Global societal challenges can negatively impact youths’ mental health, but also be transformed into opportunities to have a positive impact. However, little is known about harnessing youths’ need to contribute to societal challenges.
We conducted a naturalistic experiment with 139 Dutch adolescents (M = 14.68, SD = 0.99, range = 12-17, 60.4% female). Adolescents in the experimental group participated in a societal challenge program, consisting of a workshop and impact challenge. Both the experimental and control group answered questionnaires about the need and perceived opportunities to contribute, feelings of vigor/depression, and novelty seeking at four time points (T1 = pretest, T2 = after the workshops, T3 = after the impact challenge, T4 = a 2.5-month follow-up).
There was an overall disbalance between adolescents’ need to contribute and their perceived opportunities to make valuable contributions before the challenge program. This disbalance was enlarged for adolescents who were more sensitive to social rewards. After the workshops and impact challenge, the disbalance was smaller in the experimental group compared to the control group, and adolescents who participated with a higher challenge intensity, showed a higher need to contribute at T3. These differences were no longer observed at T4.
Our findings provide initial evidence for the notion that some adolescents may be more inclined to become “agents of change” than others. By demonstrating that adolescents have a high need to contribute to societal challenges, this study provides important building blocks for research on adolescent mental health in a changing world.

© 2025 The Author(s). Journal of Adolescence published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Foundation for Professionals in Services to Adolescents.