Personality theories of successful aging - University of Florida ...

Personality Theories of Successful Aging 93
broad functions: direclf-continuity,
psychodyon;
Bluck & Alea, 2002).
ersations to guide preslving,
developing opin-
Ltction and updating of
nd promote continuity
; a coherent person over
I to oneself). The social
:veloping, maintaining,
believable and persua-
.nformation about ourwith
others.
and aging in multiple
ts a major developmenn,
is characterized by
wing Erikson, wisdom
and negative events of
rd failures but are able
rsitive aspects of their
;this point, one might
on of aging well. Intert.e.,
turning a negative
h positive events, that
:xt generation in some
levelopment.
story as a milestone of
it turns out, however,
:o positive functioning
ln (1998), a substantial
rt conceive of their life
with their present life.
essible at a given time
formation is more imalso
more likely to be
)leydell-Pearce,
2000).
.. As a consequence/ a
I may no longer be so
rarlier goals, however,
:hological history of
rute to life narratives
>ver time?").
round their personal
g in life (Little, 1989)
connected behaviors
ted more in the next
rbinding thread that
Itle, 7989; McAdams,
onal goals as Level II
PERSONAL GOALS: PERSONALITY_IN.CONTEXT
From early on, personality psychology has conceptualized goals as building
blocks of personality (Freund& Riediger, 2006).In his dynamic theory of personality,
Allport (7937, pp.320-321,) regards
motives as personalized systems of tensions, in which the core of impulse is not tcr
be divorced from the images, ideas of goal, past experience, capacities, and style of
conduct employed in obtaining the goal. Only individualized patterns of motives
have the capacity to select stimuli, to control and direct segmental tensions, to initiate
responses and to render them equivalent, in ways that are consistent with, and
characteristic of, the person himself.
Personal goals are often defined as consciously accessible cognitive representations
of states a person wants to achieve, maintain, or avoid in the future (Emmons,
1996). They are relatively consistent across situations and over time. Cantor
(1990) suggests locating goals at an intermediate level of personality, the level between
"being" G.e., personality traits, basic dispositions) and "doing" (i.e., behavioral
responses in a given situation), a distinction introduced by Allport (7937).
That is, goals are not as broad and comprehensive as personality traits, although
they may be inf luenced by them. They are also not as specific as behaviors. Rather,
they motivate, structure, and direct behavior over time and situations into meaningful
action units (Baumeister, 1991; Emmons, 1986; Ford,7987; Gollwitzer, 1990;
Klinger, 1977) and favor the acquisition and use of resources to obtain the goals
(cf. Boesch, 1991; Freund, 2003). Coals can focus attention on those stimuli and actions
in a given situation that are goal-relevant (Bargh & Ferguson, 2000; Gollwitzer
& Moskowit 2,7996; Kruglanski ,7996; Pervin, 1989). As a consequence, they
reduce situational complexity and facilitate interaction with the environment.
As goals are inherently content- or domain-specific, Little (1989) called this
Level II of personality the "personality-in-context." According to Little, the notion
of personality-in-context is based on the idea of an interaction between the person
and his or her environment over time. Personal goals ref lect the interface between
the person's basic personality traits and the specific environment in which he
or she lives. Specifically, the content a goal refers to as well as the goal-related
processes that specify how people select, pursue, and disengage from goals are
crucial in this regard. Addressing the issue of successful development and aging
in the present context, we do not focus on the content of goals (see Freund & Riediger,2006,
for a recent overview) but on the motivational processes that accompany
and underlie goal-related processes and their relations to successful development.
DpprrvrNc CoNrExr
Context can be broadly defined as the set of circumstances that surrounds a
person, such as culture, historical time, family, social relations, and geographical
environment. It does not only serve as a background for the behavioral expression of
personality, but also plays an important role in shaping personality. Cultural, social,
or geographic conditions may represent limitations as well as chances and opportunities
in that they exclude or allow certain possibilities of whether and how a person
can express his or her basic personality traits. For example, growing up with older
siblings may render a person more agreeable because only by being more agreeable