolescence may be a sensitive
period in developing reward-related social reasoning (Gee et al., 2018), and in supporting
beneficial patterns through education and interventions. Revealing the inner workings of social
rewards brings to light the moral aspects of adolescents’ life goals (Walter et al., 2005), and as
motivation can improve the efficiency of goal-directed behavior (Harsay et al., 2011), holds
promise for impacting the trajectories of adolescents’ lives. Probing adolescents’ self-generated
life goals and their motives, and linking these to neural connectivity patterns at rest, can
contribute insights into adaptive reasoning and meaning making, with implications for healthy
development. In the end, what adolescents do, and how they feel doing it, is reliant on their
ability to imagine a life of purpose, and to organize their decisions around the values-based goals
they are capable of building.

77
Conclusions
Adolescence is a critical window for learnings instrumental for adulthood, which is
supported by heightened sensitivity to rewards (Balvin & Banati, 2017). In developing a more
mature sense of identity that guide their transition to adulthood, youths seek positive learning
environments that are consistent with their cultural contexts, lives, and values, in which they can
exercise complex thinking relevant for forming life goals.
In schools and community-based youth organizations, adolescents can practice deep
thinking competencies, connecting concrete experiences with abstract, self-transcending ideas
(Immordino-Yang & Knecht, 2020). These learning environments are crucial for supporting
adolescents’ visions for their future social, as well as for promoting healthy trajectories of brain
and psychosocial development (Foulkes & Blakemore, 2018). Unfortunately, access to high
quality learning environments is not always guaranteed, in particular for youth experiencing
poverty and from minoritized ethnic-backgrounds. All the above left us with an open question,
how can we build more effective and equitable social spaces in which youth can practice
complex reasoning skills fundamental for the kinds of adult they want to become?
This dissertation, along with work from others, point out implications and opportunities
for researchers, educational policy-makers, and community engagement advocates.
Research
Focusing on the development of character strengths would expand the evidence base for
promoting deeper learning skills in youth, such as forming life goals. Character strengths
including wisdom, hope, and gratitude provide with emotionally enriching experiences that are at
the foundation on which values-based life goals are built and sustained.
78
An additional next step would be to examine a broader variety of school-embedded
psychosocial interventions. This would help to inform school leaders about their usefulness,
affordability, and scalability. Another step is linking supportive learning environments that
adolescents encounter in real life with trajectories of brain development. The intergenerational
storytelling program used in this dissertation is a type of intervention ripe for being studied in
connection with maturational brain changes undergirding adolescents’ motivated-behavior.
A methodological improvement for future studies is to move from categorical taxonomies
to a dimensional approach of life goals. A dimensional approach has been used for examining the
internalization of schoolwork goals (Vansteenkiste et al., 2018), and might reflect better
individual variations in values-based life goals formation (Haslam et al., 2020).
Educational policy-making
Examining the correlates of a values-based orientation towards life goals might illustrate
the importance of deep thinking skills in supporting motivation, effective learning, and wellbeing
at school level (Immordino-Yang, Christodoulou, & Singh, 2012; Immordino-Yang & Knecht,
2020). Schools need to increase and elevate opportunities for adolescents’ complex thinking.
This requires starting earlier in adolescence, using developmentally appropriate activities,
creating equitable opportunities for extra-curricular programming, and capitalizing on
adolescents’ sensitivity to identity-related information (Immordino-Yang et al., 2019; Yeager,
Dahl, & Dweck, 2018).
Findings like the ones shown in this dissertation need to be connected with educational
policies regulating funding in order to reach the adolescents and school leaders who need them
the most (Alliance for Excellent Education, 2011). The efforts made on early education
childhood education can provide a starting model to integrate science, law, educational practices,
79
and the assessment of social returns. In adolescents’ education, the Every Student Succeeds Act
(ESSA) legislation allows school district to divert funds for high-poverty high schools. ESSA
can be instrumental in providing high-risk youth with high quality opportunities for complex
social-emotional thinking that can help to mitigate health hazards derived from structural
inequality (Alliance for Excellent Education, 2011).
By demonstrating the effectiveness of an educational storytelling program in promoting
healthy development of adolescents, we can inform practitioners and school administrators about
the benefits of intergenerational storytelling. Intergenerational storytelling is experiential,
intuitive, an engaging for adolescents. Storytelling could expand the repertoire of educational
practices that effectively promote social-emotional learning in low-SES adolescents, which is an
urgent growing need (Yeager et al., 2018).
Community engagement and social capital
Intergenerational programming, like the one used in Chapter 2 of this dissertation, can
provide adolescents and older adults with a culturally sensitive space to share life narratives and
together reflect on their embedded values (Palacios et al., 2015; Radford, Gould, Vecchio, &
Fitzgerald, 2018). Engaging both adolescents and older adults from the same communities,
makes this type of intervention scalable and cost-effective, while supports psychosocial
development, and cultivates community engagement and social capital on the two most isolated
age groups (Radford, Gould, Vecchio, & Fitzgerald, 2018).
This intervention holds promise in promoting youths’ abstract conceptualization of
community goals and ways to achieve it, which underly youth’ motivation for social
participation (Ballard et al., 2015; Han, Choi, Dawson, & Jeong, 2018). This is crucial for
promoting social involvement in youth experiencing poverty or minoritized, groups largely
80
disenfranchized from electoral politics and disenchanted of civic participation. Researchers and
advocates need to move to a broader conceptulization of youth’ civic engagment, beyond simply
behavioral measures, in order to promote participation (Zaff, Kawashima-Ginsberg, & Lin,
2011). In consolidated democracies, top-down policies can create opportunities for youth
participation; however, they cannot guarantee their acceptance. Bottom-up grassroots initiatives
are critical in supporting the internalization of promoted behaviors and beliefs that are supported
by empirical evidence (Ogunlayi & Britton, 2017).
Overall, the findings from this dissertation illustrate the benefits of systematically
providing adolescents with spaces for personal reflection (Immordino-Yang, 2016). Engaging
with grassroots communities and spaces ubiquitous for adolescents, such as schools and youth
organizations, can support the sustainability of these initiatives. By integrating findings from
social-affective neuroscience research on goal processing with the results from a private
interviews and an established educational storytelling program, this dissertation offered insights
into the neurobiology of fostering abstract goals and the importance of providing adolescents
with opportunities for reflecting on their communities in relation to their future goals, in order to
promote thoughtful citizenship.

81
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Creator Riveros Miranda, Rodrigo Andres (author)

Core Title A neuropsychological exploration of low-SES adolescents’ life goals and their motives

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Psychology

Publication Date 07/25/2020

Defense Date 06/22/2020

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag adolescence,basal ganglia,default mode network,life goals,OAI-PMH Harvest,social support

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Immordino-Yang, Mary Helen (committee chair), Bechara, Antoine (committee member), Monterosso, John (committee member), Patall, Erika (committee member)

Creator Email riverosm@usc.edu,rodrigo.riveros.miranda@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c89-341258

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Legacy Identifier etd-RiverosMir-8747.pdf

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Rights Riveros Miranda, Rodrigo Andres

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