Invited commentary: Improving the human condition through rigorous, applied developmental research.

This invited commentary describes the shifts toward a more positive characterization of young people over the past 30 years. After describing the new focus on the strengths of young people and the need to ground our understanding in developmental science, it provides an overview of the major contributions of this special issue to the field of positive youth development. Taken together, the groundbreaking work on the 4-H study demonstrates the increasing methodological and statistical sophistication of this strength-based approach.