Sages and Seekers: The development of diverse adolescents’ transcendent thinking and purpose through an intergenerational storytelling program

Abstract

Adolescents develop capacities for emotionally engaged social thinking that transcends concrete situations, enabling them to infer values, beliefs and broader perspectives with implications for themselves and the world. We examined how such transcendent thinking emerged and promoted purpose within a formative, intergenerational relationship. Adolescent-older adult pairs from low-SES urban communities completed an 8-week relationship-building program previously shown to increase purpose. Adolescents described their experiences in weekly video-diaries and composed a culminating tribute to their elder partner. Video-diaries revealed that both initial levels and increases in adolescents’ transcendent meaning-making across the program additively contributed to increases in purpose (controlling for pre-program levels); in tributes, transcendence correlated with purpose post-program. Transcendence emerged in discussions involving micro-developmental patterns of recollections and emotions, and especially when reflecting on partners’ struggles. Results highlight the instrumental role of transcendence in adolescents’ development, and how meaning-making within close relationships may support psychosocial growth.