Belle Liang
Biographic Data
| ID | 3820339 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Belle Liang |
| GIVEN NAMES | Belle |
| FAMILY NAME | Liang |
| SIGNATURE | LIANG B |
| AFFILIATIONS | Boston College |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0005-4856 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 39 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 486 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 39 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1994 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Peer reflection as moral practice
More than a mindset
This response builds on Kendall Cotton Bronk’s thoughtful review of How to Navigate Life, deepening the conversation around how purpose is formed—not just in individuals, but in the environments that shape them. We reflect on key questions raised by Bronk, including how to define purpose without reducing it, how a ‘purpose mindset’ develops, and how these insights apply beyond education to workplaces and everyday life. Drawing from our applied wo…
Adolescent self‐efficacy and orientation about the future
Future-oriented self-efficacy and behaviors are essential assets as youth move from the structure of school to more independent pursuits. Given that adolescence is a time for internalizing goals, it is possible that future-oriented efficacy and behaviors grow out of an emerging sense of purpose and are scaffolded by parents, teachers, and school counselors. This study tested the longitudinal relations between parental, teacher, and school counsel…
The Powerful Role of Mothers in Adolescent Purpose Development
Adolescence is a critical time for the cultivation of life purpose, also known as a meaningful long-term aim focused on contribution to others. Youth with purpose, especially marginalized youth, report a number of positive outcomes. Relationships with caring adults appear to be particularly helpful in guiding young people on their path to purpose, but little work has focused specifically on the role of mothers. This qualitative study, approved by…
MentorOn
Burgeoning research has documented COVID–19's detrimental impacts globally, especially on the lives of adolescents. The present study examined the positive influences of a virtual, cross‐age peer mentoring program on the development of adolescent participants in the face of the hardships created by the pandemic. In particular, this study focuses on the experiences of high school participants who served as both mentors and mentees in the program. …
Moving From Passion to Purpose
Despite efforts to increase diversity in STEM fields, marginalized populations—particularly women and Black and Latinx workers—remain underrepresented in STEM professions. The present qualitative study sought to explore the relationship between sense of purpose and STEM engagement within an after-school, experiential (i.e., involving hands-on learning) STEM enrichment program, called Change Makers. Specifically, semi-structured interviews with ra…
The R and R of Purpose in College Students
This qualitative descriptive study examined the process of purpose development of nine (seven females, two males; M age = 20.2, age range 18–21 years) college students who completed interviews in fall 2017 and spring 2019 at a private university. Across the two time points, participants engaged in an iterative process that led them to refine (i.e., narrow or specify) or redefine (i.e., change or adapt) their purpose or ultimate aims. Participants…
My Mentor Thinks That I can Be Someone Amazing”
This qualitative descriptive study analyzed the role that natural mentors had in cultivating a sense of purpose and meaning among 38 diverse male and female high school students. The types of mentoring support provided and the students’ perceived experiences of receiving the support were considered in the analysis. Directed content analysis revealed four initial overarching types of supportive actions that were provided by mentors: emotional, ins…
Teacher Relationships and Adolescents Experiencing Identity-Based Victimization
The Role of Community Development in Reducing Extremism and Ethnic Conflict
Adolescents’ Perceptions of the Economy
Adolescent Profiles of Marginalization and Connection at School
School context serves as a testing ground for exploring social relationships and satisfying needs for connection and affirmation, but often includes feelings of rejection. With a diverse high school sample (n = 645; 55% female; 61% White, 18% African American, 10% Latino, 10% Asian American, 1% Multiracial), patterns of experiences with marginalization and connection were identified and their associations with achievement and mental health examin…
Adolescent Girls Finding Purpose
Scholars have differentiated other-oriented (OO) purpose (i.e., a personally meaningful life aim intended to contribute to the world beyond the self) and self-oriented (SO) purpose (i.e., a personally meaningful life aim without intention to contribute beyond the self). OO purpose is associated with adolescent thriving, yet little is known about how to cultivate it. In a study of 207 adolescent girls, we examined how positive parent-adolescent re…
Emerging adults’ perceptions of their faith-related purpose
Ethical social justice
This article offers an ethical decision‐making model, informed by community psychology values, as a means for guiding psychologists when engaging in social justice‐oriented work. The applicability of this model is demonstrated through a case analysis elucidating how America's psychologists individually and collectively arrived at the decision to endorse torture—ostensibly as a means for preventing terrorism. Critics have wondered how the American…
How Stress Influences Purpose Development
The present study explored the influence of psychological stress on the development of purpose among youth of color living in urban, low-income communities. A qualitative approach based on grounded theory was used to understand how stress-related experiences influence the development of youth purpose in participants’ own words. Findings revealed that participants faced substantial psychological stress in their lives resulting from financial, fami…
Having It All? A Qualitative Examination of Affluent Adolescent Girls’ Perceptions of Stress and Their Quests for Success
This study sought to better understand the relationship between affluence and elevated risk for psychosocial distress among adolescent girls. In-depth qualitative interviews at two time points with three cohorts of girls (sixth-, eighth-, and 10th grade; T1 n = 57, T2 n = 58) from two independent girls schools Grades 6 to 12, along with their parents, and their teachers were conducted. Through narrative thematic analysis, four overarching sources…
Stressed and Losing Sleep
This study examined the relationship between stress and sleep duration for adolescent females from affluent backgrounds. Participants were 218 students attending two independent single-sex secondary schools. Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression models (cross-sectional and longitudinal) were run to examine the association between stress and sleep duration and to determine whether any associations lasted from the beginning to the end of the acad…
Mentoring in the digital age
The Online World, the Internet, Social Class, and Counseling
Relational health, alexithymia, and psychological distress in college women
Relational health refers to interpersonal interactions that are growth-fostering or mutually empathic and empowering. Poor relational health increases an individual's risk for developing psychological distress. Alexithymia is the inability to recognize and express one's own internal emotional experience. In this study, the associations of relational health, psychological distress, and alexithymia were examined by surveying 197 female undergraduat…
She Gives Me a Break from the World”
The Relational Health Indices for Youth
Relational health, a termed coined by Liang et al. (2001) to reflect Relational-Cultural Theory concepts, is the presence of growth-fostering characteristics in significant relationships. Although growth-fostering relationships have been conceptualized as relevant across the lifespan, existing research has mainly explored the experiences of college students and adults. In this study, the authors seek to create a developmentally appropriate instru…
Battered women know best
Mentoring relationships from early adolescence through emerging adulthood
Training Counseling Psychologists as Social Justice Agents
Despite recent calls for counseling psychology to embrace social justice-oriented work, there has been little discussion about what such work actually looks like. The first part of this article derives a set of principles from feminist and multicultural counseling theories that counseling psychologists should consider as they engage in social justice work. These include (a) ongoing self-examination,(b) sharing power, (c) giving voice, (d) facilit…
A model for the influence of mentoring relationships on youth development
Anecdotal reports of the protective qualities of mentoring relationships for youth are corroborated by a growing body of research. What is missing, however, is research on the processes by which mentors influence developmental outcomes. In this article, we present a conceptual model of the mentoring process along with a delineation of some of the current research on what makes for more effective mentoring relationships. A set of recommendations f…
A Theoretical Framework for Understanding Help-Seeking Processes Among Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence
This paper suggests a conceptual framework for understanding the processes of help-seeking among survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV). A cognitive theory from general literature on help-seeking in "stigmatizing" situations suggests three relevant processes or stages of seeking help in the IPV context: defining the problem, deciding to seek help, and selecting a source of support. Individual, interpersonal, and sociocultural factors that i…
Discrimination Distress among Chinese American Adolescents
The Relational Health Indices
A new measure of women's relationships, the Relational Health Indices (RHI), comprises three scales that assess growth-fostering connections with peers, mentors, and communities. The RHI was developed using the Relational Model (Jordan, Kaplan, Miller, Stiver, Surrey, 1991; Miller & Stiver, 1997), a theory of women's psychological development. The 37-item measure assesses three conceptual dimensions of growth-fostering relationships: engagement, …
Mentoring College‐Age Women
Despite the popularity of mentoring programs, the relational dimension of mentoring has not been elucidated. Traditional conceptions of mentoring may exclude factors that are particularly important for women and girls, thus limiting the efficacy of mentoring programs for female adolescents. We suggest that the presence of relational qualities in the mentoring relationship (e.g., empathy, engagement, authenticity, and empowerment) strongly influen…
Chinese American Middle School Youths' Experiences of Discrimination and Stereotyping
This study examined Chinese American youths' perceptions of their non-Asian peers' views and behaviors toward them. In 4 focus groups, 22 Chinese Americans (ages 11 to 15) described specific relational experiences that were analyzed thematically. Three major themes related to racial discrimination emerged: (1) descriptions of stereotyping experiences; (2) descriptions of harassment or discriminatory experiences; and (3) meaning-making or explanat…
Culture, control, and coping
Researchers have offered various explanations for inconsistent findings in the social support literature. Some contend that the detection of either buffering or direct effects depends on the mode of measurement. Others have demonstrated that person variables (e.g., locus of control) moderate support utilization during stressful times. This study attempts to integrate the issues of measure type, locus of control orientation, and cultural influence…
Teacher Relationships and Adolescents Experiencing Identity-Based Victimization
Having It All? A Qualitative Examination of Affluent Adolescent Girls’ Perceptions of Stress and Their Quests for Success
This study sought to better understand the relationship between affluence and elevated risk for psychosocial distress among adolescent girls. In-depth qualitative interviews at two time points with three cohorts of girls (sixth-, eighth-, and 10th grade; T1 n = 57, T2 n = 58) from two independent girls schools Grades 6 to 12, along with their parents, and their teachers were conducted. Through narrative thematic analysis, four overarching sources…
The Relational Health Indices for Youth
Relational health, a termed coined by Liang et al. (2001) to reflect Relational-Cultural Theory concepts, is the presence of growth-fostering characteristics in significant relationships. Although growth-fostering relationships have been conceptualized as relevant across the lifespan, existing research has mainly explored the experiences of college students and adults. In this study, the authors seek to create a developmentally appropriate instru…
Warts and All
In their comments regarding Goodman, Liang, Helms, Latta, Sparks, and Weintraub’s article “Training Counseling Psychologists as Social Justice Agents: Feminist and Multicultural Principles in Action,” Kiselica, Palmer, Thompson and Shermis, and Watts offered a number of useful suggestions for elaborating on social justice theory, practice, and training. Their reactions and feedback challenged Goodmanet al. to revisit and clarify their thinking ab…
How Stress Influences Purpose Development
The present study explored the influence of psychological stress on the development of purpose among youth of color living in urban, low-income communities. A qualitative approach based on grounded theory was used to understand how stress-related experiences influence the development of youth purpose in participants’ own words. Findings revealed that participants faced substantial psychological stress in their lives resulting from financial, fami…
Mentoring Asian and Euro-American College Women
This study examines differences in the mentoring relationships of Asian American and Euro-American college women. Findings showed that the groups view mentoring as equally important but that fewer Asians report having a mentor. However, those who have mentors find them to be just as valuable as do their Euro-American counterparts. Este estudio examina las diferencias en las relaciones de mentoring de mujeres Asiáticas Americanas y Euro-Americanas…
My Mentor Thinks That I can Be Someone Amazing”
This qualitative descriptive study analyzed the role that natural mentors had in cultivating a sense of purpose and meaning among 38 diverse male and female high school students. The types of mentoring support provided and the students’ perceived experiences of receiving the support were considered in the analysis. Directed content analysis revealed four initial overarching types of supportive actions that were provided by mentors: emotional, ins…
Adolescent Profiles of Marginalization and Connection at School
School context serves as a testing ground for exploring social relationships and satisfying needs for connection and affirmation, but often includes feelings of rejection. With a diverse high school sample (n = 645; 55% female; 61% White, 18% African American, 10% Latino, 10% Asian American, 1% Multiracial), patterns of experiences with marginalization and connection were identified and their associations with achievement and mental health examin…
Adolescent Girls Finding Purpose
Scholars have differentiated other-oriented (OO) purpose (i.e., a personally meaningful life aim intended to contribute to the world beyond the self) and self-oriented (SO) purpose (i.e., a personally meaningful life aim without intention to contribute beyond the self). OO purpose is associated with adolescent thriving, yet little is known about how to cultivate it. In a study of 207 adolescent girls, we examined how positive parent-adolescent re…
Adolescents’ Perceptions of the Economy
Mentoring in the digital age
Adolescent self‐efficacy and orientation about the future
Future-oriented self-efficacy and behaviors are essential assets as youth move from the structure of school to more independent pursuits. Given that adolescence is a time for internalizing goals, it is possible that future-oriented efficacy and behaviors grow out of an emerging sense of purpose and are scaffolded by parents, teachers, and school counselors. This study tested the longitudinal relations between parental, teacher, and school counsel…
Moving From Passion to Purpose
Despite efforts to increase diversity in STEM fields, marginalized populations—particularly women and Black and Latinx workers—remain underrepresented in STEM professions. The present qualitative study sought to explore the relationship between sense of purpose and STEM engagement within an after-school, experiential (i.e., involving hands-on learning) STEM enrichment program, called Change Makers. Specifically, semi-structured interviews with ra…
Stressed and Losing Sleep
This study examined the relationship between stress and sleep duration for adolescent females from affluent backgrounds. Participants were 218 students attending two independent single-sex secondary schools. Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression models (cross-sectional and longitudinal) were run to examine the association between stress and sleep duration and to determine whether any associations lasted from the beginning to the end of the acad…
Culture, control, and coping
Researchers have offered various explanations for inconsistent findings in the social support literature. Some contend that the detection of either buffering or direct effects depends on the mode of measurement. Others have demonstrated that person variables (e.g., locus of control) moderate support utilization during stressful times. This study attempts to integrate the issues of measure type, locus of control orientation, and cultural influence…
Gender Differences in Middle School Adjustment, Physical Fighting, and Social Skills
The Relational Health Indices
A new measure of women's relationships, the Relational Health Indices (RHI), comprises three scales that assess growth-fostering connections with peers, mentors, and communities. The RHI was developed using the Relational Model (Jordan, Kaplan, Miller, Stiver, Surrey, 1991; Miller & Stiver, 1997), a theory of women's psychological development. The 37-item measure assesses three conceptual dimensions of growth-fostering relationships: engagement, …
Mentoring College‐Age Women
Despite the popularity of mentoring programs, the relational dimension of mentoring has not been elucidated. Traditional conceptions of mentoring may exclude factors that are particularly important for women and girls, thus limiting the efficacy of mentoring programs for female adolescents. We suggest that the presence of relational qualities in the mentoring relationship (e.g., empathy, engagement, authenticity, and empowerment) strongly influen…
Training Counseling Psychologists as Social Justice Agents
Despite recent calls for counseling psychology to embrace social justice-oriented work, there has been little discussion about what such work actually looks like. The first part of this article derives a set of principles from feminist and multicultural counseling theories that counseling psychologists should consider as they engage in social justice work. These include (a) ongoing self-examination,(b) sharing power, (c) giving voice, (d) facilit…
Warts and All
In their comments regarding Goodman, Liang, Helms, Latta, Sparks, and Weintraub’s article “Training Counseling Psychologists as Social Justice Agents: Feminist and Multicultural Principles in Action,” Kiselica, Palmer, Thompson and Shermis, and Watts offered a number of useful suggestions for elaborating on social justice theory, practice, and training. Their reactions and feedback challenged Goodmanet al. to revisit and clarify their thinking ab…
Peace Talk
In response to conflict in the Middle East, a group intervention for Arab and Jewish youths has been developed to promote communication and healing. Using ethnographic observations of this relational, group-based program, this study examines the complexities involved in peace negotiation group work. There was evidence that although this program is met with real-life challenges and oppositional forces, such as genuine danger in negotiation between…
The Roots of Relational Health
A Theoretical Framework for Understanding Help-Seeking Processes Among Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence
This paper suggests a conceptual framework for understanding the processes of help-seeking among survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV). A cognitive theory from general literature on help-seeking in "stigmatizing" situations suggests three relevant processes or stages of seeking help in the IPV context: defining the problem, deciding to seek help, and selecting a source of support. Individual, interpersonal, and sociocultural factors that i…
A model for the influence of mentoring relationships on youth development
Anecdotal reports of the protective qualities of mentoring relationships for youth are corroborated by a growing body of research. What is missing, however, is research on the processes by which mentors influence developmental outcomes. In this article, we present a conceptual model of the mentoring process along with a delineation of some of the current research on what makes for more effective mentoring relationships. A set of recommendations f…
Mentoring Asian and Euro-American College Women
This study examines differences in the mentoring relationships of Asian American and Euro-American college women. Findings showed that the groups view mentoring as equally important but that fewer Asians report having a mentor. However, those who have mentors find them to be just as valuable as do their Euro-American counterparts. Este estudio examina las diferencias en las relaciones de mentoring de mujeres Asiáticas Americanas y Euro-Americanas…
Chinese American Middle School Youths' Experiences of Discrimination and Stereotyping
This study examined Chinese American youths' perceptions of their non-Asian peers' views and behaviors toward them. In 4 focus groups, 22 Chinese Americans (ages 11 to 15) described specific relational experiences that were analyzed thematically. Three major themes related to racial discrimination emerged: (1) descriptions of stereotyping experiences; (2) descriptions of harassment or discriminatory experiences; and (3) meaning-making or explanat…
Discrimination Distress among Chinese American Adolescents
Mentoring relationships from early adolescence through emerging adulthood
Gender differences in the relational health of youth participating in a social competency program
This study is designed to explore the effects of previous participation in Open Circle: Social Competency Program (SCP) on the relational health of 153 Caucasian middle school students who reported having recent and consecutive exposure to the program in elementary school. SCP is designed to foster social skills among children that enable them to communicate better, work out conflicts, and build stronger relationships. Our study shows a consisten…
She Gives Me a Break from the World”
The Relational Health Indices for Youth
Relational health, a termed coined by Liang et al. (2001) to reflect Relational-Cultural Theory concepts, is the presence of growth-fostering characteristics in significant relationships. Although growth-fostering relationships have been conceptualized as relevant across the lifespan, existing research has mainly explored the experiences of college students and adults. In this study, the authors seek to create a developmentally appropriate instru…
Battered women know best
Relational health, alexithymia, and psychological distress in college women
Relational health refers to interpersonal interactions that are growth-fostering or mutually empathic and empowering. Poor relational health increases an individual's risk for developing psychological distress. Alexithymia is the inability to recognize and express one's own internal emotional experience. In this study, the associations of relational health, psychological distress, and alexithymia were examined by surveying 197 female undergraduat…
The Online World, the Internet, Social Class, and Counseling
Mentoring in the digital age
Having It All? A Qualitative Examination of Affluent Adolescent Girls’ Perceptions of Stress and Their Quests for Success
This study sought to better understand the relationship between affluence and elevated risk for psychosocial distress among adolescent girls. In-depth qualitative interviews at two time points with three cohorts of girls (sixth-, eighth-, and 10th grade; T1 n = 57, T2 n = 58) from two independent girls schools Grades 6 to 12, along with their parents, and their teachers were conducted. Through narrative thematic analysis, four overarching sources…
Stressed and Losing Sleep
This study examined the relationship between stress and sleep duration for adolescent females from affluent backgrounds. Participants were 218 students attending two independent single-sex secondary schools. Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression models (cross-sectional and longitudinal) were run to examine the association between stress and sleep duration and to determine whether any associations lasted from the beginning to the end of the acad…
Emerging adults’ perceptions of their faith-related purpose
Ethical social justice
This article offers an ethical decision‐making model, informed by community psychology values, as a means for guiding psychologists when engaging in social justice‐oriented work. The applicability of this model is demonstrated through a case analysis elucidating how America's psychologists individually and collectively arrived at the decision to endorse torture—ostensibly as a means for preventing terrorism. Critics have wondered how the American…
Psychology (38 works) · Social Psychology (27 works) · Developmental psychology (23 works) · Sociology (19 works) · Medicine (18 works) · Social Psychology (17 works) · Youth Development and Social Support (12 works) · Political science (11 works) · Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development (10 works) · Clinical Psychology (8 works)