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Abstract. Taking a dynamic perspective on goals and their representation over the course of goal pursuit, we explore shifts in goal orientation, particularly when encountering setbacks during goal pursuit. In general, goals can be oriented toward achieving gains, maintaining a current state, and avoiding a loss (i.e., goal orientation; Freund & Ebner, 2005 ). Existing research on goal orientation has focused on age-related differences in goal orientation but assumed that goal orientation is stable over the course of goal pursuit. Taking a short-term, dynamic approach focusing on changes in goal orientation during the pursuit of a given goal, we propose that goal orientation can shift depending on goal progress and the perceived likelihood to achieve the desired outcome. In particular, we suggest that goal orientation remains stable during goal pursuit when progress occurs at the expected rate. However, when goal progress is hampered by setbacks or failures, we propose that people are more likely to shift their orientation toward the avoidance of failure or loss, particularly when they pursue their goal with a backup plan in mind ( Napolitano & Freund, 2016 ). Similarly, when progressing unexpectedly fast in counteracting a loss, we posit that people likely shift from a loss to a gain orientation. After proposing foundational processes for motivational shifts during goal pursuit, we discuss how a “motivational shift” perspective can impact future work on self-regulation and goal striving.

Goals constitute an important construct in developmental psychology. They represent a central way in which individuals shape their development. Here, we present two studies on age-related differences in one important goal dimension, goal focus, that is, the relative salience of the means and ends of goal pursuit. Extant studies on age-related differences in adults suggest a shift from focusing on the ends to focusing on the means across adulthood. The current studies aimed to expand this research to encompass the entire lifespan including childhood. The first cross-sectional study included participants spanning from early childhood into old age (N = 312, age range: 3–83 years) and used a multimethodological approach comprising eye tracking, behavioral, and verbal measures of goal focus. The second study investigated the verbal measures of the first study in more detail in an adult sample (N = 1550, age range: 17–88 years). Overall, the results do not show a clear pattern, making them difficult to interpret. There was little convergence of the measures, pointing to the difficulties in assessing a construct such as goal focus across a large range of age groups differing in social-cognitive and verbal skills.

Objectives This research addresses how younger and older adults’ decisions and evaluations of gains and losses are affected by the way in which monetary incentives are provided. We compared 2 common incentive schemes in decision making: pay one (only a single decision is incentivized) and pay all (incentives across all decisions are accumulated). Method Younger adults (18–36 years; n = 147) and older adults (60–89 years; n = 139) participated in either a pay-one or pay-all condition and made binary choices between two-outcome monetary lotteries in gain, loss, and mixed domains. We analyzed participants’ decision quality, risk taking, and psychometric test scores. Computational modeling of cumulative prospect theory served to measure sensitivity to outcomes and probabilities, loss aversion, and choice sensitivity. Results Decision quality and risk aversion were higher in the gain than mixed or loss domain, but unaffected by age. Loss aversion was higher, and choice sensitivity was lower in older than younger adults. In the pay-one condition, the value functions were more strongly curved, and choice sensitivity was higher than in the pay-all condition. Discussion An opportunity of accumulating incentives has similar portfolio effects on younger and older adults’ decisions. In general, people appear to decide less cautiously in pay-all than pay-one scenarios. The impact of different incentive schemes should be carefully considered in aging and decision research.

Goals are cognitive representations of means-ends relations that reflect what a person wants to approach or avoid. Previous research has demonstrated that the relative salience of the means and ends (i.e., goal focus) differs across adulthood. Due to inconsistent findings in recent studies, this study systematically investigated the convergence of goal focus across different dimensions (i.e., goal content, complexity, type, i.e., hypothetical vs. personal goals, and method of assessment) and its relation to age. To this end, we conducted a multimethod online study (N = 773) across an age range from 14 to 87 years. The results provide little support for the convergence of goal focus across different assessment methods and systematic associations with age. We discuss the implications of these findings for goal research.

Both in the research literature as well as in popular media, the topic of “work-life” balance receives much attention, particularly for the age group of middle-aged adults. There is evidence for both, positive and negative spillover effects across life domains. This chapter provides a theoretical and empirical overview of the different types of inter-domain relationships, concepts of boundary management, and models of spillover effects on health and well-being. Adopting a lifespan perspective, we review the literature on spillover effects by focusing on multiple goal pursuit in the life domains of work, family, and leisure in middle adulthood. During this “rush hour” of life, middle-aged adults face the challenge of managing their scarce resources (e.g., time, energy) in order to achieve a successful “work-life balance.” Accordingly, we present empirical studies addressing the interplay between goal pursuit, boundary management, inter-domain conflict and facilitation, as well as spill- and crossover effects at the work-family interface. In addition, this chapter considers both exhaustion and recovery as key outcomes of spillover effects across life domains and highlights recommendations for boundary management in middle adulthood. Finally, this chapter outlines promising routes for future research on spillover effects between work, family, and leisure.

Objectives The current experiment tested the causal effect of goal orientation on subjective satisfaction with performance on a cognitive task. Method A sample of N = 231 young, middle-aged, and older adults (21–79 years) completed a dot-memory task in one of 3 goal orientation conditions aiming for improvement, maintenance, or avoidance of decline in performance. Results Bayesian analyses showed that in all age groups, goal orientation influenced actual performance, but did not affect perceived performance or performance satisfaction. Performance satisfaction was positively correlated with perceived performance, but not with actual performance. Discussion The findings suggest that whether goal orientation benefits older adults’ subjective well-being might depend on (a) the goal content (previous research targeted personal goals) or (b) whether it enhances their perception of the status quo (and thus reduces the discrepancy between actual and desired states). This study contributes to a better understanding of the role of goal orientation in subjective well-being across adulthood.

This article discusses ways in which aging individuals respond to physical, social, and environmental changes and constraints by modifying their goals. We review aging-related trends, which we derive from several theoretical approaches, including goal systems theory, the motivational theory of life-span development and its action-phase model, and the Selection, Optimization, and Compensation model. These theories explain how biological and social role changes in later adulthood prompt individuals to make changes to the content, orientation, and composition of their goals, including disengaging from and adjusting previously central goals. They also help identify individual differences in the capacity to do so effectively. We review several motivation-related interventions that address the challenges in goal adjustment and call for more research on identifying processes of goal changes conducive to healthy aging, more interventions, and modifications of societal and institutional (e.g., workplace, nursing home) operations that support adaptive goal change in older adults.

Objectives Perceptions of time are shaped by sociohistorical factors. Specifically, economic growth and modernization often engender a sense of acceleration. Research has primarily focused on one time perception dimension (perceived time pressure) in one subpopulation (working-age adults), but it is not clear whether historical changes extend to other dimensions (e.g., perceived speed of time) and other subpopulations, such as older adults who are no longer in the workforce and experience age-related shifts in time perception. We therefore examined sociohistorical and age-related trends in two dimensions of time perception in two cohorts of urban older adults. Method Using propensity score matching for age and education, samples were drawn from the Berlin Aging Study (1990–1993, n = 256, Mage = 77.49) and the Berlin Aging Study-II (2009–2014, n = 248, Mage = 77.49). Cohort differences in means, variances, covariance, and correlates of perceived speed of time and time pressure were examined using multigroup SEM. Results There were no cohort differences in the perceived speed of time, but later-born cohorts reported more time pressure than earlier-born cohorts. There were no significant age differences, but perceptions of speed of time were more heterogeneous in the 1990s than in the 2010s. Cohorts did not differ in how time perceptions were associated with sociodemographic, health, cognitive, and psychosocial correlates. Discussion These findings document sociohistorical trends toward greater perceived time pressure and reduced heterogeneity in perceived speed of time among later-born urban adults. Conceptualizations of social acceleration should thus consider the whole adult life span.

Prior research has established the importance of social relations and social embeddedness for motivation in healthy aging. Thus, social orientation appears to be essential for understanding healthy aging. This article focuses particularly on age-related changes in goals concerning social orientation, such as increased prioritization of emotional goals, increased prosociality/altruistic motives, generativity, and ego transcendence. We then consider open questions regarding gaps in the links between goals related to social orientation and healthy aging, as well as the implications of theories and research on social goals for leveraging motivation to promote healthy aging. In particular, interventions to promote healthy behavior in late life may be most effective when they match the themes of older adults’ strivings to find meaning and purpose in their personal goals.

This study investigated age differences in appetitive and aversive associative learning using a Pavlovian conditioning paradigm. Appetitive and aversive associative learning is the process by which an initially neutral cue is systematically paired with an aversive or appetitive outcome, eventually itself prompting aversive or appetitive responses. Mimicking the motivational shift from a primary gain orientation in young adulthood toward a stronger orientation toward loss prevention in old age, we expected older adults to learn associations between novel stimuli and losses more rapidly than associating neutral cues with gains (here: donations to charity). A pilot study (N = 214, 18-81 years) established the equivalence of monetary gains and losses for a charitable donation across adulthood. Based on these data, an experiment using an associative conditioning paradigm assessed the extent and temporal dynamics of appetitive and aversive learning across adulthood (N = 122, 19-80 years). Results suggest that younger adults form gain-related associations at a higher learning rate compared to losses. By contrast, with increasing age, adults more rapidly track the valence of conditioned stimuli with losses than gains. This differential learning pattern cannot be attributed to age-differences in arousal or expectancy. Results suggest that the negative valence of losses drives learning more efficiently in older age groups, while younger age groups are more sensitive to the positive valence of gains. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

To mitigate uncertainty in their goal pursuits, people use backup plans, i.e., alternative means that are developed to potentially replace "Plan A." Several studies have demonstrated that backup plans can introduce unexpected costs into goal pursuits that decrease a person's motivation to continue using their "Plan A," and reduce their chances for achieving their goal. These existing studies used time-intensive experimental and/or observational approaches to assess the effects of backup planning. The present research examines the newly-developed Backup Planning Scale (BUPS) for its measurement invariance, reliability, validity, and other psychometric characteristics across three independent samples with more than 1,500 participants. Consistent with prior theorizing, we found support for a nine-item, three factor structure for the BUPS, indexing latent factors for a person's tendency to develop, reserve, and replace with (or use) backup plans. Furthermore, a novel "IRTree" based statistical technique provided evidence for the validity of the measure, as participants' responses to the BUPS were associated with their actual developing, reserving, and replacing backup planning behaviors in a logic task. We conclude that the freely-available BUPS is a simple, brief, reliable, and valid self-reported instrument for assessing backup planning behaviors across adulthood.

Do adults of different ages differ in their focus on positive, negative, or neutral information when making decisions? Some research suggests an increasing preference for attending to and remembering positive over negative information with advancing age (i.e., an age-related positivity effect). However, these prior studies have largely neglected the potential role of neutral information. The current set of three studies used a multimethod approach, including self-reports (Study 1), eye tracking and choice among faces reflecting negative, neutral, or positive health-related (Study 2) and leisure-related information (Study 3). Gaze results from Studies 2 and 3 as well as self-reports from Study 1 showed a stronger preference for sources of neutral than for positive or negative information regardless of age. Findings also suggest a general preference for decision-relevant information from neutral compared to positive or negative sources. Focusing exclusively on the difference between positive (happy) and negative (angry) faces, results are in line with the age-related positivity effect (i.e., the difference in gaze duration between happy and angry faces was significantly larger for older than for younger adults). These findings underscore the importance of neutral information across age groups. Thus, most research on the positivity effect may be biased in that it does not consider the strong preference for neutral over positive information.

Recovery from strains accumulated over longer periods of time is essential for health and well-being. Most people take vacations to ensure that they achieve a state of recovery that will allow them to prevent a state of enduring exhaustion. Extending a recent motivational model of recovery, we examined recovery processes during a vacation.In the current daily diary study, 147 university students reported their daily recovery, mood, opportunity costs, and subjective time perception over 21 consecutive days (2342 observations) during the summer break.Multilevel analyses showed that students reported higher recovery on days when they were in a better mood and perceived lower opportunity costs than usual. These results held after controlling for the passage of time and well-established covariates of recovery (i.e., psychological detachment, relaxation, mastery, and control).Supporting the motivational model of recovery, positive mood, the absence of opportunity costs and, to a lesser degree, the perception of time passing quickly contribute to daily recovery during a vacation. Thus, recovery is not simply the result of elapsed time but also depends on the kinds of experiences people have on a given vacation day.

Abstract. How do we know when an activity has exhausted us or helped us recover? In this paper, we present a motivational approach to exhaustion and recovery that takes into account the multidimensional nature of the constructs. The account details three psychological processes that may – individually and in interaction – underlie exhaustion and recovery. Specifically, we propose that changes in mood, subjective time perception, and opportunity costs experienced during an ongoing effortful or relaxing activity indicate a person’s momentary degree of exhaustion and recovery and impact the decision of whether the person should continue or disengage from the activity at hand. Addressing developmental changes across adulthood, we present two opposing hypotheses on how younger and older adults may differ in their experiences of exhaustion and recovery: (i) Older adults may experience an accelerated subjective time perception compared to younger adults and may thus feel less exhausted (more recovered) than younger adults after spending an identical amount of time engaged in an effortful (relaxing) activity. (ii) Older adults may be more sensitive toward increasing opportunity costs experienced during an effortful or relaxing activity and may therefore feel exhausted or recovered faster than younger adults.

The optimized superconducting stellarator device Wendelstein 7-X (with major radius , minor radius , and plasma volume) restarted operation after the assembly of a graphite heat shield and 10 inertially cooled island divertor modules. This paper reports on the results from the first high-performance plasma operation. Glow discharge conditioning and ECRH conditioning discharges in helium turned out to be important for density and edge radiation control. Plasma densities of with central electron temperatures were routinely achieved with hydrogen gas fueling, frequently terminated by a radiative collapse. In a first stage, plasma densities up to were reached with hydrogen pellet injection and helium gas fueling. Here, the ions are indirectly heated, and at a central density of a temperature of with was transiently accomplished, which corresponds to with a peak diamagnetic energy of and volume-averaged normalized plasma pressure . The routine access to high plasma densities was opened with boronization of the first wall. After boronization, the oxygen impurity content was reduced by a factor of 10, the carbon impurity content by a factor of 5. The reduced (edge) plasma radiation level gives routinely access to higher densities without radiation collapse, e.g. well above line integrated density and central temperatures at moderate ECRH power. Both X2 and O2 mode ECRH schemes were successfully applied. Core turbulence was measured with a phase contrast imaging diagnostic and suppression of turbulence during pellet injection was observed.

We introduce a distinct type of choice that has yet to be addressed by self-control research: Choosing between activities that offer both delayed and immediate rewards. We describe when and why such mixed-reward choices pose challenges to self-control, and suggest that self-control in mixed-reward choices may be supported (rather than undermined) by delay discounting.

OBJECTIVES: Without pharmaceutical measures available, endorsement of protective behaviours, such as hygiene behaviours, social distancing, and adherence to recommended behaviours in case of symptoms is of key importance to curb the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Based on an extended version of the protection motivation theory, this study examined the role of perceived risks to oneself and to others, self-efficacy, response efficacy, and perceived social norms for intentions to and the endorsement of several protective behaviours and alternative behaviours known to be ineffective. Further, it was hypothesised that effects of risk perceptions depended on high levels of self-efficacy. DESIGN: Data were collected by telephone at the beginning of the lockdown in Switzerland with a large sample (N = 1,009) representative of the adult Swiss population. METHODS: All predictors (self-efficacy, response efficacy, perceived social norms, intentions) but risk perceptions were assessed for hygiene behaviours, social distancing, adherence to recommended behaviours in case of symptoms, and alternative measures known to be ineffective. RESULTS: Across all analyses of intentions for and endorsement of protective and alternative behaviours, response efficacy and self-efficacy emerged as the most important predictors. Social norms were mainly related to intentions, but not to behaviours. The different risk perceptions were rarely and inconsistently related to intentions and behaviours. No consistent pattern of interactions between self-efficacy and risk perceptions emerged. CONCLUSION: This study demonstrates that even in the face of a pandemic of an unknown virus, the resources (self-efficacy, response efficacy) rather than the risk perceptions have the potential to promote protective behaviours.

ObjectivesGoal orientation tends to shift from predominantly striving for gains to maintenance and loss avoidance across adulthood. A dominant hypothesis states that age-related increases in losses drive the motivational shift. The present study tests this hypothesis and an alternative, namely that perceived accumulation of resources/assets and discrepancy between the actual and desired state underlie the stronger maintenance and loss-avoidance orientation in older than younger adults.MethodsData from N = 182 U.S. adult participants on Amazon Mechanical Turk (preregistered; 50.0% female; 19–77 years, M = 45.1, SD = 15.86) comprise measures of demographics, goal orientation in 16 selected life domains as well as perceived accumulation, losses, actual-desired discrepancy in the same domains.ResultsMultilevel modeling analyses showed that, as expected and confirming prior research, gain orientation decreased and maintenance orientation increased with age. Moreover, both perceived losses and accumulation of resources/assets increased with age, while the actual-desired discrepancy decreased. Larger perceived accumulation and smaller actual-desired discrepancies were associated with stronger maintenance orientation. Regardless of age, a smaller actual-desired discrepancy was also associated with stronger loss-avoidance orientation. Contrary to predictions, perceived losses were negatively associated with gain orientation, but not significantly associated with maintenance or loss-avoidance orientation.DiscussionResults replicate the shift in goal orientation across adulthood. Speaking against the loss hypothesis, perceived accumulation of resources/assets and actual-desired discrepancy seem to play an important role in determining goal orientation over adulthood, while the role of perceived losses may be less significant than commonly assumed.

Healthy aging is in part dependent upon people’s willingness and ability to mobilize the effort necessary to support behaviors that promote health and well-being. People may have the best information relating to health along with the best intentions to stay healthy (e.g., health-related goals), but positive outcomes will ultimately be dependent upon them actually investing the necessary effort toward using this information to achieve their goals. In addition, the influences on effort mobilization may vary as a function of physical, psychological, and social changes experienced by the individual across the life span. Building on the overall theme of this special issue, we explore the relationships between motivation, effort mobilization, and healthy aging. We begin by characterizing the relationship between motivation and effort, and identify the factors that influence effort mobilization. We then consider the factors associated specifically with aging that may influence effort mobilization (e.g., changes in cardiovascular and neural mechanisms) and, ultimately, the health and well-being of older adults. Finally, distinguishing between those influential factors that are modifiable versus intractable, we identify ways to structure situations and beliefs to optimize mobilization in support of healthy aging.

Lifespan theory suggests a shift from a primary orientation towards attaining gains in young adulthood to preventing losses in older adulthood. The current research tested if this motivational shift is reflected in behavioural and emotional responses to risks in non-monetary gains and losses. Study 1 established in a sample of N = 168 younger (18-30 years) and older adults (65-79 years) that a non-monetary gambling task was experienced similarly by the age groups with respect to arousal and valence of the task, and the willingness to continue playing. In Study 2 (N = 83), differences between young (18-30 years) and older (64-85 years) adults' risk-taking in this non-monetary gambling task with mixed gambles were tested while assessing physiological responses (event-related heart rate change) to gain and loss feedback. Behavioural - but not physiological - results confirm hypotheses derived from a lifespan motivational framework regarding age-differential effects of gains and losses.

Older adults contribute—through charitable donations or volunteering—more to the common good than younger adults, an age difference that has profound society-level implications. Yet the reasons for this difference are not well understood. Evidence suggests that a purely altruistic concern for the common good is a major motivation for prosocial behavior and that this concern increases across adulthood. We argue that this finding, and prosocial behavior in general, is better understood using a value-based decision framework than through traditional dual-process accounts. Following the value-based decision approach, we derive specific hypotheses about life-span changes in motivation or resources as factors that explain why older adults show an increased concern for the well-being of other people.

Two studies investigated subjective conceptualizations of energy for goal pursuit across adulthood. Study 1 (N = 276, 20-92 years of age) explored age-related differences in the (a) endorsement of a limited versus nonlimited account of energy for goal pursuit, (b) amount of energy available for physically, mentally, socially, and emotionally demanding activities, and (c) extent to which spending energy on a demanding activity inhibits or facilitates energy expenditure for subsequent activities, both within and across functional domains. Study 2 (N = 147, 18-86 years of age) experimentally induced energy loss through a 20-min physical exercise and examined age-related differences in the increase of subjective exhaustion and opportunity costs as a motivational cue for goal disengagement. With increasing age, adults more strongly endorsed a nonlimited account of energy and perceived having more energy available for personally relevant social activities. However, older adults also reported higher negative cross-domain energy spillover after physical exertion. Multilevel growth curve models further revealed that, compared with younger adults, older adults reported a steeper initial increase in exhaustion and opportunity costs during physical exercise, but converged with the younger age groups again at the close of the exercise session. The discussion centers around the importance of selectivity in older adulthood and motivational accounts of effort and exhaustion. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

The central argument of this article is that historical changes in longevity in Western societies, globalization, and the weakening of social expectations regarding the timing of developmental goals lead to a compression of the time for pursuing highly demanding developmental goals related to work and family in late young and middle adulthood. The expectation of longevity might lead adults to construct a "bucket list," postponing important leisure and social goals to the postretirement phase. Jointly, the weakening of age-related social expectations and the long postretirement phase in Western societies might result in a stronger segregation of the life course: education in "emerging adulthood," work and family in later young and middle adulthood, leisure and social goals in later adulthood. This segregation also conforms to a Western cultural script following the Protestant work ethic of delaying gratification by pursuing obligatory goals first (work, family) and only then turn to "play" after retirement (leisure, social goals), a time with relatively few obligations and social expectations. The segmentation of the life course has implications for self-regulatory demands, such that the importance of goal selection increases in emerging adulthood, the importance of managing multiple goals in late young and middle adulthood, and the importance of self-regulation for the pursuit of ill-defined goals in old age. Taken together, historical changes in the increased life expectancy in Western countries and weakened age-related expectations represent a challenge and an opportunity for developmental regulation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Contains fulltext : 214941.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) We present a consensus-based checklist to improve and document the transparency of research reports in social and behavioural research. An accompanying online application allows users to complete the form and generate a report that they can submit with their manuscript or post to a public repository. 3 p.

Author(s): Aczel, Balazs; Szaszi, Barnabas; Sarafoglou, Alexandra; Kekecs, Zoltan; Kucharský, Simon; Benjamin, Daniel; Chambers, Christopher D; Fisher, Agneta; Gelman, Andrew; Gernsbacher, Morton A; Ioannidis, John P; Johnson, Eric; Jonas, Kai; Kousta, Stavroula; Lilienfeld, Scott O; Lindsay, D Stephen; Morey, Candice C; Munafo, Marcus; Newell, Benjamin R; Pashler, Harold; Shanks, David R; Simons, Daniel J; Wicherts, Jelte M; Albarracin, Dolores; Anderson, Nicole D; Antonakis, John; Arkes, Hal R; Back, Mitja D; Banks, George C; Beevers, Christopher; Bennett, Andrew A; Bleidorn, Wiebke; Boyer, Ty W; Cacciari, Cristina; Carter, Alice S; Cesario, Joseph; Clifton, Charles; Conroy, Ronan M; Cortese, Mike; Cosci, Fiammetta; Cowan, Nelson; Crawford, Jarret; Crone, Eveline A; Curtin, John; Engle, Randall; Farrell, Simon; Fearon, Pasco; Fichman, Mark; Frankenhuis, Willem; Freund, Alexandra M; Gaskell, M Gareth; Giner-Sorolla, Roger; Green, Don P; Greene, Robert L; Harlow, Lisa L; de la Guardia, Fernando Hoces; Isaacowitz, Derek; Kolodner, Janet; Lieberman, Debra; Logan, Gordon D; Mendes, Wendy B; Moersdorf, Lea; Nyhan, Brendan; Pollack, Jeffrey; Sullivan, Christopher; Vazire, Simine; Wagenmakers, Eric-Jan | Abstract: An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Previous studies have shown that participation in leisure time physical activity is related to better mental well-being and subjective health. However, the associations between different types of leisure time physical activities and different dimensions of mental well-being have rarely been studied. In addition, longitudinal research, analyzing possible causal relations between these variables, is lacking. To investigate these research questions, data gathered at ages 42 and 50 (present N = 303) for the Finnish Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development were used. Physical activity was assessed as frequency of participation at ages 42 and 50, and at age 50 also as frequency of participation in different types of physical activities. Mental well-being was captured by emotional, psychological and social well-being and subjective health by self-rated health and symptoms. Cross-sectionally, different types of physical activities were related to different dimensions of well-being. Walking had positive associations with psychological and social well-being, rambling in nature with emotional and social well-being, and endurance training with subjective health. Rambling in nature was also positively related to subjective health but only among men. Longitudinally, mental well-being predicted later participation in leisure-time physical activity, whereas no longitudinal associations between subjective health and physical activity were found. The results suggest that leisure time physical activities are related to current mental well-being and subjective health in midlife. Across time, good mental well-being seems to be a resource promoting engagement in physical activity. peerReviewed

Procrastination is a common self-regulation failure that has been studied mainly in the educational context, but has been largely neglected in life-span psychology. Adopting a life-span motivational perspective, we focus on adult development and maintain that, historically seen, adults nowadays have to take on a more active role in pursuing their goals due to the deregulation of the life course and increased life expectancy. This requires higher self-regulatory skills, particularly with increasing age. When self-regulation fails, people may postpone developmental goals and experience negative consequences. We propose research questions that might foster the understanding of procrastination from a life-span perspective.

Based on optimal foraging theory, we propose a metric that allows evaluating the goodness of goal systems, that is, systems comprising multiple goals with facilitative and conflicting interrelations. This optimal foraging theory takes into account expectancy and value, as well as opportunity costs, of foraging. Applying this approach to goal systems provides a single index of goodness of a goal system for goal striving. Three quasi-experimental studies (N = 277, N = 145, and N = 210) provide evidence for the usefulness of this approach for goal systems comprising between 3 to 10 goals. Results indicate that persons with a more optimized goal-system are more conscientious and open to new experience, are more likely to represent their goals in terms of means (i.e., adopt a process focus), and are more satisfied and engaged with their goals. Persons with a suboptimal goal system tend to switch their goals more often and thereby optimize their goal system. We discuss limitations as well as possible future directions of this approach. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)

This issue addresses the topic of ecological validity in research in human development across the life span. Although recent developments in study design, data collection methods, and data analysis techniques have greatly advanced researchers’ ability to collect large amounts of data on large groups of individuals in natural settings, it is important to approach these data with a reflected understanding of their ecological validity. Just because data were collected using everyday and familiar stimuli or ecological momentary assessment methods does not mean automatically that the ecological validity of these data is guaranteed and can go unquestioned.

Abstract. This study investigates whether two specific strategies of emotional labor (surface and deep acting) shown during client interactions are associated with work-related intrusions on thoughts outside of work. N = 157 bank employees provided reports of emotional labor and of work-related rumination at home on five consecutive workdays. Converging with expectations, we found that on days when surface acting was used, participants reported higher rumination. In contrast, deep acting had no significant association with work-related ruminations at home.

Three studies examined the self-enhancement function of autobiographical memory (measured with subjective temporal distance of memories). Participants recalled a memory of an attained and a failed goal and rated the subjective distance between each memory and the present. Study 1 showed that young adults with higher self-esteem felt closer to memories of attained goals and farther from failure memories than those with lower self-esteem. In Study 2, young, middle-aged and older adults with higher self-esteem felt closer to success memories, whereas self-esteem was unrelated to the temporal distance of failure memories. In both studies, feeling closer to success memories (and far from failure) led to enhanced mood. In Study 3, state self-esteem was experimentally manipulated. The manipulation had no effect on young and older adults, but middle-aged adults whose self-esteem was decreased, felt closer to success memories than failure memories. Results are discussed in relation to the temporal self-appraisal theory.

There is a robust evidence that social approach goals (i.e. approach of positive social outcomes) have positive consequences and social avoidance goals (i.e. avoidance of negative social outcomes) have negative consequences for subjective well–being in young adulthood. Little is known about individual differences in social goals in later life. The current diary study with young ( n = 212), middle–aged ( n = 232), and older adults ( n = 229) tested––and supported––the hypotheses that age (i) differentially predicts the strength of habitual approach and avoidance goals in close and peripheral relationships and (ii) moderates the relation of approach and avoidance goals in peripheral (but not close) relationships and daily outcomes (subjective well–being, subjective health, and satisfaction with social encounters). Older adults compared to younger adults reported higher levels of avoidance goals in peripheral (but not close) relationships. Younger adults who reported high levels of approach goals and older adults who reported high levels of avoidance goals in peripheral relationships experienced the most positive daily outcomes. In addition, social goals moderated some of the associations between (positive and negative) daily interactions and daily outcomes. Results underscore the importance of the closeness of social partners for individual differences in social goals across adulthood. © 2019 European Association of Personality Psychology

People's perceptions of benefits and risks play a key role in their acceptance or rejection of medical interventions, yet these perceptions may be poorly calibrated. This online study with N = 373 adults aged 19-76 years focused on unrealistic optimism in the health domain. Participants indicated how likely they were to experience benefits and risks associated with medical conditions and completed objective and subjective numeracy scales. Participants exhibited optimistic views about the likelihood of experiencing the benefits and the side effects of treatment options described in the scenarios. Objective and subjective numeracy were not associated with more accurate ratings. Moreover, participants' underestimation of the risks was significantly greater than their overestimation of the benefits. From an applied perspective, these results suggest that clinicians may need to ensure that patients do not underestimate risks of medical interventions, and that they convey realistic expectations about the benefits that can be obtained with certain procedures.

People who are cheerful have better social relationships. This might be the case because happy faces communicate an invitation to interact. Thus, happy faces might have a strong motivational effect on others. We tested this hypothesis in a set of four studies. Study 1 (N = 94) showed that approach reactions to happy faces are faster than other reactions to happy or angry faces. Study 2 (N = 99) found the same effect when comparing reactions to happy faces with reactions to disgusted faces. Supporting the notion that this effect is related to motivation, habitual social approach motivation intensified the motivational effect of happy faces (Study 3, N = 82). Finally, Study 4 (N = 40) showed that the reaction-time asymmetry does not hold for categorization tasks without approach and avoidance movements. These studies demonstrate that happy faces have a strong motivational power. They seem to activate approach reactions more strongly than angry or disgusted faces activate avoidance reactions.

Background and Objectives: Proxy decision-making may be flawed by inaccurate perceptions of risk. This may be particularly true when older adults are the targets of the decisions, given the pervasive negative stereotypes about older adults. Methods: In study 1, individuals aged 18- to 87 years (as target persons) as well as one of their close social partners (as informants) reported on the risks they perceived for the target person in various life domains. Study 2 additionally explored potential differences in how people make risky decisions on behalf of younger and older adult targets. Younger (age 18–35 years) and older (age 60–81 years) adults (as target persons of the risk evaluations) as well as informants reported on risk perceptions and the likelihood of risk-taking for health, financial, and social scenarios concerning the target persons. Congruence between self-rated and informant-rated risk perceptions and risk-taking were computed on a dyadic as well as a group level. Results: Informants’ risk perceptions were positively associated with the risks their partners perceived for themselves. Informants and their partners agreed that social risks vary little across adulthood, but they disagreed in terms of recreational, financial, and health risks, and in terms of the decisions they would make. Conclusion: Family members, partners, and close friends are sensitive to vulnerabilities of their social partners, but in some domains and according to their partners’ age they perceive a greater (or smaller) risk than their partners perceive for themselves. In situations requiring surrogate decision-making, people may decide differently from how their social partners would decide for themselves.

How do middle-age adults in the “rush hour of life” manage the demands of pursuing multiple goals in different life domains? A 20-day measurement burst study (N = 89 employed adults, Mage = 42) investigated the occurrence and consequences of integration and incongruity of work, family, and leisure in the everyday lives of middle-age adults. Results suggest that subjective well-being and goal relations (lower conflict, higher facilitation among goals) profit from an integration of multiple life domains. In contrast, incongruity between content (activities, thoughts) and context (location) seems to be detrimental for subjective-well being and goal relations of middle-age adults.

Across adulthood, people face increasingly more risky medical problems and decisions. However, little is known about changes in medical risk taking across adulthood. Therefore, the current cross‐sectional study investigated age‐related differences in medical risk taking with N = 317 adults aged 20–77 years using newly developed scenarios to assess medical risk taking, and additional measures designed to evaluate risk‐taking behavior in the medical domain. Greater expected benefits on the Domain‐Specific Risk‐Taking Scale—Medical (DOSPERT‐M) predicted more active risk taking, whereas higher perceived risk predicted less active risk taking. Next, we examined differences in active and passive risk taking, where passive risk taking refers to risk taking that is associated with inaction. Age was associated with less passive risk taking, but not with active risk taking, risk perception, or expected benefits on the DOSPERT‐M. Participants were overall more likely to opt for taking medical action than not, even more so for a scenario about a vaccine for a deadly flu than for a scenario about a chemotherapy treatment for cancer. Overall, participants were more likely to accept medication (vaccine or chemotherapy) for their child than for themselves. Increasing age was associated with a lower likelihood of accepting the treatment or vaccine for oneself. Taken together, our study provides important insights about changes in medical risk taking across adulthood when people face an increasing number of complex and risky medical decisions.

The current study investigated the use of selection, optimization, and compensation (SOC) in association with momentary goal conflict and facilitation in middle adulthood. In contrast to previous studies on SOC that focused on the habitual use of the SOC-strategies, the current study investigated the momentary SOC-use in the everyday lives of adults who face the developmental challenge of combining the demands of multiple life domains (e.g., work, family, leisure). In a sample of N = 89 employed middle-age adults, momentary SOC-use as well as momentary goal conflict and facilitation were assessed in a measurement burst design encompassing 20 days (M = 126 measurement points per person). Time-lagged analyses showed that momentary goal conflict was positively related to subsequent optimization and compensation, and momentary goal facilitation lead to lower subsequent loss-based selection and compensation. In contrast, SOC predicted neither subsequent goal conflict nor facilitation. Thus, the use of ...

Summary Going beyond the relation of work and family, the present three-wave longitudinal study spanning one year assessed different forms of conflict and facilitation between leisure and the life domains work and family and their relation to subjective well-being. A sample of N = 277 employed men and women reported their perceived conflict and facilitation between leisure, work, and family and subjective well-being. Results suggest that leisure is a source of facilitation for work and family, and, at the same time, a major recipient of conflict from work and family. Moreover, leisure conflict was negatively correlated and leisure facilitation was positively associated with concurrent subjective well-being. Both conflict and facilitation between all three life domains remained highly stable over the course of one year. Only few and non-systematic lagged effects were found, indicating that the variance of the stability of the constructs and their relations over time leave little room for longitudinal predictions. Taken together, the study demonstrates that, similar to work–family relations, conflict and facilitation with the leisure domain are also associated with subjective well-being and remain highly stable over the course of a year in the lives of young and middle-aged adults. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

In this article, we introduce the concept of backup plans as a motivational construct, defined as alternative means to an end that are intentionally developed but are not initially (or ever) used. We posit that backup plans change the way that a person pursues a goal, as well as the likelihood of achieving it, even if the backup plans are never used. In some cases, backup plans are a safety net supporting goal pursuit; however, in other cases, they constitute an unnecessary expense that can undermine motivation to persist with a first-choice plan. We propose that variations in the use and usefulness of backup plans are based on a person’s estimation and regulation of complexity value, or the additional costs and benefits that having a backup plan introduces compared with pursuing the same goal with only a single means. Although variations in the estimation and regulation of complexity value are idiosyncratic products of individual, contextual, and goal-related factors, we provide the prototypical example of age-related differences to illustrate our key points. In sum, our conceptualization of backup plans represents a new synthesis of motivation, multiple-goal, and life-span developmental research that addresses a key lacuna in the self-regulation literature.

Participation in leisure time physical activity (LTPA) in midlife is linked to both current well-being and many future benefits in older age. However, longitudinal analyses of the causal links between LTPA and well-being are lacking. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate longitudinal associations between LTPA and subjective well-being in middle adulthood. In addition, the role of leisure satisfaction in these relationships were investigated. The data gathered at ages 42 and 50 for the Finnish Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development were used (present N=303). LTPA was asked as frequency of participation and leisure satisfaction as general satisfaction with one′s leisure time content. Subjective well-being was captured by mental well-being (including emotional, psychological and social well-being) and subjective health (including self-rated health and psychosomatic symptoms). Participation in LTPA did not predict mental well-being or subjective health. Instead, mental well-being predicted LTPA. Both mental well-being and subjective health predicted leisure satisfaction. Of the participants, 57% were physically active and 12% inactive at both measurement points, 21% moved from inactive to active and 10% from active to inactive. Increase in LTPA was related to increase in leisure satisfaction. The results suggest that longitudinally subjective well-being is more likely to be causally linked to leisure satisfaction and LTPA than vice versa. Additionally, changes in LTPA and leisure satisfaction during midlife are related to each other. It would be important to encourage middle-aged adults to find the time to participate in LTPA, even if their leisure time may be limited.

Older adults are stereotypically considered to be risk-averse compared to younger age groups, although meta-analyses on age and gain-loss framing on risky choices have not found empirical evidence for age differences in risk taking. The current study extends the investigation of age differences in risk preference by including analyses on the effect of the probability of a risky option on choices in gain vs. loss situations. Participants (N = 130 adults aged 19 to 80 years) chose between a certain option and a risky option of varying probability in gain- and loss-framed gambles with actual monetary outcomes. Only younger adults displayed an overall framing effect. Younger and older adults responded differently to probability fluctuations depending on the framing condition. Older adults were more likely to choose the risky option as the likelihood of avoiding a larger loss increased and as the likelihood of a larger gain decreased. Younger adults responded with the opposite pattern: they were more likely to choose the risky option as the likelihood of a larger gain increased and as the likelihood of avoiding a (slightly) larger loss decreased. Results suggest that older adults are more willing to select a risky option when it increases the likelihood that larger losses be avoided, whereas younger adults are more willing to select a risky option when it allows for slightly larger gains. This finding supports expectations based on theoretical accounts of goal orientation shifting away from securing gains in younger adulthood towards maintenance and avoiding losses in older adulthood.

Birren and Bengtson’s (1988, p. ix) assessment of the field of aging research that it is “data rich and theory poor” still holds today and applies to developmental science as a whole. The accumulation of descriptive results that are not integrated into overarching theories of development lead to less progress in gaining knowledge about developmental processes than one might wish for, particularly considering its importance for enhancing development across the life span. My wish is that we as developmental researchers become more theory-driven and creative in our empirical approaches to study development. Complementing age-correlative studies, I propose that we make more use of experimental approaches that target the causal mechanisms driving developmental changes (or stability) more directly than by comparing different age groups.