Reading focus
Syllabus: How Do We Develop in Early and Middle Adulthood?
Examine disengagement and reengagement as possible processes, while separating the proposed mechanism from this paper's correlational evidence. Revisit how resources affect the availability of alternative goals.
A question to consider. After a workplace closes, what would distinguish changing a career goal from losing every feasible route to it, and how could a study measure that difference?
Why this reading
Persistence is not the only way people regulate their lives. Wrosch and colleagues distinguish releasing an unattainable goal from finding and pursuing another. Their studies turn these processes into separate, measurable questions.
Before you read
Disengagement involves reducing effort and commitment; reengagement involves identifying and pursuing alternatives. A questionnaire about a general tendency differs from observing a particular goal over time. An interaction means that one association depends on another variable.
Read for
- Examine what the two scales measure and whether they capture distinct processes.
- Compare the samples and patterns across the three studies, including differences in the interactions.
- Separate a proposed protective mechanism from the evidence supplied by concurrent self-reports.
Consider afterwards
- If people who report flexible goals also report better well-being, how could you test which tends to change first?
Editorial context
The three studies are cross-sectional. They do not establish causal benefits of giving up a goal or developmental change with age. One small study concerns parents of children with cancer; it is not a caregiving treatment trial. Whether a goal is unattainable, and which alternatives are available, depends partly on resources and circumstances rather than attitude alone.