Their paths intersected at the soap shelf, and an impromptu conversation uncovered their past roots at rural universities in Illinois and their mutual USC affiliation. Their Kmart chat also sparked a friendship and professional collaboration on adolescent health research.

In the years since that serendipitous encounter, Huebner’s and Valois’ joint research has been both a melding of academic disciplines—psychology and health promotion—and personal styles. The gregarious Valois has never met a stranger; Huebner doesn’t usually talk to one.

“We’ve learned a lot from each other,” said Huebner, a professor in school psychology.

“And our research has spawned a lot of good theses and dissertations,” added Valois, a professor in health promotion, education, and behavior.

More importantly, their studies have illuminated a broader understanding of adolescent attitudes that challenge traditional notions about student happiness and high-risk behavior. Their research is part of the “positive psychology” movement that studies not what makes people dysfunctional but what makes them happy and satisfied. This increasingly influential branch of psychology was first pioneered by Martin E.P. Seligman, a former president of the American Psychological Association.

On their first collaborative study in 1997 with 5,000 S.C. students, the two researchers expanded the usual repertoire of survey questions. Valois was interested in learning more about student attitudes toward health-risk behavior, including pre-marital sex, substance abuse, and violence. Huebner wanted to know how satisfied the students were with their lives—what some call the happiness quotient.

“The national Centers for Disease Control youth risk behavior survey focuses on negative health behaviors and tilts toward the pathological side of adolescent behavior,” Huebner said. “We’re arguing that those things are important to know, but to understand the full parameters of student attitudes and behavior, you also need to ask about positive aspects—how satisfied are they with their friends, their family, and with themselves.”

In other words, fingering the pulse of adolescent risk behavior must involve asking students how life is good along with questions on how it’s not. Huebner and Valois made that case in an upcoming article in the Journal of Adolescent Health, calling for a new set of national indicators on adolescent quality of life.

What have Huebner and Valois learned thus far with their expanded questionnaires?

“The typical kid is fairly satisfied with key life domains—their family, their friends, their home environments, themselves. The popular press suggests most kids are dissatisfied—but that’s not so,” Huebner said.

One life domain that appears most stressful for adolescents involves their school experiences. One-fourth of the students in their survey reported being dissatisfied with school; almost 10 percent described it as “terrible.” Despite school concerns, the typical teenager is satisfied with their life as a whole, however.

Huebner and Valois believe that family support is the most important predictor of adolescents’ happiness or perceived quality of life—more important even than relationships with peers or school environment.

“The more unhappy a kid is, the more likely they are to engage in risk-taking behavior,” Valois said. “For years, public health researchers have measured the absence of risk taking as a sign of good health.”

“And psychologists have focused on pathology, usually depression or conduct disorders in the case of students,” Huebner said. “But you want more than that for children and adolescents—not merely the absence of something bad. Having a sense of well being is a better predictor of longevity than cholesterol levels or even smoking.” Also, their research with teenagers has shown that high levels of life satisfaction also serve as a buffer against the development of behavior problems (e.g., aggressive behavior) in the face of adverse life experiences.

Ultimately, Valois and Huebner hope to refine their student questionnaires to further distill the factors that facilitate quality of life and academic success. Those factors could then be incorporated into the fabric of community and school programs. The two envision using questionnaires to track the progress and efficacy of statewide or national education programs or to take a quick “pulse check” of the mental health of a student community.

What’s ahead for Valois and Huebner? Referring to the locus of their first meeting, they jokingly call themselves the Kmart team, and given the number of scholarly papers they’ve coauthored from their interdisciplinary research, their franchise is expanding. Now, if they can just find that furniture soap that their wives sent them for seven years ago.

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