Eudaimonic growth: Narrative growth goals predict increases in ego development and subjective well-being 3 years later.

We examine (a) the normative course of eudaimonic well-being in emerging adulthood and (b) whether people's narratives of major life goals might prospectively predict eudaimonic growth 3 years later. We define eudaimonic growth as longitudinal increases in eudaimonic well-being, which we define as the combination of psychosocial maturity and subjective well-being (SWB). College freshmen and seniors took measures of ego development (ED; to assess maturity; Loevinger, 1976) and SWB at Time 1 (T1) and again 3 years later (Time 2). ED levels increased longitudinally across that time for men and T1 freshmen, but SWB levels did not change. Participants also wrote narratives of 2 major life goals at T1 that were coded for an explicit emphasis on specific kinds of personal growth. Participants' intellectual-growth goals (especially agentic ones) predicted increases in ED 3 years later, whereas participants' socioemotional-growth goals (especially communal ones) predicted increases in SWB 3 years later. These findings were independent of the effects of Big Five personality traits—notably conscientiousness, which on its own predicted increases in SWB. We discuss (a) emerging adulthood as the last stop for normative eudaimonic growth in modern society and (b) empirical and theoretical issues surrounding the relations among narrative identity, life planning, dispositional traits, eudaimonia, and 2 paths of personal growth. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interpreting the Good Life: Growth Memories in the Lives of Mature, Happy People.

In 2 studies, the authors examined autobiographical memories for the presence of 2 growth orientations that were expected to correspond differentially to maturity and well-being, which are considered to be key facets of "the good life" by L. A. King (2001). Mature participants emphasized integrative memories (conceptual integration and learning), whereas happy participants emphasized intrinsic memories (humanistic concerns). Both kinds of growth memories correlated more strongly with eudaimonic than with hedonic measures of well-being. Growth memories were largely independent of Big Five traits in relation to maturity and well-being. Finally, older participants were more likely than younger participants to have greater maturity (marginally) and well-being, but this was in part explained by older participants' greater tendency to have growth memories. The discussion considers the role of growth memories in the intentional cultivation of the good life. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Whatever happened to "What might have been"? Regrets, happiness, and maturity.

Although lost opportunities and mistaken expectations are unpleasant to think and talk about, these experiences may have a role to play in personality development. Drawing on research using narratives of lost possible selves, the authors review the relations of regrettable experiences to 2 important and independent aspects of maturity, happiness and complexity. Thinking about a lost possible self is related to concurrent regrets, distress, and lowered well-being; however, elaborating on a lost possible self is related, concurrently, to complexity and predicts complexity, prospectively, over time. In this article, the authors describe the role that regrettable experiences have in promoting both happiness and complexity. Finally, expanding on previous work, the authors examine potential affordances of happy maturity and suggest psychological capacities that may promote happy maturity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personal wisdom: Validation and age-related differences of a performance measure.

The 2 goals of this study were to develop and validate a performance measure of personal wisdom (PW) and to examine age differences. On the basis of the Berlin wisdom paradigm and growth theories of personality, 5 criteria of PW were developed. A sample of 83 younger adults (ages 20-40) and 78 older adults (ages 60-80) thought aloud about a PW task. Transcribed answers were rated. Validity was established with regard to indicators of personality growth, subjective well-being, intelligence, critical life events, and general wisdom. As expected, no age differences were obtained on the basic criteria, and negative age differences were found on the metacriteria indexing PW. Fluid intelligence and openness to new experience partially mediated these differences. It is argued that on average and for current cohorts age-related changes in psychological functioning may act as hindrances on the road to PW. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Goal and Personality Trait Development in Emerging Adulthood.

The present research examined continuity and change in the importance of major life goals and the relation between change in goals and change in personality traits over the course of college (N = 298). Participants rated the importance of their life goals 6 times over a 4-year period and completed a measure of the Big Five personality traits at the beginning and end of college. Like personality traits, life goals demonstrated high levels of rank-order stability. Unlike personality traits assessed during the same period and in the same sample, the mean importance of most life goals decreased over time. Moreover, each goal domain was marked by significant individual differences in change, and these individual differences were related to changes in personality traits. These findings provide insights into the relatively unstudied question of how life goals change during emerging adulthood. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Most of the girls are alright, but some aren't: Personality trajectory groups from ages 14 to 24 and some associations with outcomes.

Personality traits show normative patterns of development toward maturity during adolescence. Yet individuals follow these normative patterns to differing degrees. This study used growth mixture modeling to characterize personality development patterns and their associations with outcomes in a population-based sample of 1,537 girls aged 14 to 24. The authors used latent class analysis to identify 3 trajectory groups labeled alright (47%), growing up (42%), and trouble (11%). Alright group members were more likely at age 24 to have completed college, remained involved with their families, and obtained good jobs. Trouble group members were more likely to be involved with drugs and alcohol, to display interpersonal problems, and to behave antisocially. Growing up group members fell in between. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A random walk down university avenue: Life paths, life events, and personality trait change at the transition to university life.

This longitudinal study examined the relation between continuity and change in the Big Five personality traits and life events. Approximately 2,000 German students were tracked from high school to university or to vocational training or work, with 3 assessments over 4 years. Life events were reported retrospectively at the 2nd and 3rd assessment. Latent curve analyses were used to assess change in personality traits, revealing 3 main findings. First, mean-level changes in the Big Five factors over the 4 years were in line with the maturity principle, indicating increasing psychological maturity from adolescence to young adulthood. Second, personality development was characterized by substantive individual differences relating to the life path followed; participants on a more vocationally oriented path showed higher increases in conscientiousness and lower increases in agreeableness than their peers at university. Third, initial level and change in the Big Five factors (especially Neuroticism and Extraversion) were linked to the occurrence of aggregated as well as single positive and negative life events. The analyses suggest that individual differences in personality development are associated with life transitions and individual life experiences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nature and nurture of the interplay between personality traits and major life goals.

Modern personality theories differ in their assumptions about the structure and etiology of the interplay between personality traits and motivational constructs. The present study examined the genetic and environmental sources of the interplay between the Big Five and major life goals concurrently and across time in order to provide a more decisive evaluation of the conflicting assumptions stated in the five-factor theory as opposed to socioanalytic conceptions. Traits and goals were assessed twice across a 5-year period in a sample of 217 identical and 112 fraternal twin pairs from the Bielefeld Longitudinal Study of Adult Twins. About 30% of the variance in agency and communion life goals was genetic; the remaining variance was due to nonshared environmental effects, whereas shared environmental effects were negligible. Both heritable and environmental variance in goals could partly be accounted for by genetic and nonshared environmental effects on personality traits. Across time, we revealed reciprocal genetic and environmental effects between traits and life goals. In sum, our findings yield partial support for both of the 2 competing personality theories, suggesting a readjusted picture of the interplay between traits and goals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Getting older, getting better? Personal strivings and psychological maturity across the life span.

Measures of psychological maturity based on personal strivings (R. A. Emmons, 1989) were administered to 108 adults aged 17–82. On the basis of organismic-theoretical assumptions regarding maturity, age was hypothesized to be positively associated with K. M. Sheldon and T. Kasser's (1995, 1998) two goal-based measures of personality integration. E. Erikson's (1963) assumptions regarding maturity were the basis for the hypothesis that older people would tend to list more strivings concerning generativity and ego integrity and fewer strivings concerning identity and intimacy. Finally, on the basis of past research findings, maturity and age were hypothesized to be positively associated with subjective well-being. Results supported these hypotheses and also showed that measured maturity mediated the relationship between age and well-being. Thus, older individuals may indeed be more psychologically mature than younger people and may be happier as a result. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Daily goals, life goals, and worst fears: means, ends, and subjective well-being

This study addressed the relations among personal strivings (daily goals) and future life goals and worst fears. Eighty undergraduate participants (62 women, 18 men) listed their daily goals, their ultimate life goals, and their worst fears, and completed questionnaire measures of subjective well-being. Daily goals were content-analyzed for relevance to attaining life goals or avoiding worst fears. Daily goals that were instrumental to life goals or that avoided worst fears were rated as more important but also more difficult by participants. Working on daily goals avoiding one's worst fears was negatively related to measures of subjective well-being, controlling for daily goal progress, difficulty, ambivalence, and importance. Working on daily goals that were instrumental to one's life goals only weakly predicted well-being. The avoidance of worst fears interacted with daily goal appraisals such that individuals who experienced little progress at daily goals that served to avoid their "worst case scenario" experienced the lowest levels of subjective well-being. In addition, progress at daily goals that were relevant to accomplishing one's life goals was significantly more strongly related to subjective well-being than progress at daily goals that were unrelated to one's life goals. Results indicate that daily goals are used to enact life goals and avoid worst fears and that these means--end relations have implications for well-being.     

The courage and strategies of hardiness as helpful in growing despite major, disruptive stresses.

Comments on an article (see record 2007-14606-001) by King and Hicks which looked at disruptions of expectations and goals as potentially useful developmental pressures. They emphasized imposed, dramatic stresses (e.g., an unexpected divorce or having one's child born with Down syndrome), but they also meant to include more ordinary, developmental stresses (e.g., leaving home to go to college or not getting the job one wanted). Maddi could not agree more with the article's emphasis on the importance of having full awareness of the losses and using that awareness in the process of learning and moving developmentally forward, and how this emphasis requires a redefinition of happiness as more mature than a mere expression of easy comfort and security. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Three paths of adult development: Conservers, seekers, and achievers.

This study examined the development of individuals whose motivations and skills led them to develop in different but equally positive ways. C. D. Ryff's (1989) scales for Environmental Mastery (EM) and Personal Growth (PG) were used to identify three configurations of positive mental health in 111 women of the Mills Longitudinal Study: Achievers, high on both scales; Conservers, high on EM, low on PG; and Seekers, high on PG, low on EM. Each pattern showed a distinctive profile of strengths on four criteria of maturity—competence, generativity, ego development, and wisdom—and each was predicted by distinctive features of positive and negative emotionality, identity processes, and change in self-control across 31 years of adulthood. Identity at age 43 mediated the influence of personality at age 21 in predicting positive mental health pattern at age 60. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relationships among students' future-oriented goals and subgoals, perceived task instrumentality, and task-oriented self-regulation strategies in an academic environment.

The authors performed path analysis, followed by a bootstrap procedure, to test the predictions of a model explaining the relationships among students' distal future goals (both extrinsic and intrinsic), their adoption of a middle-range subgoal, their perceptions of task instrumentality, and their proximal task-oriented self-regulation strategies. The model was based on R. B. Miller and S. J. Brickman's (2004) conceptualization of future-oriented motivation and self-regulation, which draws primarily from social-cognitive and self-determination theories. Participants were 421 college students who completed a questionnaire that included scales measuring the 5 variables of interest. Data supported the model, suggesting that students' distal future goals (intrinsic future goals in particular) may be related to their middle-range college graduation subgoal, to their perceptions of task instrumentality, and to their adoption of proximal task-oriented self-regulation strategies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Schema reliance for developmental goals increases from early to late adulthood: Improvement for the young, loss prevention for the old.

People tend to encode and retrieve information in terms of schemata, especially when processing resources are low. This study argues that the life-span schema about developmental goals constitutes a generalized expectation about the life course that associates young adults with growth and older adults with loss prevention. Predictions were that young and older adults possess this schema; that both age groups rely on it when remembering age-associated information about goals; and that this schema reliance is particularly pronounced among older adults, due to age-related difficulties in overcoming schemata. In Experiment 1, participants assigned growth or loss-prevention orientations to young and older faces and adhered to the life-span schema. In Experiment 2, participants were presented young and older faces paired with growth or loss prevention. When later asked to recognize faces and remember goal orientations, participants were more likely to remember young faces with growth and older faces with loss prevention than vice versa. This effect was more pronounced among older adults. Conclusions are that reliance on life-span schemata when remembering developmentally relevant information increases with age. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stability and change of personality across the life course: The impact of age and major life events on mean-level and rank-order stability of the Big Five.

Does personality change across the entire life course, and are those changes due to intrinsic maturation or major life experiences? This longitudinal study investigated changes in the mean levels and rank order of the Big Five personality traits in a heterogeneous sample of 14,718 Germans across all of adulthood. Latent change and latent moderated regression models provided 4 main findings: First, age had a complex curvilinear influence on mean levels of personality. Second, the rank-order stability of Emotional Stability, Extraversion, Openness, and Agreeableness all followed an inverted U-shaped function, reaching a peak between the ages of 40 and 60 and decreasing afterward, whereas Conscientiousness showed a continuously increasing rank-order stability across adulthood. Third, personality predicted the occurrence of several objective major life events (selection effects) and changed in reaction to experiencing these events (socialization effects), suggesting that personality can change due to factors other than intrinsic maturation. Fourth, when events were clustered according to their valence, as is commonly done, effects of the environment on changes in personality were either overlooked or overgeneralized. In sum, our analyses show that personality changes throughout the life span, but with more pronounced changes in young and old ages, and that this change is partly attributable to social demands and experiences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The joint influence of personal achievement goals and classroom goal structures on achievement-relevant outcomes.

The authors provide an analytic framework for studying the joint influence of personal achievement goals and classroom goal structures on achievement-relevant outcomes. This framework encompasses 3 models (the direct effect model, indirect effect model, and interaction effect model), each of which addresses a different aspect of the joint influence of the 2 goal levels. These 3 models were examined together with a sample of 1,578 Japanese junior high and high school students from 47 classrooms. Results provided support for each of the 3 models: Classroom goal structures were not only direct, but also indirect predictors of intrinsic motivation and academic self-concept, and some cross-level interactions between personal achievement goals and classroom goal structures were observed (indicating both goal match and goal mismatch effects). A call is made for more research that takes into consideration achievement goals at both personal and structural levels of representation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-determination theory: A macrotheory of human motivation, development, and health.

Self-determination theory (SDT) is an empirically based theory of human motivation, development, and wellness. The theory focuses on types, rather than just amount, of motivation, paying particular attention to autonomous motivation, controlled motivation, and amotivation as predictors of performance, relational, and well-being outcomes. It also addresses the social conditions that enhance versus diminish these types of motivation, proposing and finding that the degrees to which basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness are supported versus thwarted affect both the type and strength of motivation. SDT also examines people's life goals or aspirations, showing differential relations of intrinsic versus extrinsic life goals to performance and psychological health. In this introduction we also briefly discuss recent developments within SDT concerning mindfulness and vitality, and highlight the applicability of SDT within applied domains, including work, relationships, parenting, education, virtual environments, sport, sustainability, health care, and psychotherapy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

How development and personality influence scientific thought, interest, and achievement.

In the present article, I review and summarize two subdisciplines of the psychology of science, namely development and personality. In the first section concerning developmental psychology of science, I review three major developmental topics: 1) the literature on the developmental and familial influences behind scientific interest and scientific talent (e.g., birth-order and theory acceptance, immigrant status and scientific talent); 2) gender and scientific interest and talent; and lastly, 3) age and scientific interest and productivity. In the second section concerning personality psychology of science, I organize the review around four major topics: 1) which traits make scientific interest in general more likely; 2) which traits make interest in specific domains of science more likely (especially social and physical science); 3) which traits make different theoretical orientations more likely; and finally, 4) which traits make scientific achievement and creativity more likely. From the empirical evidence reviewed, it is quite clear that developmental and personality factors impact directly and indirectly scientific thought, interest, and achievement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Life goals and vocational choice.

Factor analyses of 56 life-goal and self-rating items were performed on separate samples of 250 male and 250 female college seniors of high ability. 7 identifiable factors were replicated in the 2 analyses: Self-Esteem and Scholarship (primarily associated with self-ratings); Personal Comfort, Prestige, and Altruism (primarily associated with life goals); and Artistic Motivation and Science-Technology (associated both with self-ratings and with life goals). Analyses of 4 life-goal factor scores using 5495 high aptitude students divided into 36 career field groups revealed great differences in the life goals of students pursuing different careers. Results with an open-ended question about life goals supported this finding. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Culture, personality, and subjective well-being: Integrating process models of life satisfaction.

The authors examined the interplay of personality and cultural factors in the prediction of the affective (hedonic balance) and the cognitive (life satisfaction) components of subjective well-being (SWB). They predicted that the influence of personality on life satisfaction is mediated by hedonic balance and that the relation between hedonic balance and life satisfaction is moderated by culture. As a consequence, they predicted that the influence of personality on life satisfaction is also moderated by culture. Participants from 2 individualistic cultures (United States, Germany) and 3 collectivistic cultures (Japan, Mexico, Ghana) completed measures of Extraversion, Neuroticism, hedonic balance, and life satisfaction. As predicted, Extraversion and Neuroticism influenced hedonic balance to the same degree in all cultures, and hedonic balance was a stronger predictor of life satisfaction in individualistic than in collectivistic cultures. The influence of Extraversion and Neuroticism on life satisfaction was largely mediated by hedonic balance. The results suggest that the influence of personality on the emotional component of SWB is pancultural, whereas the influence of personality on the cognitive component of SWB is moderated by culture. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)