People (Births)

• 1946 – Peter L. Benson, American psychologist and academic (d. 2011).

Peter L. Benson

Peter Lorimer Benson (02 May 1946 to 02 October 2011) was a psychologist and CEO/President of Search Institute. He pioneered the developmental assets framework, which became the predominant approach to research on positive facets of youth development.

According to Scales and Roehlkepartain (2012, p.322):

When [Benson] introduced the developmental assets [approach] in 1989, the predominant approach to youth development was naming youth problems and trying to prevent them. In contrast, the assets approach focused on building strengths. The developmental assets framework became the predominant positive youth development approach in the world, cited more than 17,000 times, and the framework and surveys developed to measure the assets have been used with more than 3 million youths in more than 60 countries.

Reference

Scales, P.C. & Roehlkepartain, E.C. (2012) Peter Lorimer Benson (1946-2011). American Psychologist. 67(4), pp.322. doi:10.1037/a0028171