Positive youth development (PYD) has gained considerable traction among developmental scientists, but past studies were generally conducted among youth samples from Minority World countries. This study investigated the factorial validity of the newly developed 7Cs model of PYD (competence, confidence, connection, character, caring, contribution, and creativity). Specifically, we compared four measurement models (one-factor, seven-factor, higher order, and bifactor) among emerging adults living in five Southeast Asian countries. The study also aimed to establish evidence of measurement invariance across gender, age, education, and country of origin. Criterion-related validity was also sought using COVID-19 socially responsive behaviors and anxiety. Controlling for the influence of gender, age, and education, sample-level comparisons were also performed on the 7Cs. Data came from 1,888 emerging adults (M_age = 24.10; SD_age = 6.89) from Indonesia (n = 253), Malaysia (n = 289), the Philippines (n = 496), Singapore (n = 306), and Thailand (n = 544) during the pandemic. The results supported the superiority of the seven-factor model, which exhibited strict invariance across gender, age, and education and partial scalar invariance across country of origin. The 7Cs exhibited mixed associations with the pandemic-related measures. Significant differences were found in the 7Cs across the five countries. The study provides additional evidence on the theoretical validity of the 7Cs model among youth from understudied settings, while also highlighting avenues for refining current PYD measures.

Although global research on the 5Cs model of Positive Youth Development (PYD; competence, confidence, connection, character, and caring) has expanded in recent years, there is a lack of understanding about distinct and consistent PYD profiles across youth from diverse socio-cultural contexts. To address this gap, this study utilized a person-oriented analytic approach to examine the PYD profiles of 11,481 emerging adults (M^age = 21.77; SD^age = 2.74; 68.66% females) from 21 countries in four continents. Results of the multi-group latent profile analysis revealed four consistent profiles of PYD across countries: high/balanced (41%), self-efficacious (28%), socio-emotional (20%), and low/self-centered (11%). Participants’ age, gender, educational attainment, and country-level collectivism were also found to be associated with specific profiles. Older and more-educated females from less collectivistic countries were more likely to be in a high/balanced profile, while younger males from more collectivistic countries tend to be in a low/self-centered profile. Older and more-educated males from less collectivistic countries were more likely to be in a self-efficacious profile, while younger and less-educated females from more collectivistic countries tend to be in a socio-emotional profile. Controlling these socio-contextual covariates, the four profiles exhibited distinct relations with adaptive (resilience and contribution) and maladaptive outcomes (anxiety and adverse life experiences) during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results highlight the importance of fostering a balanced set of Cs, which include both self-efficacious and socio-emotional qualities, to promote positive adaptation in challenging times across diverse developmental settings.

Social support has long been associated with positive physical, behavioral, and mental health outcomes. However, contextual factors such as subjective social status and an individual's cultural values, heavily influence social support behaviors (e.g., perceive available social support, accept support, seek support, provide support). We sought to determine the current state of social support behaviors and the association between these behaviors, cultural values, and subjective social support across regions of the world. Data from 6,366 participants were collected by collaborators from over 50 worldwide sites (67.4% or n = 4292, assigned female at birth; average age of 30.76). Our results show that individuals cultural values and subjective social status varied across world regions and were differentially associated with social support behaviors. For example, individuals with higher subjective social status were more likely to indicate more perceived and received social support and help-seeking behaviors; they also indicated more provision of social support to others than individuals with lower subjective social status. Further, horizontal, and vertical collectivism were related to higher help-seeking behavior, perceived support, received support, and provision of support, whereas horizontal individualism was associated with less perceived support and less help-seeking and vertical individualism was associated with less perceived and received support, but more help-seeking behavior. However, these effects were not consistently moderated by region. These findings highlight and advance the understanding of how cross-cultural complexities and contextual distinctions influence an individual's perception, processing, and practice of social support embedded in the changing social landscape.

Coronavirus Anxiety Scale (CAS) is a widely used measure that captures somatic symptoms of coronavirus-related anxiety. In a large-scale collaboration spanning 60 countries (Ntotal = 21,513), we examined the CAS's measurement invariance and assessed the convergent validity of CAS scores in relation to the fear of COVID-19 (FCV-19S) and the satisfaction with life (SWLS-3) scales. We utilized both conventional exact invariance tests and alignment procedures, with results revealing that the single-factor model fit the data well in almost all countries. Partial scalar invariance was supported in a subset of 56 countries. To ensure the robustness of results, given the unbalanced samples, we employed resampling techniques both with and without replacement and found the results were more stable in larger samples. The alignment procedure demonstrated a high degree of measurement invariance with 9% of the parameters exhibiting noninvariance. We also conducted simulations of alignment using the parameters estimated in the current model. Findings demonstrated reliability of the means but indicated challenges in estimating the latent variances. Strong positive correlations between CAS and FCV-19S estimated with all three different approaches were found in most countries. Correlations of CAS and SWLS-3 were weak and negative but significantly differed from zero in several countries. Overall, the study provided support for the measurement invariance of the CAS and offered evidence of its convergent validity while also highlighting issues with variance estimation.

This chapter provides an introduction and presentation of the Research Initiatives Working Group advancing multidimensional COVID-19-related scholarship from a global international perspective. The chapter begins by outlining the mission statement of the group devoted to compiling a collection of the currently available knowledge base on the psychological impact of COVID-19 from a multidisciplinary and international perspective. The goal is to inform students, researchers, policymakers, practitioners, stakeholders, professionals, and relevant scholarship on the multidimensional impact of COVID-19-and related psychological treatment, prevention, and intervention resources. To this end, RIWG advances the knowledge base through a repository and dissemination of newly published materials and resources such as peer-reviewed articles, reports, calls for papers, funding opportunities, conferences, webinars, symposia, as well as a COVID-19 research map with scholars conducting relevant work in international, multidisciplinary, and global settings. Noteworthy contribution of this chapter regards the main products, deliverables, and current projects of the group in terms of advancement of the theoretical and empirical knowledge base on COVID-19 in global contexts; refinement of methodological issues and measurement; and integration of relevant scholarship with research, policy, and practice. Prominent products see the creation of a COVID-19 research map around the globe and an international project on the multidimensional impact, experience, and perceptions of COVID-19 among young people worldwide. The ultimate goal is to document relevant accomplishments in global research fields while providing creative and promising venues about where future prospects would be most fruitfully implemented.

With the COVID-19 pandemic, behavioural scientists aimed to illuminate reasons why people comply with (or not) large-scale cooperative activities. Here we investigated the motives that underlie support for COVID-19 preventive behaviours in a sample of 12,758 individuals from 34 countries. We hypothesized that the associations of empathic prosocial concern and fear of disease with support towards preventive COVID-19 behaviours would be moderated by trust in the government. Results suggest that the association between fear of disease and support for COVID-19 preventive behaviours was strongest when trust in the government was weak (both at individual- and country-level). Conversely, the association with empathic prosocial concern was strongest when trust in the government was high, but this moderation was only found at individual-level scores of governmental trust. We discuss how motivations may be shaped by socio-cultural context, and outline how findings may contribute to a better understanding of collective action during global crises.

Measurement of adolescent life satisfaction across cultures has not received much attention in previous empirical research. The present study evaluated measurement invariance of the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) among adolescents in 24 countries and regions (N = 22,710; age range = 13–19 years; 53% female). A single-factor model with residual covariance between a pair of items tapping past life satisfaction fitted well in 19 countries and regions and showed a partial metric invariance. In a subset of nine countries and regions, partial scalar invariance was supported. Partial metric invariance across all 24 countries and regions was achieved when custom model modifications in five countries and regions were included. Three SWLS items showed evidence of noninvariance across cultures. The measurement model was found to operate similarly across gender and age. Our findings suggest that caution is needed when using the SWLS for measuring life satisfaction among adolescents from different cultures.

In this chapter, the authors report on a study that examined relations between social connectedness, school engagement, and achievement in minority (Roma) and majority youth in Albania, Bulgaria, Kosovo, and Romania. Based on a social connectedness model, they investigated the interplay of two connectedness domains (i.e., school and family) and their relations to school engagement and achievement. Participants were 1,063 adolescents who completed the Social Connectedness Scale on school engagement and average academic achievement. The authors found that social connectedness, especially school connectedness, was associated with school engagement while parental education was associated with school achievement. Implications are discussed in terms of how these findings are relevant to greater insight into the promotion of connectedness and the academic success of minority and majority youth across the countries under investigation.

This handbook examines positive youth development (PYD) in youth and emerging adults from an international perspective. It focuses on large and underrepresented cultural groups across six continents within a strengths-based conception of adolescence that considers all youth as having assets. The volume explores the ways in which developmental assets, when effectively harnessed, empower youth to transition into a productive and resourceful adulthood. The book focuses on PYD across vast geographical regions, including Europe, Asia, Africa, Middle East, Australia, New Zealand, North America, and Latin America as well as on strengths and resources for optimal well-being. The handbook addresses the positive development of young people across various cultural contexts to advance research, policy, and practice and inform interventions that foster continued thriving and reduce the chances of compromised youth development. It presents theoretical perspectives and supporting empirical findings to promote a more comprehensive understanding of PYD from an integrated, multidisciplinary, and multinational perspective.

The Handbook of Positive Youth Development in a Global Context is an essential resource for researchers, professors, and graduate students as well as clinicians, therapists, and other professionals in developmental, clinical child, and school psychology, public health and prevention science, family studies, cross-cultural psychology, child and adolescent psychiatry, social work, educational policy and politics, anthropology, sociology, social psychology and all interrelated disciplines.

This chapter introduces the Handbook of Positive Youth Development (PYD) aiming to advance PYD scholarship among youth and emerging adults from a global international perspective. Noteworthy highlights regard (1) advancement of the theoretical and empirical knowledge base on PYD in global contexts; (2) refinement of methodological issues and measurement in under researched contexts; (3) integration of PYD scholarship with relevant research, policy, and practice. A prominent theme is the advent of a new generation of PYD scholarship in underrepresented global contexts and vast geographic regions (e.g., Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, Middle East, New Zealand, North and Latin America). The handbook is composed by Part I PYD in Global Contexts and Part II PYD Applications and Interventions with a total of 37 chapters across 38 countries. Several chapters have an original empirical basis and involve in total, responses and voices from 22,083 youth and emerging adults in diverse parts of the world. With unique contributions, large samples and global approaches to research, policy and practice, this volume presents the most comprehensive and inclusive collection of empirical evidence on PYD among youth and emerging adults yet assembled. The outstanding cast of contributors clearly documents stellar accomplishments in the current PYD field, while providing creative and promising avenues about where future outlook and initiatives would be most fruitfully and effectively implemented.