New Study Identifies A Predictor For Teens’ Future Happiness

Every parent’s wish is for their child to grow up and live a fulfilled, happy life. During the teen years, this desire often leads to a laser-like focus on grades, test scores and the chances of college admission. After all, happiness is hard to come by without the economic security of a steady paycheck. But what if it isn’t a young person’s grades, but the kind of thinking they’re doing — in and outside of school — that sets them up for a happy adulthood?

What kind of thinking promotes teens’ brain development?

Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, a professor at the University of Southern California, is part of a group of researchers who have been investigating the way that adolescents’ thinking predicts their brain development. Some of their findings aren’t what you’d expect.

They conducted a study over five years involving 65 participants aged 14-18, all of whom were young people of color living in an urban area.

In one-on-on interviews, the researchers showed the teens what Immordino-Yang described as “really compelling little mini-documentary stories about teenagers from all over the world.” The teens were then asked, “How does this person’s story make you feel?”

“They could kind of say anything they wanted,” Immordino-Yang told HuffPost.

Given the engaging material, it’s not surprising that the teens in the study made connections between the stories and their own lives, as well as big-picture social and moral issues. The researchers call this “transcendent thinking.”

“Transcendent thinking really is meant to capture that propensity to move beyond the current context, build a bigger story and grapple with the psychological kind of meaning or implications that transcend the here and now,” Immordino-Yang said.

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