Major life events (MLEs) are studied in many different areas in psychology such as personality development, clinical psychology, or posttraumatic growth. In all of these areas, a common finding is that MLEs differ in their effects on psychological outcomes. However, a framework that allows a systematic examination of these differences is still absent. This paper presents a systematic literature review and 4 empirical studies (Ns between 226 and 449, total N = 1,477) in which we developed and evaluated a dimensional taxonomy of nine perceived characteristics of MLEs: valence, impact, predictability, challenge, emotional significance, change in world views, social status changes, external control, and extraordinariness. These event characteristics can be measured reliably with the Event Characteristics Questionnaire (ECQ). Perceived event characteristics predicted individual differences in changes in subjective well-being in both retrospective and longitudinal data after MLEs over and above established predictors of subjective well-being such as personality and demographic characteristics. A comparison between the ECQ and established taxonomies of situation characteristics such as the DIAMONDS (Rauthmann et al., 2014) showed high conceptual and empirical convergence between some ECQ subscales (e.g., valence, challenge) with characteristics of situations, whereas other ECQ subscales (e.g., social status changes, external control) were conceptually and empirically distinct from situation characteristics. In sum, including measures of perceived event characteristics in studies on MLEs may enhance our understanding of why MLEs differ in the direction, strength, and duration of their effects on psychological outcomes.

The development of self-regulation has been studied primarily in Western middle-class contexts and has, therefore, neglected what is known about culturally varying self-concepts and socialization strategies. The research reported here compared the self-regulatory competencies of German middle-class (N = 125) and rural Cameroonian Nso preschoolers (N = 76) using the Marshmallow test (Mischel, 2014). Study 1 revealed that 4-year-old Nso children showed better delay-of-gratification performance than their German peers. Study 2 revealed that culture-specific maternal socialization goals and interaction behaviors were related to delay-of-gratification performance. Nso mothers' focus on hierarchical relational socialization goals and responsive control seems to support children's delay-of-gratification performance more than German middle-class mothers' emphasis on psychological autonomous socialization goals and sensitive, child-centered parenting.

Major life events (MLEs) are studied in many different areas in psychology such as personality development, clinical psychology, or posttraumatic growth. In all of these areas, a common finding is that MLEs differ in their effects on psychological outcomes. However, a framework that allows a systematic examination of these differences is still absent. This paper presents a systematic literature review and 4 empirical studies (Ns between 226 and 449, total N = 1,477) in which we developed and evaluated a dimensional taxonomy of nine perceived characteristics of MLEs: valence, impact, predictability, challenge, emotional significance, change in world views, social status changes, external control, and extraordinariness. These event characteristics can be measured reliably with the Event Characteristics Questionnaire (ECQ). Perceived event characteristics predicted individual differences in changes in subjective well-being in both retrospective and longitudinal data after MLEs over and above established predictors of subjective well-being such as personality and demographic characteristics. A comparison between the ECQ and established taxonomies of situation characteristics such as the DIAMONDS (Rauthmann et al., 2014) showed high conceptual and empirical convergence between some ECQ subscales (e.g., valence, challenge) with characteristics of situations, whereas other ECQ subscales (e.g., social status changes, external control) were conceptually and empirically distinct from situation characteristics. In sum, including measures of perceived event characteristics in studies on MLEs may enhance our understanding of why MLEs differ in the direction, strength, and duration of their effects on psychological outcomes.

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