Cohort Differences in Personal Goals and Life Satisfaction in Young Adulthood: Evidence for Historical Shifts in Developmental Tasks

Abstract

This study investigated the influence of changing socio-historical conditions on personal goals in young adulthood. It was hypothesized that socio-historical changes related to individualization have resulted in shifts in goal pursuit. Participants from three birth cohorts reconstructed their important goals when they were 20 years old. Members of the oldest cohort were born between 1920 and 1925. Members of the middle cohort were born between 1945 and 1950. Members of the youngest cohort were born between 1970 and 1975. Goal content, the degree to which goals were perceived as being shared by members of the same cohort (social sharedness), perceived control over goal attainment, success in attainment, and life satisfaction at age 25 were measured in a retrospective study. Results show consistent shifts over time. Whereas members of older cohorts mentioned goals related to classical developmental tasks, members of younger cohorts mentioned more individualistic, self-related goals and goals related to education. The processes through which goal pursuit influenced life satisfaction also changed. Perceived social sharedness of goals was a direct predictor of life satisfaction for the oldest cohort. For the younger cohorts, perceived control over goal attainment influenced success which in turn influenced life satisfaction. These changes support the contention that developmental tasks and processes are historically variant.

Tarefas de desenvolvimento e história de vida de idosos: análise da perspectiva de Havighurst

“…Reitera-se que as demandas desenvolvimentais traduzem expectativas predominantes em um determinado contexto sociocultural e histórico (Roisman et al, 2004) e, portanto, não são ad eternum, devendo ser alvo de revisões. Krings et al (2008) verifi caram em seu estudo com três coortes diferentes que as TD variaram intergeracionalmente.…”

“…No entanto, geralmente, isso tem sido feito abrangendo somente uma fase da vida (Krings, Bangerter, Gomez, & Grob, 2008;Maniar & Joshi, 2010;Pinquart, Silbereisen, & Wilesner, 2004) e/ou grupos específi cos (Pfeiffer & Pinquart, 2011). Pinquart et al (2004) realizaram um estudo longitudinal com mais de 800 adolescentes para analisar discrepâncias entre o estado real e o desejado para se concretizar as TD nessa fase do curso de vida e sua relação com autoestima.…”

“…Buscando verifi car a infl uência das mudanças sócio--históricas nos objetivos pessoais de adultos jovens, Krings et al (2008) desenvolveram um estudo com 766 suíços, de três coortes diferentes -uma com média de idade de 75 anos, outra de 50 anos e a última com média de idade de 25 anos. A eles foi enviado um questionário contendo perguntas acerca de eventos importantes da vida, objetivos, metas, satisfação com a vida, dentre outras.…”

Finding the authentic self in a communal culture: Developmental goals in emerging adulthood

“…This is a time for formulating, adopting, and clarifying one' s life projects and life goals, and developing an integrated sense of identity (Erikson, 1968). L ife goals are often defi ned as future-oriented representations of desired states (Krings, Bangerter, Gomez, & Grob, 2008;van Horen, Pöhlmann, Koeppen, & Hannover, 2008). Life goals reveal what individuals want to achieve in their life, refl ect their personal values, and organize and direct behavior over extended periods of time.…”

“…Emerging adulthood might involve such a period of moratorium, in which youth have the time to experiment with various roles and capacities to help them eventually form an identity (Arnett, 2007). However, emerging adulthood, at least in Western societies, is a particularly unstructured period (Arnett, 2007), and individualization processes have diversifi ed developmental pathways during this period (Krings et al, 2008). Today, role transitions and traditional markers of young adulthood are less important, no longer follow a standard sequence, and take place later than they did decades ago (Seiffge-Krenke, NEW DIRECTIONS FOR CHILD AND ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT • DOI: 10.1002/cd 2008).…”