To examine (a) how young adults' personal goals change as they progress from emerging to young adulthood in their university studies and immediately after and (b) the extent to which such changes are associated with the normative transitions and the life events they experience and their age, 297 university students completed the revised Personal Project Analysis and a life-event questionnaire five times over 10 years. The changes in young adults' personal goals reflected changing developmental tasks, role transitions, and life situations: They disengaged from goals related to education, friends, and traveling and engaged in goals related to work, family, and health. The older the participants, the more family- and work-related goals and the fewer friend-related goals they reported. The results showed further that the more family-related goals they had, the earlier they married, started to cohabitate, and had children. The earlier they had graduated and found permanent jobs, the more their education-related goals decelerated.
Arnett, J. (2000). Emerging adulthood: A theory of development from the late teens through the twenties. American Psychologist , 55(5), 469-480.
2.
Arnett, J.J. (2004). Emerging adulthood: The winding road from the late teens through the twenties. New York: Oxford University Press.
3.
Baltes, P.B. (1997). On the incomplete architecture of human ontogeny: Selection, optimization and compensation as foundation of developmental theory . American Psychologist, 52, 366-380.
4.
Brandtstädter, J. (1984). Personal and social control over development: Some implications of an action perspective in life-span developmental psychology . In P. B. Baltes & O. G. Brim (Eds.), Life-span development and behavior (Vol. 6, pp. 1-32). New York: Academic Press.
5.
Brandtstädter, J., & Renner, G. (1990). Tenacious goal pursuit and flexible goal adjustment: Explication and age-related analysis of assimilative and accommodative strategies of coping. Psychology and Aging, 5, 58-67.
6.
Cantor, N., Norem, J., Langston, C., Zirkel, S., Fleeson, W., & Cook-Flanagan, C. (1987). Life tasks and daily life experience. Journal of Personality, 59, 425-451.
7.
Cantor, N., Norem, J., Niedenthal, P., Langston, C., & Brower, A. (1991). Life-tasks, self-concept ideals and cognitive strategies in a life transition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53, 1178-1191.
8.
Caspi, A. (2002). Social selection, social causation and developmental pathways: Empirical strategies for better understanding how individuals and environments are linked across the life course. In L. Pulkkinen & A. Caspi (Eds.), Paths to successful development. Personality in the life course (pp. 281-301). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
9.
Cross, S., & Markus, H. (1991). Possible selves across the life span. Human Development, 34, 230-255.
10.
Duncan, T.E., Duncan, S.C., Strycker, L.A., Li, F., & Alpert, A. (1999). An introduction to latent variable growth curve modeling. Concepts, issues, and applications. Mahwah, NJ : Lawrence Erlbaum.
11.
Elder, G.H. (1985). Perspectives on the life course. In G. H. Elder (Ed.), Life course dynamics (pp. 23-49). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
12.
Erikson, E. (1959). Identity and the life cycle. New York: International University Press.
13.
Erikson, E. (1968). Identity: Youth and crisis. New York: Norton.
14.
Grob, A., Krings, F., & Bangerter, A. (2001). Life markers in biographical narratives of people from three cohorts: A life span perspective in its historical context. Human Development, 44, 171-190.
15.
Hagestad, G.O., & Neugarten, B.L. (1985). Age and the life course . In R. H. Binstock & E. Shanas (Eds.), Handbook of aging and the social sciences (pp. 35-61). New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.
16.
Havighurst, R. (1948). Developmental tasks and education (3rd ed.). New York: McKay.
17.
Heckhausen, J. (1999). Developmental regulation in adulthood: Age-normative and sociostructural constraints as adaptive challenges. New York: Cambridge University Press.
18.
Heckhausen, J., & Tomasik, M.J. (2002). Get an apprenticeship before school is out: How German adolescents adjust vocational aspirations when getting close to a developmental deadline. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 60, 199-219.
19.
Heckhausen, J., Wrosch, C., & Fleeson, W. (2001). Developmental regulation before and after a developmental deadline: The sample case of “biological clock” for childbearing . Psychology and Aging, 16, 400-413.
20.
Hogan, D.P., & Astone, N.M. (1986). The transition to adulthood. Annual Review of Sociology, 12, 109-130.
21.
Lanz, M., Rosnati, R., Marta, E., & Scabini, E. (2001). Adolescents' future: A comparison of young people's and their parents' views. In J-E. Nurmi (Ed.), Navigation through adolescence (pp. 169-197). New York: RoutledgeFalmer.
22.
Levinson, D.J. (1978). The seasons of a man's life. New York: Ballantine.
23.
Little, B. (1983). Personal projects: A rationale and method for investigation. Environment and Behavior, 15, 273-309.
24.
Little, B. (1989). Personal project analysis: Trivial pursuits, magnificent obsessions, and the search for coherence. In D. Buss & N. Cantor (Eds.), Personality psychology: Recent trends and emerging issues (pp. 15-31). New York: Springer-Verlag.
25.
Little, B., Salmela-Aro, K., & Phillips, S. (Eds.). (2007). Personal project pursuit: Goals, action and human flourishing. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
26.
Marini, M.M. (1987). Measuring the process of role change during the transition to adulthood. Social Science Research,16, 1-38.
27.
Mayer, K.U. (1986). Structural constraints on the life course. Human Development, 29, 163-170.
28.
Muthén, B.O., & Khoo, S.T. (1998). Longitudinal studies of achievement growth using latent variable modeling. Learning & Individual Differences,10, 73-102.
Neugarten, B., Moore, J., & Lowe, J. (1965). Age norms, age constraints, and adult socialization . American Journal of Sociology, 70, 710-717.
31.
Nurmi, J-E. (1989). Development of orientation to the future during early adolescence: A four-year longitudinal study and two cross-lagged comparisons . International Journal of Psychology, 24, 195-214.
32.
Nurmi, J-E. (1991). How do adolescents see their future? A review of the development of future orientation and planning. Developmental Review, 11, 1-59.
33.
Nurmi, J-E. (1992). Age differences in adult life goals, concerns, and their temporal extension: A life course approach to future-oriented motivation . International Journal of Behavioral Development, 15, 487-508.
34.
Nurmi, J-E. (1993). Adolescents' development in an age-graded context: The role of personal beliefs, goals and strategies in the tackling of developmental tasks and standards. International Journal of Behavioral Development , 16, 169-189.
35.
Nurmi, J-E. (2004). Socialization and self-development: Channeling, selection, adjustment, and reflection. In R. M. Lerner & L. Steinberg (Eds.), Handbook of adolescent psychology (pp. 85-124). New York: John Wiley.
36.
Nurmi, J-E., & Salmela-Aro, K. (1997). Social strategies and loneliness: A prospective study. Personality and Individual Differences , 23, 205-215.
37.
Nurmi, J-E., & Salmela-Aro, K. (2002). Goal construction, reconstruction and depressive symptoms in a life-span context: The transition from school to work. Journal of Personality, 70(3), 385-420.
38.
Nurmi, J-E., Salmela-Aro, K., & Koivisto, P. (2002). Goal importance, and related agency-beliefs and emotions during the transition from vocational school to work: Antecedents and consequences. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 60, 241-261.
39.
Oerter, R. (1986). Developmental tasks through the life span: A new approach to an old concept. In P. Baltes, D. L. Featherman, & R. M. Lerner (Eds.), Life-span development and behavior (Vol. 7, pp. 233-269). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
40.
Riediger, M., Freund, A.M., & Baltes, P.B. (2005). Managing life through personal goals: Intergoal facilitation and intensity of goal pursuit in younger and older adulthood . Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, 60B, P84-P91.
41.
Roberts, B., O'Donnell, M., & Robins, R.W. (2004). Goal and personality trait development in emerging adulthood. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87, 541-550.
42.
Roisman, G.I., Masten, A.S., Douglas Coatsworth, J., & Tellegen, A. (2004). Salient and emerging developmental tasks in the transition to adulthood. Child Development, 75, 123-133.
43.
Salmela-Aro, K. (2001). Personal goals during a transition to adulthood . In J-E. Nurmi (Ed.), Navigation through adolescence (pp. 59-84). New York: RoutledgeFalmer.
44.
Salmela-Aro, K., & Nurmi, J-E. (1992). Life-event questionnaire. Helsinki: University of Helsinki.
45.
Salmela-Aro, K., & Nurmi, J-E. (1996). Depressive symptoms and personal project appraisals: A cross-lagged longitudinal study. Personality and Individual Differences, 21, 373-381.
46.
Salmela-Aro, K., & Nurmi, J-E. (1997). Goal contents, well-being and life context during the transition to university: A longitudinal study. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 20, 471-491.
47.
Salmela-Aro, K., Nurmi, J-E., Saisto, T., & Halmesmäki, E. (2000). Women's and men's personal goals during the transition to parenthood. Journal of Family Psychology, 14, 171-186.
48.
Salmela-Aro, K., Nurmi, J-E., Saisto, T., & Halmesmäki, E. (2001). Goal construction and depressive symptoms during transition to motherhood: Evidence from two longitudinal studies . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 1144-1159.
49.
Schulenberg, J., & Maggs, J.L. (2002). A developmental perspective on alcohol use and heavy drinking during adolescence and the transition to young adulthood. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, Suppl.14, 54-70.
50.
Settersten, R.A., & Hagestad, G.O. (1996). What's the latest? Cultural age deadlines for family transitions. The Gerontologist, 36, 178-188.
51.
Shanahan, M.J. (2000). Pathways to adulthood in changing societies: Variability and mechanisms in life course perspective. Annual Review of Sociology, 26, 667-692.
52.
Sheldon, K.M. (2005). Positive value change during college: Normative trends and individual differences. Journal of Research in Personality, 39, 209-223.
53.
Sheldon, K.M., & Elliot, A.J. (2000). Personal goals in social roles: Divergences and convergences across roles and levels of analysis. Journal of Personality, 68, 51-84.
Tanner, J.L. (2006). Recentering during emerging adulthood: A critical turning point in life span human development. In J. J. Arnett & J. L. Tanner (Eds.), Emerging adults in America: Coming of age in the 21st century (pp. 21-55). Washington, DC: APA Books.
56.
University Statistics. (2003). KOTA data base. Helsinki: University Press.
57.
Wrosch, C., & Heckhausen, J. (1999). Control processes before and after passing a developmental deadline: Activation and deactivation of intimate relationship goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 415-427.
