Research

Our current research projects are generally concerned with processes of successful development across adulthood and particularly with the specific developmental challenges in middle adulthood. We focus on motivational processes related to personal goals, values, and motives. One of the central areas of application is how adults manage the multiple demands of work and family.

The role of goals for development (Freund, Wiese, Nikitin, Ritter)

Based on an action-theoretical perspective, we investigate how people develop, select, pursue and maintain their goals. We distinguish between two broad levels of goals: Age-related expectations and personal goals. Age-related expectations are expressed in social norms and expectations that reflect age-graded opportunity structures and information about goal-relevant resources. Together with personal expectations about temporal structuring of goals, they co-determine which goals a person selects at a certain point in their life, pursues, or abandons. In addition to consciously represented personal goals, automatized and implicit goals and motives impact behavior, thought, and emotion.

Goal Orientation (Freund)

Personal goals are concerned with a specific content (e.g., family, work, self-development). The same goal, however, can be represented cognitively in different ways: As a gain ("I want to become more fit"), as maintenance ("I want to stay as I am"), or as avoidance of loss ("I don't want to get worse"). A series of studies shows that goal orientation changes across adulthood from a primary gain orientation towards maintenance and loss avoidance depending upon the availability of resources. Little is known about age-related differences in goal pursuit and attainment depending on goal orientaiton. Another important goal dimension is process and outcome focus which is hypothesized to change with age. Which goal focus is predominant and more adaptive depends on factors related to age, time perspective and availability of resourcees. Age-related differences in preference for and adaptivity of process versus outcome focus are being investigated in a series of experiments and studies with young, middle-aged, and older adults.

Managing work and family (Wiese)

Given the central role of work and family in the lives of most adults, we apply basic models of developmental regulation and action control to selection and pursuit of goals in these domains. Arguably one of the central tasks in young and middle adulthood is the management of combining work and family. We investigate both positive (e.g., transfer of competencies) and negative relations (e.g., conflict) between these two life domains, as well as their interaction with opportunity structures such as day care options or family-supportive organizational resources.

Values (Ritter, Freund)

Values play a central role in developmental regulation as they provide general standards and orientation for life planning and evaluation. We assume that life planning and evaluation are particularly important during times of transition such as graduating from school, choosing a life partner, retirement, or being faced with a severe illness. Moreover, we posit that time perspective plays a central role for the importance of values. Specifically, we hypothesize that abstract values gain in importance for judgment and decision making when looking at one's life with great temporal distance, i.e., if looking far ahead into the future (adolescence, young adulthood) or far back into the past (old age).

Implicit and explicit approach and avoidance motivation (Nikitin, Freund)

One of the basic distinctions in motivational psychology refers to approach versus avoidance orientation. Approaching desired versus avoiding undesired states, appears to have important behavioral, cognitive, and emotional consequences. In this research project, we investigate if, in addition to the explicit level of personal goals, approach and avoidance motivation are also located on the implicit level of motives. We are particularly interested in the discrepancies between approach and avoidance tendencies in explicit as compared to implicit motives, their consequences for goal setting and pursuit, as well as social-cognitive processes and emotions.