Life-span Developmental Perspective Research Articles

Achievement Across the Life Span: Perspectives From the Terman Study of the Gifted

The Terman Study of the Gifted presents a unique opportunity to study the implications of achievement for life satisfaction in adulthood and aging. This article uses a life-span developmental perspective to summarize research concerning the lifetime achievement of the Terman sample, their appraisals of living up to their intellectual abilities, and their approaches to aging. A large majority of the Terman men reached high levels of occupational achievement, while the achievements of the Terman women were more varied. The historical context is important in understanding these gender differences. The participants’ appraisals of having lived up to their intellectual abilities were generally positive, and appraisals were related to lifetime achievement pattern and gender. Early knowledge of being labeled as gifted was negatively related to participants’ appraisals of their life accomplishments in adulthood. Finally, the lives of the Terman Study participants provide insight into possibilities for successful aging.

A lifespan developmental science perspective on trauma experiences in refugee situations.

Developmental science theory and empirical research on refugee situations requires an updated approach to the study of trauma as a multi-systemic and multilevel phenomenon. We present a theoretical framework that integrates developmental science approaches to highlight critical threats to development in situations of violent displacement. Given the complexities of displacement (causes, trajectories, and living circumstances once displaced), this theoretical model highlights the utility of an approach that recognizes the person-age-context fit in which displaced individuals live their lives and how both trauma and ongoing major disruption to daily life affects outcomes. In so doing, we aim to broaden understanding for future trauma and intervention research as well as practice with those who experience potentially traumatic events and severe disruption to their social ecology at different points in the lifespan.

Leader development across the lifespan: A dynamic experiences-grounded approach

Previous research has established leader development as an ongoing process across the entire lifespan. Experience, especially on-the-job experience, has been increasingly acknowledged as a needed condition for leader development. From a life span developmental perspective, however, individuals are exposed to a variety of critical experiences across their life course—from preschool, childhood, through adolescence, emerging adulthood, adulthood and well into late adulthood. These time periods, characterized by specific developmental experiences, serve as potential windows of opportunity for one's leader development. However, the extant research primarily focuses on the development of leadership through on-the-job experiences in adulthood; there is little integration of leader developmental experiences that occur before and after adulthood, as well as those that occur beyond the workplace. Additionally, the influencing mechanism of experiences during the leader development process has been understudied. Using an interdisciplinary perspective, we present a framework that explores the critical developmental experiences at each stage in the lifespan. These experiences influence one's expertise in leadership through the mediating role and dynamic interaction of the leader experience processing system and the leader self-view system that are introduced in the model of this framework. This theoretical study systematically explores experiential opportunities across the course of life and within multiple contexts, as well as the underlying mechanisms that foster leader development. There are important implications for enhancing process-oriented leadership research and leadership pedagogical practices.

Who Benefits More? The Moderating Role of Age on the Relationship Between Work and Person Characteristics and Employee Attitudes and Wellbeing

The current study examines whether certain work (decision-making autonomy) and person (optimism) characteristics would be differentially related to job attitudes and wellbeing of nurses of different ages. We draw upon lifespan development perspective (Selection-Optimization-Compensation) to argue why decision-making autonomy and optimism would be more strongly related to work engagement and emotional exhaustion for older nurses compared to their younger colleagues. The findings supported our hypotheses in that autonomy and optimism had greater utility for older nurses. That is, compared to their younger colleagues, when older nurses had greater levels of autonomy and optimism, they had greater work engagement and less emotional exhaustion. Overall, these findings support lifespan development perspective to explain age-based differences in how work and person characteristics relate to occupational outcomes. We discuss the implications of our findings for an age-diverse workforce and outline several avenues for future research.

Negative emotions and chronic physical illness: A lifespan developmental perspective.

Our primary goal was to test the idea that the link between negative emotions and chronic physical illness will become stronger as individuals age and their resources become increasingly limited. The data came from a 4-wave longitudinal study obtained from a sample of middle-aged (n = 500, mean age = 44.17, SD = .91) and older (n = 502, mean age = 62.87, SD = .89) adults who were observed for, on average, 13.59 years (SD = 7.32). Negative emotions were assessed by a subscale of the Zung depression scale and chronic illness severity was operationalized as a physician-rating. Among older adults the association between changes in negative emotions and changes in physical illness status emerged over time (first retest interval: r = .02; p = .42; second interval: r = .11; p = .01; third interval: r = .22; p < .01), whereas such dynamics were not observed among middle-aged adults (first retest interval: r = .01; p = .77; second interval: r = .06; p = .12; third interval: r = -.01; p = .79). In addition, among older adults, negative emotions were generally higher and illness severity worse than in middle-aged adults. Negative emotions and chronic physical illness increased over time only in the older subsample. Research interested in linking negative emotions and poor physical health will benefit from a lifespan developmental perspective. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Getting Old at the Top: The Role of Agentic and Communal Orientations in the Relationship Between Age and Follower Perceptions of Leadership Behaviors and Outcomes

Abstract Leadership behaviors and the outcomes they foster have historically been central issues to organizational researchers and practitioners alike. Despite the continuing rise in the average age of the workforce, empirical research on leadership from a lifespan development perspective remains surprisingly rare. The current study applies socioemotional selectivity theory (SST) to address this gap in the literature in several ways. We test a holistic socioemotional model of age and leadership that examines dominance and amicability as agentic and communal mediators in the relationship between age and follower ratings of leadership behaviors and effectiveness. To accomplish this goal, we apply multisource data from a sample of 422 leaders with 2,016 follower ratings. We offer empirical support for a socioemotional model of age and leadership that highlights the role of communal shifts in the relationship between age and follower perceptions of leadership behaviors. Specifically, we find a positive mediating effect of amicability in the relationship between age and follower-rated relational-oriented leadership behaviors. Age also displayed a sequential mediating effect on effectiveness through amicability and relational-oriented leadership behaviors. Our results highlight the unique role that age-related changes in social orientations play in the perceptions of leadership behaviors and outcomes across the lifespan. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Leader development begins at home: Overparenting harms adolescent leader emergence.

There is increasing interest in the early roots and influencing factors of leadership potential from a life span development perspective. This conceptual and empirical work extends traditional approaches focusing on adults in organizational settings. From the perspective of early influences on leader development, the goal of this study was to examine the effects of overparenting on adolescent leader emergence, influencing mechanisms, and sex differences. Students (N = 1,255) from 55 classrooms in 13 junior high schools participated, with additional responses from their parents, peers, and teachers. The results indicated that overparenting is negatively related to adolescent leader emergence as indicated by parent ratings, teacher ratings, and peer nominations in addition to leader role occupancy. The negative effects of overparenting on leader emergence (perceived and actual) were serially mediated by self-esteem and leader self-efficacy. In addition, sex difference analysis revealed that male adolescents received more overparenting and showed less leader emergence (perceived and actual) than female adolescents. Female adolescents' self-esteem was more likely to be negatively related to overparenting, and female adolescents' leader emergence (perceived and actual) was more strongly related to their leader self-efficacy when compared with male adolescents. Implications for life span leader development theory, for youth and adult leadership development practices, and for parenting practices on future generations are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Barriers to reading in higher education: Rethinking reading support

Background: Reading is a functional academic literacy ability needed by students in higher education. In the South African context, inadequate reading ability is one of the reasons for high undergraduate attrition rates. It seems that role players within this sector are of the opinion that students have reading ‘problems’ that need to be ‘fixed’, often by generic reading courses. This article differs from the perception of reading ‘problems’, as reading is viewed from a lifespan developmental perspective. According to this perspective undergraduate students do not have reading ‘problems’ but experience reading barriers hindering their reading development and in effect their academic literacy. Objectives: This study aimed to uncover some of these barriers by means of an empirical study conducted at the North-West University (NWU). Method: The setting of this study was the Potchefstroom campus of the NWU. A qualitative methodology was chosen whereby 14 individual interviews and 7 focus group interviews were used. The purpose of these interviews was to better understand lecturers’ and students’ perceptions about the variables of the reading process, namely the reading ability of the reader, the text to be read, the task, and the socio-cultural context. Results: Lecturers and students perceived a number of reading barriers within each variable, namely students’ non-compliance and lack of abilities, elements of the textbook and availability of lecturer notes, the format of the task, throughput pressures, and lecturers’ assumptions. Conclusion: Knowledge of these barriers and knowledge of the interconnectedness of the reading process could enable role players to collaboratively rethink undergraduate reading support, in which the lecturer has a crucial role to play.

From Psychological Theoretical Assumptions to New Research Perspectives in Sustainability and Sustainable Development: Motivation in the Workplace

This article proposes a framework that indicates opportunities for integrating psychology into research on sustainability and sustainable development. The central issue proposed is motivation in the workplace with a strong focus on employee health and optimal functioning. The main methodological issues are formulated in four assumptions: (1) Health from the perspective of health per se; (2) an individual seen as an agent; (3) an agent in the situation and context; (4) the life-span development perspective. The article refers in the narrative review to the most influential conceptualizations and research. This proposition shows a way forward and offers new opportunities to formulate challenging and important research questions in the psychology of sustainability and sustainable development.

Beyond challenge-seeking and skill-building: Toward the lifespan developmental perspective on flow theory

ABSTRACTThe current developmental perspective on flow theory focuses mainly on the growth of skills. Such perspective, however, may overlook how individuals find flow in the face of developmental losses. This paper expands the current developmental perspective on flow theory by incorporating the contemporary view of lifespan human development. The first part of the review is an introduction to the current developmental perspective on flow theory and its premises. The second part identifies and describes the theories of how individuals respond to excess environmental challenges. The third part proposes a new lifespan developmental perspective on flow theory that revises the original premises and covers the range of cognitive and behavioral responses to challenge–skill imbalance. The fourth part explains the relations of the imbalance-induced responses to the imbalance–flow experience model. The final part discusses potential moderators that facilitate (or inhibit) the effectiveness of the imbalance-induced responses.

Supplemental Material for Negative Emotions and Chronic Physical Illness: A Lifespan Developmental Perspective

Supplemental Material for Negative Emotions and Chronic Physical Illness: A Lifespan Developmental Perspective

Job Search and (Re)employment From a Lifespan Development Perspective

Job Search and (Re)employment From a Lifespan Development Perspective

Is the future still open? The mediating role of occupational future time perspective in the effects of career adaptability and aging experience on late career planning

Much research has sought to understand how people construct their careers; however, only little is known about the career construction of older workers. To understand how people construct their careers in later life, we take a lifespan development perspective on career construction theory. Specifically, we propose and test a model in which we take a closer look at older workers' career adaptability and aging experience (i.e., physical loss, social loss, personal growth, and gaining self-knowledge) as relevant factors shaping their late career planning. Moreover, we explore whether these relationships are mediated by older workers' occupational future time perspective as an important underlying mechanism between adaptability resources (i.e., career adaptability), experiences (i.e., aging experience), and adapting responses (i.e., late career planning). We test our model with two-wave longitudinal data from a sample of older workers (aged 50 to 79) based in the United Kingdom. Results show that occupational future time perspective mediated the positive effects of career adaptability and personal growth, as well as the negative effect of physical loss on late career planning. Overall, our findings contribute to a better understanding of late career construction and offers practical implications for older workers to purse activities that help them to successfully plan their late career.

Age in the entrepreneurial process: The role of future time perspective and prior entrepreneurial experience.

Combining the life span developmental perspective with the process perspective of entrepreneurship, we develop hypotheses on the role of age in the entrepreneurial process. Specifically, we expect that younger people have a more extensive future time perspective than older people, which makes it more likely for younger (vs. older) people to transition from opportunity identification to forming entrepreneurial intentions. Further, we expect that older people have greater prior entrepreneurial experience than younger people, which makes it more likely for older (vs. younger) people to transition from forming entrepreneurial intentions to engaging in entrepreneurial activity. We tested our hypotheses using longitudinal data from 343 working adults from Australia across 12 months with 3 measurement waves. Results supported our hypotheses. Our findings suggest that age-related constructs can facilitate and hinder transitions in the entrepreneurial process. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Do Correlates of Pain-Related Stoicism and Cautiousness Differ in Younger and Older People With Advanced Cancer?

Age differences are not evident in pain-related stoicism and cautiousness in people with cancer pain. Little is known about the factors associated with these pain-related attitudes or age-related patterns in these associations. The present cross-sectional study investigated the biopsychosocial correlates of the attitudes in younger and older patients with advanced cancer. Pain-related stoicism (fortitude, concealment, superiority) and cautiousness (self-doubt, reluctance) were assessed using the Pain Attitudes Questionnaire-Revised (PAQ-R). Participants, 155 younger (younger than 60 years old) and 114 older (60 years old or older) patients with advanced cancer completed the PAQ-R and measures of sociodemographic and medical characteristics, pain intensity, cognitive-affective pain-related responses, physical functioning, psychological distress and well-being, and psychosocial functioning. Backwards regression analyses identified correlates for each PAQ-R factor separately for younger and older patients. Activity engagement was a frequent correlate, but its relationship with concealment was the only association common to both age groups. Younger and older patients exhibited different avoidance-related constructs suggesting relational challenges in the former group (avoidant attachment) and intrapersonal fear in the latter (cognitive avoidance). Medical correlates also showed age differences: younger patients showed symptom-focused correlates, whereas older patients showed aging-related correlates. Findings support a biopsychosocial framework of cancer-pain adaptation incorporating a lifespan-developmental perspective. PerspectiveTo our knowledge, this article is the first to identify biopsychosocial correlates of stoic and cautious attitudes toward cancer pain in younger and older patients with advanced cancer. Findings highlight possible age-related motivations for greater pain-related stoicism or cautiousness and can potentially inform interventions addressing challenges in cancer-pain adaptation in advanced cancer.

Leadership and generations at work: A critical review

We present a critical review of theory, empirical research, and practical applications regarding generational differences in leadership phenomena. First, we consider the concept of generations both historically and through contemporary arguments related to leadership. Second, we outline and refute various myths surrounding the idea of generational differences in general, and critique leadership theories that have been influenced by these myths. Third, we describe the results of a literature review of primary empirical studies that have invoked the notion of generational differences to understand leadership phenomena. Finally, we argue that the lifespan developmental perspective represents a useful alternative to generational representations, as it better captures age-related dynamics that are relevant to leadership, followership, and leadership development. Ultimately, our work serves as a formal call for a moratorium to be placed upon the application of the ideas of generations and generational differences to leadership theory, research, and practice.

A LIFESPAN PERSPECTIVE ON COMBAT EXPOSURE AMONG KOREAN VIETNAM WAR VETERANS

Although 320,000 South Korean army troops fought in the Vietnam War, few studies of Korean Vietnam War veterans exist. We used a lifespan developmental perspective to predict PTSD symptoms in later life among 450 male Korean Vietnam War veterans (Mage = 66.98, SD = 3.04). They completed mail surveys about prewar (prior stressors, childhood family environment), warzone (combat exposure, perceived control, unit cohesion, appraisals of military service), and postwar experiences (post-deployment stressors, social support, and PTSD symptoms). PTSD symptoms in later life were independently predicted by warzone (29.6%) and postwar factors (11.0%); some were protective (desirable appraisals and social support), but most were risk factors (combat exposure, unit cohesion, undesirable appraisals, and postdeployment stressors). While prewar variables accounted for 3.7% of the variance, they moderated the relationship between combat exposure and PTSD symptoms. The findings highlight the importance of a lifespan perspective on understanding the long-term impacts of combat exposure.

Time spent in retirement, health and well-being

IntroductionFrom a life-span developmental perspective, retirement can be considered a life event that entails a complex psychological challenge, including leaving one's professional life and organizing/enjoying the newly available free time. The literature about retirement identifies different stages and patterns of transition/adaption associated with time spent in retirement.ObjectivesTo analyze the association between time spent in retirement and subjective measures of mental health, depressive symptomatology, loneliness and satisfaction with life.MethodsQuantitative cross-sectional study with 641 participants (M = 74,86). The instruments included: sociodemographic questionnaire; mental health inventory (MHI-5); geriatric depression scale (GDS); UCLA loneliness scale; satisfaction with life scale (SWLS).ResultsStatistically significant differences in all the health and well-being variables addressed were found between subgroups of time spent in retirement (MHI-5: P = 0.001; GDS: P &lt; 0.001; UCLA: P = 0.038; SWLS: P = 0.022). Mental health and satisfaction with life increases in the first year after retirement, but during the second year, they decrease to the levels found in pre-retirement. Loneliness and depressive symptomatology follow an inverted pattern. With the passing of years, loneliness and depression tend to increase; mental health and satisfaction with life tend to decrease.ConclusionsThe results provide support to the hypotheses of honeymoon and disenchantment phases in the recently retired and to the existence of different patterns of transition/adaptation associated with time spent in retirement. They also highlight the relevance of devising intervention strategies that enable individuals to maintain the satisfaction levels with life and mental health achieved during the first phase of retirement.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Applying a Lifespan Developmental Perspective to Chronic Pain: Pediatrics to Geriatrics.

An ideal taxonomy of chronic pain would be applicable to people of all ages. Developmental sciences focus on lifespan developmental approaches, and view the trajectory of processes in the life course from birth to death. In this article we provide a review of lifespan developmental models, describe normal developmental processes that affect pain processing, and identify deviations from those processes that lead to stable individual differences of clinical interest, specifically the development of chronic pain syndromes. The goals of this review were 1) to unify what are currently separate purviews of "pediatric pain," "adult pain," and "geriatric pain," and 2) to generate models so that specific elements of the chronic pain taxonomy might include important developmental considerations. A lifespan developmental model is applied to the forthcoming Analgesic, Anesthetic, and Addiction Clinical Trial Translations, Innovations, Opportunities, and Networks-American Pain Society Pain Taxonomy to ascertain the degree to which general "adult" descriptions apply to pediatric and geriatric populations, or if age- or development-related considerations need to be invoked.

Considering Generations From a Lifespan Developmental Perspective

We extend recent critiques of research on generations in the work context by proposing a differentiated lifespan developmental perspective. We accomplish this through several means: First, we define generations and trace the historical development of this concept from sociological thought experiments to their contemporary (mis)use for understanding individual-level psychological processes at work. Second, we review core principles of the lifespan developmental perspective, with an emphasis on contextual-dialectical models of human development. Third, we argue that generations are better understood from a contextualized lifespan framework that accounts for time period and history-graded developmental influences that may impact individuals’ attitudes, values, beliefs, motives, and behavior at work. Fourth, we propose a new lifespan model of generations and offer several associated propositions to serve as a theoretical guide as well as an agenda for future research. Finally, we review and critique methodologies typically used to study generational effects, outline methodological recommendations to guide future studies, and offer practical recommendations based on our model. Overall, this article contributes to better theorizing and more rigorous research and practice regarding the idea of generations at work.