ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses results from a program of research on adolescent social competence that has been guided by the Living Systems Framework (LSF). It illustrates how the multifaceted LSF can serve as a device for organizing and clarifying one’s thinking, for integrating existing ideas and findings into a coherent picture, and for developing new ways of conceptualizing and studying significant issues regarding effective human functioning and development. Perhaps the most obvious and direct way in which the LSF was useful in formulating this study was in suggesting which social-cognitive processes should be of particular relevance in producing socially competent behavior. In LSF terminology, this conceptualization of competence focuses on the directive or goal-setting capabilities of humans. Adolescents who made a high percentage of irresponsible choices seemed to be more concerned with their personal goals than with being responsible, and appeared to be more suspectible to social-evaluative pressures.
