Relationships & Community

Humans thrive within community, but our modern age encourages poor relational habits. Think about the nature of your relationships with the help of the practice in this post.

What does healthy spirituality have to do with our relationships? While our capacity for spirituality is hard-wired, our spirituality is in fact mostly developed relationally. We learn our beliefs and practices from others.

What do you need to understand about your attachment style?

Understand attachment through this case study.

Explore your attachment style with this exercise.

We are made for relationships. And psychiatrist, researcher, and clinical therapist Dr. Dan Siegel (UCLA) has found that emotional realities of our earliest attachment relationships reverberate through the rest of our lives. By opening up brain science and what he calls “interpersonal neurobiology” he’s helping people find emotional healing and wholeness, deep connection, and stable life-giving relationships.

We’re made for relationships. It’s knit into our DNA, knit into our purpose. But relationships are a kaleidoscope of emotions. And psychologists Sue Johnson & Jim Furrow are helping us understand more about the science of relationships, the role that emotions play in healing conflict, and how our human connectedness impacts human thriving.

Understanding forgiveness is the first step to giving it. Try the practice here to begin the process.

Pamela Ebsytne King, Peter L. Benson Associate Professor of Applied Developmental Science, uses research from developmental psychology to show how relationships strengthen the process of identity formation. Read, listen, and watch more from voices in the Fuller community on the topic of spiritual formation:   …

What is a healthy mind? Do you practice mental hygiene? Dr. Richie Davidson’s mission is to cultivate wellbeing as a skill, and relieve suffering through a scientific understanding of the human mind. As a pioneering neuroscientist, a mindfulness and meditation teacher, and a global public advocate and guide—he has been a proponent for healing, wellbeing, and social change, finding evidence that awareness, connection, insight, and purpose are the pillars of a healthy mind—and woven through it all, is compassion. Includes two real-time meditative practices to help integrate empirical and spiritual insights with a practical way of being.

Does your Community Support Spiritual Health? Research indicates seven ideals.

Dr. Pam King discusses the importance of creating transformative systems that will enable human thriving.

Developing deep bonds with others requires effort. Ask yourself these questions for deeper understanding, and you might feel less lonely.

Love is necessary for wholeness. Read how you can get closer to those you care about.

Becoming a more forgiving person is a process. If you are ready to start healing, ask yourself the following questions. Make sure you have the support you need.

Is it possible to create a more loving world? Practices that link us to our senses support our ability to love.

You can get closer to those you care about with a little practice.

This project will develop the concept of Reciprocating Love and then develop a scale to measure it.

Citation Lerner, R. M., Tirrell, J. M., Gansert, P. K., Lerner, J. V., King, P. E., Geldhof, G. J., … & Sim, A. T. (2021). Longitudinal research about, and program evaluations of, positive youth development in low-and middle-income countries: Methodological issues and options. Journal of Youth Development, 16(2-3), 100-123. Abstract The study of positive youth development (PYD) requires theory-based methodological considerations pertinent to measurement, research and program design, and data analysis. We outline the appropriate steps that researchers and program evaluators must enact to address these methodological foci in their respective attempts to describe, explain, and optimize the course of positive development among diverse youth around the world. We focus on longitudinal (developmental) research designed to evaluate programs promoting PYD in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where life challenges are shaped by multiple adverse situations associated with racism, poverty, gender inequalities, political inequities, and the absence of adequate health and…

Citation Tirrell, J. M., Hay, S. W., Gansert, P. K., Le, T. U., O’Neil, B. C., Vaughn, J. M., Bishara, L., Tan, E., Lerner, J. V., King, P. E., Dowling, E. M., Williams, K., Iraheta, G., Sim, A. T. R., & Lerner, R. M. (2021). Fostering youth strengths and positive development: Exploring the role of the “Big Three” features of effective youth development programs in El Salvador. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 45(6), 524-532. Abstract Programs effective in promoting positive youth development (PYD) involve curricular features termed the Big Three: Positive and sustained adult–youth relationships; life-skill-building activities; and youth contribution and leadership opportunities. Data from 610 adolescents (50% female; M age = 16.39 years, SD = 1.83) enrolled in Compassion International-supported programs in El Salvador indicated that scores derived from a youth-report measure of the Big Three, established using data from Rwanda, manifested strong invariance and predicted both youth strengths and contribution. Qualitative interviews with…

Citation Tirrell, J.M., Gansert, P.K., Dowling, E.M., Williams, K., Iraheta, G., Lerner, J.V., King, P.E., Sim, A., & Lerner, R.M. (2021) Interrogating ergodicity and specificity in youth development programs in El Salvador. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 73 (202103), 101243. Abstract Researchers and evaluators interested in positive youth development (PYD) programs seek to understand what works for what youth in what ways. Typically, measurement and analysis are framed by ergodic theorems, which assume homogeneity of individuals and stationarity in individuals’ developmental pathways. However, such commonality (homogeneity and stationarity) does not characterize all developmental data sets. Here, we interrogate ergodicity assumptions using data from the Compassion International (CI) Study of PYD in El Salvador. We assessed 1205 youth (Mage = 13.03; 49.8% female; 67.1% urban), 51% of whom were enrolled in CI-supported programs, regarding links among youth strengths, contextual resources, and…

Citation Moore, T. J., Hill, M. S., King, P. E., Palkovitz, R., Dollahite, D. C., & Marks, L. D. (2020). Loving God, loving others: The sacred among American mainline protestant families. In Dollahite, D. C., & Marks, L. D. (Eds.) Strengths in Diverse Families of Faith (pp. 117-132). Abstract This book explores how religious families draw on their spiritual beliefs, religious practices, and faith communities to help them strengthen their marital relationships and their parenting. Using in-depth interviews from eight religious groups – Asian American Christian; Black Christian; Catholic and Orthodox Christian; Evangelical Christian; Jewish; Latter-day Saint; Mainline Protestant; and Muslim – the book uses the interviewees’ own words to show how their religion impacts their lives and influences their relationships. The book also includes an introductory chapter which describes the study and the sample; a conceptual chapter which places the empirical chapters in theoretical context in sociological study of…

Citation Lerner, R. M., Tirrell, J. M., Lerner, J. V., Geldhof, G. J., Gestsdottir, S., King, P. E., Sim, A. T. R., & Dowling, E. (2018). The end of the beginning: Evidence and absences studying PYD in a global context. Adolescent Research Review, 4(1), 1-14. Abstract Relational developmental systems metatheory frames many contemporary models of human development, including two strengths-based approaches to enhancing the lives of diverse children and adolescents, the positive youth development (PYD) perspective and resilience science. Both approaches emphasize the potential for plasticity in human development, and the systematic changes that arise through mutually influential relations between the individual and the multiple, integrated levels of the dynamic developmental system. After discussing the similarities and differences in these two approaches, different models of PYD are discussed in relation to how descriptions, explanations, and attempts at optimizations of the development of diverse youth are enacted within these conceptions. The…

This project will develop the concept of Reciprocating Love and then develop a scale to measure it.

Citation Lerner, R. M., Tirrell, J. M., Gansert, P. K., Lerner, J. V., King, P. E., Geldhof, G. J., … & Sim, A. T. (2021). Longitudinal research about, and program evaluations of, positive youth development in low-and middle-income countries: Methodological issues and options. Journal of Youth Development, 16(2-3), 100-123. Abstract The study of positive youth development (PYD) requires theory-based methodological considerations pertinent to measurement, research and program design, and data analysis. We outline the appropriate steps that researchers and program evaluators must enact to address these methodological foci in their respective attempts to describe, explain, and optimize the course of positive development among diverse youth around the world. We focus on longitudinal (developmental) research designed to evaluate programs promoting PYD in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where life challenges are shaped by multiple adverse situations associated with racism, poverty, gender inequalities, political inequities, and the absence of adequate health and…

Citation Tirrell, J. M., Hay, S. W., Gansert, P. K., Le, T. U., O’Neil, B. C., Vaughn, J. M., Bishara, L., Tan, E., Lerner, J. V., King, P. E., Dowling, E. M., Williams, K., Iraheta, G., Sim, A. T. R., & Lerner, R. M. (2021). Fostering youth strengths and positive development: Exploring the role of the “Big Three” features of effective youth development programs in El Salvador. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 45(6), 524-532. Abstract Programs effective in promoting positive youth development (PYD) involve curricular features termed the Big Three: Positive and sustained adult–youth relationships; life-skill-building activities; and youth contribution and leadership opportunities. Data from 610 adolescents (50% female; M age = 16.39 years, SD = 1.83) enrolled in Compassion International-supported programs in El Salvador indicated that scores derived from a youth-report measure of the Big Three, established using data from Rwanda, manifested strong invariance and predicted both youth strengths and contribution. Qualitative interviews with…

Citation Tirrell, J.M., Gansert, P.K., Dowling, E.M., Williams, K., Iraheta, G., Lerner, J.V., King, P.E., Sim, A., & Lerner, R.M. (2021) Interrogating ergodicity and specificity in youth development programs in El Salvador. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 73 (202103), 101243. Abstract Researchers and evaluators interested in positive youth development (PYD) programs seek to understand what works for what youth in what ways. Typically, measurement and analysis are framed by ergodic theorems, which assume homogeneity of individuals and stationarity in individuals’ developmental pathways. However, such commonality (homogeneity and stationarity) does not characterize all developmental data sets. Here, we interrogate ergodicity assumptions using data from the Compassion International (CI) Study of PYD in El Salvador. We assessed 1205 youth (Mage = 13.03; 49.8% female; 67.1% urban), 51% of whom were enrolled in CI-supported programs, regarding links among youth strengths, contextual resources, and…