Me against myself: Motivational conflicts and emotional development in adulthood.

Abstract

Two studies investigated adult age differences in the frequency and emotional consequences of motivational conflicts (i.e., feeling that one wants to or should do something else in a given situation). Study 1 compared younger and older adults. Study 2 included a more age-heterogeneous sample ranging from 20 to 70 years. Data were obtained using diary and experience-sampling methods. Multilevel regression showed that motivational conflict was associated with lower emotional well-being. With age, the frequency of motivational conflict decreased, while emotional well-being increased. Importantly, the age-related decrease in motivational conflicts partly accounted for the age-related increase in emotional well-being. Findings were consistent across studies and robust after the authors controlled for age differences in a number of control variables including time use. The authors conclude that an age-related decrease in motivational conflicts in daily life may be among the factors underlying the positive development of emotional well-being into older adulthood.Keywords: motivational conflict, emotional well-being, diary, experience sampling Motivational conflicts are ubiquitous in everyday live. People often encounter situations in which they are caught on the horns of dilemma-they need to meet an urgent deadline but want to go to a friend's party too; they wish to be punctual for a concert but also feel they should take time for a friend who just called with a problem. In the present research, we investigated the role that such day-to-day motivational conflicts might play in emotional wellbeing across adulthood.Because of its prominent role in human experience, the topic of intrapsychic conflict-or opposing tendencies within an individual-has a long history in psychological theory and research. Evidence is overwhelming that intraindividual conflict, regardless of its specific manifestation, is detrimental to an individual's well-being, both in the nonpathological and pathological range (e.g., Allen, Herst, Bruck, & Sutton, 2000;Higgins, Klein, & Straumann, 1987;Michalak, Heidenreich, & Hoyer, 2004). In this article, we focus on motivational conflict as one instance of intraindividual conflict. To date, motivational conflicts have primarily been studied in terms of problems among an individual's longer term goals. In this research, participants typically report their personal goals and then evaluate the nature of interrelations among these goals (e.g., Emmons & King, 1988;Riediger & Freund, 2004). Perceptions of conflict among goals can result from resource constraints (e.g., when several goals require more of the same resource, such as time, than is available) or from incompatible goal attainment strategies (Riediger & Freund, 2004). Provided that assessment techniques differentiate between conflict and mutual facilitation, empirical evidence clearly confirms that conflict among higher level goals is associated with impaired psychological well-being (whereas facilitation among goals is unrelated to well-being but de...

Seeking Pleasure and Seeking Pain: Differences in Prohedonic and Contra-Hedonic Motivation From Adolescence to Old Age

“…This interest arose from the idea that one can better understand why individuals of different ages feel different in their everyday lives when one knows whether they differ in how they want to feel. Consistent with evidence from other studies (e.g., Carstensen et al, 2000;Riediger & Freund, 2008), our findings revealed an age-related increase in day-to-day emotional well-being. These age differences largely corresponded to differences in how people wanted to influence their feelings.…”

Getting at Developmental Processes Through Experiments

“…This can be done with experience or time sampling procedures that allow tapping into the everyday lives of (groups of) participants in a relatively unobtrusive way. This approach seems very promising when dealing with the ecologies of different age groups (e.g., Riediger & Freund, 2008). In this way, stimuli that are equivalent across age groups and representative of the ecologies of the different age groups can be identified.…”

Orchestrating Multiple Goals Across Adulthood: From Solo to Tutti

“…This might or might not compromise subjective wellbeing. On the one hand, previous studies have shown that goal conflict can have adverse consequences for subjective well-being (e.g., Riediger & Freund, 2008) and psychosomatic health (e.g., Freund, Knecht, & Wiese, 2014). On the other hand, avoiding goal conflict by disengaging from goals can be negative from a control theoretical perspective (e.g., Carver & Scheier, 1990) as it deprives the individual from the potential benefits of goal striving and eventual goal attainment.…”

“…For instance, individuals can negotiate multiple goals by employing strategies of concurrent or strategies of sequential goal pursuit (Orehek & Vazeou-Nieuwenhuis, 2013). Concurrent strategies usually comprise using single multifinal means to purse multiple goals at the same time (Köpetz, Faber, 274 TOMASIK Fishbach, & Kruglanski, 2011), whereas sequential strategies require prioritizing the allocation of one's resources to one goal at a time (Riediger & Freund, 2008).…”