DEVELOPMENTAL CRISIS IN EARLY ADULTHOOD: A ...

At the time of the crisis, Frank was a lawyer and was married to another
lawyer, but felt a strong desire to follow his youthful ambition of being a writer, and
to get out of an oppressive marriage. He left both wife and job to start again, only to
later return to law after an experimental and chaotic period of self-exploration.
Rob was a business executive, specialising in advertising and marketing, and
was married. He found a growing disillusionment with his profession and a gradually
deteriorating marriage, and so left both to start again. After working freelance for a
while, searching spiritually and doing part of a psychology course, he ends up
working for a children’s charity.
Mark was a financial consultant who was married. He found after many years
of successful promotion that he did not want to work in finance, but stuck with it
because he had become intoxicated by the status and money. His marriage
deteriorated during this time. During the crisis, he finally leaves his job, and his
marriage is stretched but in the end survives. After resigning, he goes freelance, then
starts a new life as a cook, then gives that up to train in organisational behaviour.
Victoria was profoundly dissatisfied with her life as a hairdresser in rural Italy,
and she fantasised of breaking out from the conventional pressures to stay near home,
in order to go to university and explore the world. She finally left home and moved
with her boyfriend to England. She does go to university and finds a new job and a
fulfilling relationship.
Lilly was living with her boyfriend and is working in PR when her crisis
occurred. She described how her relationship, her job and her living conditions were
suffocating her. She splits up with her boyfriend and tries to take her own life. When
she recovers, she moves to London to start again, finds a new job and embarks on a
degree in psychology.
Claire described a two-peak episode of firstly leaving a career in management
consultancy that she found artificial and constricting, then the breakdown of a
marriage several years later. She is forced to go back into the work field she was in
previously, to provide for her children, and this prevents any satisfactory resolution of
crisis for over ten years before she follows her passion for philosophy.
8.4 Early Intrinsically Motivated Aspirations
A key finding in Studies 1 and 2 is that individuals report changes in
behaviour from being motivated by the extrinsic rewards of conventional approval
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