Live better with attainable goals
February 15, 2019
Science Daily/University of Basel
Those who set realistic goals can hope for a higher level of well-being. The key for later satisfaction is whether the life goals are seen as attainable and what they mean to the person, as psychologists report in a study with over 970 participants.
Wealth, community, health, meaningful work: life goals express a person's character, as they determine behavior and the compass by which people are guided. It can therefore be assumed that goals can contribute substantially to how satisfied people are in life -- or how dissatisfied if important goals are blocked and cannot be achieved.
A team of psychologists from the University of Basel conducted a detailed examination on how life goals are embedded in people's lives across adult; the results are now published in the European Journal of Personality. The researchers used data from 973 people between 18 and 92 years old living in German-speaking parts of Switzerland; more than half of the participants were surveyed again after two and four years. The participants had to assess the importance and the perceived attainability of life goals in ten areas -- health, community, personal growth, social relationships, fame, image, wealth, family, responsibility/care for younger generations, and work -- using a four-point scale.
Life goals with predictive power
The findings of the study revealed that perceiving one's personal goals as attainable is an indicator for later cognitive and affective well-being. This implies that people are most satisfied if they have a feeling of control and attainability. Interestingly, the importance of the goal was less relevant for later well-being than expected.
Life goals also hold predictive power for specific domains: Participants who set social-relation goals or health goals were more satisfied with their social relationships or their own health. The link between life goals and subsequent well-being appeared to be relatively independent of the age of the participants.
Younger people want status, older people want social engagement
What are the goals that people value the most in a respective age period? The goals that people value in a particular life stage depend on the development tasks that are present at this stage: the younger the participants were, the more they rated personal-growth, status, work and social-relation goals as important. The older the participants were, the more they rated social engagement and health as important.
"Many of our results confirmed theoretical assumptions from developmental psychology," says lead author and PhD student Janina Bühler from the University of Basel's Faculty of Psychology. Life goals were strongly determined by age: "If we examine, however, whether these goals contribute to well-being, age appears less relevant." Hence, adults, whether old or young, are able to balance the importance and attainability of their goals.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/02/190215092845.htm
A majority of middle-aged people show a high level of mental well-being
February 5, 2018
Science Daily/University of Jyväskylä
A recent study has found a surprisingly high level of mental well-being among middle-aged individuals.
The study examined multiple dimensions of mental well-being, including satisfaction with life and psychological and social well-being. Psychological well-being refers to an individual’s sense of having a purpose in life and personal growth, whereas social well-being is characterized by a sense of environmental mastery and acceptance.
Research Director Katja Kokko from the Gerontology Research Center at the University of Jyväskylä:
“Our analyses provided two new perspectives to the study of mental well-being: First, we included positive dimensions of mental well-being and did not consider it only as an absence of mental distress. Second, while it is common to analyze an average developmental trend of mental well-being over time, we looked for groups of individuals differing in their developmental trajectories.”
Mental well-being was assessed when the study participants were 36, 42, and 50 years old. During this follow-up period, four groups of mental well-being emerged. 29% of the participants were classified as having a high level of life satisfaction as well as psychological and social well-being throughout the study period. Further, 47% had a relatively high and 22% a moderately high level of mental well-being. Conversely, about 3% of the participants had a relatively low score in all the well-being dimensions from age 36 to 50.
“It was a bit unexpected how stable mental well-being was in mid-adulthood and that a majority of the middle-aged had such a high level of well-being,” Kokko explains. “However, it should be noted that the follow-up intervals were rather long, about 6 to 8 years, and it is possible that within those years mental well-being fluctuated but then returned to an individual’s characteristic level.”
The groups of mental well-being were compared to each other in other areas of functioning as well. The individuals on the trajectories for high, relatively high, and moderate well-being had more satisfying relationships, more favorable working careers, and fewer diseases than those individuals on the low well-being trajectory. Few differences between the groups were observed in physical or cognitive functioning.
“We found that only stable low mental well-being, developed over a lengthy period of time, was a risk factor for unfavorable relationships, working career, and health,” Kokko says. “In older adulthood, mental well-being will possibly also relate to physical and cognitive functioning when there is more variation among the individuals in these areas.”
The present analyses shed light on the development of multi-dimensionally assessed mental well-being in mid-adulthood. They further help identify those groups of individuals who are at the greatest risk. Improving their mental well-being can contribute to functioning in old adulthood.
The article is based on the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development (JYLS), where the development of the same, age-cohort representative, participants (369 initially) has been followed from age 8 to 50.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180205094305.htm