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Procrastination, defined as the subjectively aversive inability to initiate or complete the pursuit of a given goal, is a common phenomenon in academic contexts. This theoretical paper presents a dynamic model that centers on the role of goal focus in influencing procrastination during goal pursuit. Our central hypothesis is that focusing on the means of goal pursuit (i.e., adopting a process focus) reduces procrastination, particularly when fear of failure is high. Focusing on the means should decrease the salience of performance outcomes and thereby reduce fear of failure. This, in turn, should facilitate the initiation and maintenance of goal pursuit. In contrast, when means are perceived as unpleasant (high task aversiveness), focusing more on the outcome of goal pursuit (i.e., adopting an outcome focus) should reduce procrastination by directing attention away from the means while highlighting the importance of goal achievement. Furthermore, the model takes account of dynamic contextual factors, particularly the distance to a given deadline.

The article develops the argument that successful management of normatively less expected life events and transitions requires from the individual a greater degree of self-regulatory skills than the management of normative events. It is argued that, based on recent historical change, individuals have to master both normative <i>and</i> non-normative developmental demands. With regard to the mastery of non-normative developmental demands, the individual may have to play a more important and active role to compensate for a lack of social structuring and normative orientation. Based on a discussion of literature from the areas of life-span psychology, life-course sociology, and self-regulation, evidence for the importance of the individual in adaptive regulation of non-normative developmental challenges is presented.

Abstract. How do we know when an activity has exhausted us or helped us recover? In this paper, we present a motivational approach to exhaustion and recovery that takes into account the multidimensional nature of the constructs. The account details three psychological processes that may – individually and in interaction – underlie exhaustion and recovery. Specifically, we propose that changes in mood, subjective time perception, and opportunity costs experienced during an ongoing effortful or relaxing activity indicate a person's momentary degree of exhaustion and recovery and impact the decision of whether the person should continue or disengage from the activity at hand. Addressing developmental changes across adulthood, we present two opposing hypotheses on how younger and older adults may differ in their experiences of exhaustion and recovery: (i) Older adults may experience an accelerated subjective time perception compared to younger adults and may thus feel less exhausted (more recovered) than younger adults after spending an identical amount of time engaged in an effortful (relaxing) activity. (ii) Older adults may be more sensitive toward increasing opportunity costs experienced during an effortful or relaxing activity and may therefore feel exhausted or recovered faster than younger adults.

This article makes a plea for experimental designs in the field of adult development and aging using an approach to research inspired by the work of Egon Brunswik. Our recommendations are intended to complement correlational approaches and to enhance the testing of explanatory mechanisms. Our arguments are predicated on the fact that the field of adult development and aging faces particular methodological challenges stemming from the investigation of individual differences approached with age group comparison designs. Many studies on adult development and aging use extreme-group comparisons, contrasting young and older adults, although such comparisons can lead to the overestimation of age-related effects. Moreover, age group membership is used as a proxy variable for psychological processes leading to the observed age-related differences. The inherent correlational design of such age group comparisons can only approximate a test of the underlying psychological processes causing the differences between the groups. We consider these problems and potential solutions to them involving a Brunswikian approach to experimental design in research on adult development and aging, and we discuss implications for theory-predicated research in other subfields of developmental science with similar methodological issues.

The main argument of this review is that motivational development associated with normal aging affects decision making. With increasing age, the ratio of gains to losses becomes more and more unfavorable. Reflecting the increasing losses in resources, goal orientation changes from a predominant orientation towards gains in young adulthood to an increasingly stronger orientation towards the prevention of loss in older adulthood. As goals serve as reference points for the evaluation of decision outcomes, this change in goal orientation across adulthood might also affect decision making. The decision-making literature has recognized that choices are influenced by goal orientation. However, little research has been conducted on how goals influence the decision-making process in general and with regard to aging in particular. To date, findings on decision making and aging remain inconsistent and are in need of a developmental framework. With regard to applications, a better understanding of the aging decision maker can provide insight into how to improve communication efforts about issues like advance care planning, medical treatment, and housing options.

AbstractPeople's perceptions of benefits and risks play a key role in their acceptance or rejection of medical interventions, yet these perceptions may be poorly calibrated. This online study with N = 373 adults aged 19–76 years focused on unrealistic optimism in the health domain. Participants indicated how likely they were to experience benefits and risks associated with medical conditions and completed objective and subjective numeracy scales. Participants exhibited optimistic views about the likelihood of experiencing the benefits and the side effects of treatment options described in the scenarios. Objective and subjective numeracy were not associated with more accurate ratings. Moreover, participants' underestimation of the risks was significantly greater than their overestimation of the benefits. From an applied perspective, these results suggest that clinicians may need to ensure that patients do not underestimate risks of medical interventions, and that they convey realistic expectations about the benefits that can be obtained with certain procedures.

AbstractAcross adulthood, people face increasingly more risky medical problems and decisions. However, little is known about changes in medical risk taking across adulthood. Therefore, the current cross‐sectional study investigated age‐related differences in medical risk taking with N = 317 adults aged 20–77 years using newly developed scenarios to assess medical risk taking, and additional measures designed to evaluate risk‐taking behavior in the medical domain. Greater expected benefits on the Domain‐Specific Risk‐Taking Scale—Medical (DOSPERT‐M) predicted more active risk taking, whereas higher perceived risk predicted less active risk taking. Next, we examined differences in active and passive risk taking, where passive risk taking refers to risk taking that is associated with inaction. Age was associated with less passive risk taking, but not with active risk taking, risk perception, or expected benefits on the DOSPERT‐M. Participants were overall more likely to opt for taking medical action than not, even more so for a scenario about a vaccine for a deadly flu than for a scenario about a chemotherapy treatment for cancer. Overall, participants were more likely to accept medication (vaccine or chemotherapy) for their child than for themselves. Increasing age was associated with a lower likelihood of accepting the treatment or vaccine for oneself. Taken together, our study provides important insights about changes in medical risk taking across adulthood when people face an increasing number of complex and risky medical decisions.

How do changes in life expectancy and longevity affect life-span development? This paper argues that historical increases in life expectancy primarily have an impact on the later and less on the earlier parts of the life span. Increased life expectancy is both a challenge and an opportunity for positive development. A perspective is outlined according to which self-regulation is a key factor for successful aging. Assuming a compensatory relationship of social norms/expectations and self-regulation for developmental regulation, processes such as setting, pursuing, and disengaging from personal goals should be particularly important in old age, a life phase that is characterized by being less normatively structured than younger phases. This argument is elaborated in the domains of social relations, leisure, and work.

Abstract. Taking a dynamic perspective on goals and their representation over the course of goal pursuit, we explore shifts in goal orientation, particularly when encountering setbacks during goal pursuit. In general, goals can be oriented toward achieving gains, maintaining a current state, and avoiding a loss (i.e., goal orientation; Freund & Ebner, 2005 ). Existing research on goal orientation has focused on age-related differences in goal orientation but assumed that goal orientation is stable over the course of goal pursuit. Taking a short-term, dynamic approach focusing on changes in goal orientation during the pursuit of a given goal, we propose that goal orientation can shift depending on goal progress and the perceived likelihood to achieve the desired outcome. In particular, we suggest that goal orientation remains stable during goal pursuit when progress occurs at the expected rate. However, when goal progress is hampered by setbacks or failures, we propose that people are more likely to shift their orientation toward the avoidance of failure or loss, particularly when they pursue their goal with a backup plan in mind ( Napolitano & Freund, 2016 ). Similarly, when progressing unexpectedly fast in counteracting a loss, we posit that people likely shift from a loss to a gain orientation. After proposing foundational processes for motivational shifts during goal pursuit, we discuss how a "motivational shift" perspective can impact future work on self-regulation and goal striving.

Scholarship pertinent to the nature of human plasticity and the contemporary theoretical stress on developmental systems theories suggest that the regulation of dynamic person-context relations should be the key focus of inquiry in the study of adolescent development. An exemplar of a theory congruent with this relational conception of adolescent development is the Selection, Optimization, and Compensation (SOC) model offered by Baltes, Baltes, and colleagues. The model may be a value-added contribution to the adolescent literature in several respects: through illustrating the centrality of selection, optimization, and compensation processes in conceptualizing the regulation of the person-context relations that characterize development in adolescence; by integrating key themes within the adolescent development theoretical and empirical literatures; and through suggesting ideas for extending these literatures in new and useful ways, including needed directions for research and applications to policies and programs that are aimed at enhancing adaptive regulation in adolescence. We illustrate these value-added contributions of the SOC model by focusing on theory and research pertinent to arguably the central construct in the study of adolescence, identity. In addition, we discuss the implications of the SOC model for using developmental systems theory to understand the relation between individual development and social constraints or opportunities. The methodological features of research using the SOC model are noted, and its implications for both the development of the person and for the maintenance and perpetuation of civil society are presented.