Intentional Self-Development and Positive Ageing

How Individuals Select and Pursue Life Goals

Bernhard Leipold

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781351261784
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Are we in control of our own development in adulthood, or are we shaped by circumstances beyond our control? By adopting the concept of intentional self-development (ISD), this text outlines an action-theoretical approach to human development that emphasizes both an individual's ability to shape their own development throughout the lifespan, and the extent to which this potential is limited.

By examining general age-related changes and critical life events, Intentional Self-Development and Positive Ageing explores the adaptive cognitive-motivational processes that generate positive development in adulthood, including developmental tasks, cognitive changes, life-stage transitions, and biological and neural processes. Leipold goes on to discuss the concept of positive ageing, highlighting the flexibility of the term and evaluating it from multiple perspectives to demonstrate its subjectivity, as well as its importance. This text also discusses the importance of resilience in positive development, contributing to the search for conditions conducive to positive life conduct across the lifespan.

This book will be essential reading for undergraduates and postgraduates studying lifespan development and gerontology, positive psychology, or health psychology, as well as researchers in those fields. It will also be of interest to developmental counsellors, clinicians, and other applied occupational groups who are seeking to understand the psychological basis of actions.

1

What is intentional
self-development (ISD)?

The quest to conduct our lives in line with our wishes and, at the same time, hopefully with what is possible is not a new one, but remains a fascinating and strenuous challenge. For generations, individuals have asked the advice of acquaintances, counsellors, psychologists, fortune-tellers, or oracles because they experienced loss or were confronted with the task of finding a successful and meaningful way during difficult times. Humanists and natural scientists have devoted their attention to the conditions of life management to ask what a person could or should do to improve one’s situation in life. This book is about intentional self-development in adulthood, a life period that, compared with childhood and adolescence, has been less acknowledged by developmental scientists for a long time.

Before I shed light on the positive aspects of growing older, I attend to the first part of this book’s title that focuses on the deliberate and creative developmental potential of humans. The concept of intentional self-development (ISD) denotes an action-theoretical approach to human development that emphasizes the potential (and limits) of individuals as producers of their own development (Brandtstädter, 1999, 2009; Brandtstädter & Lerner, 1999; Greve, Rothermund, & Wentura, 2005; Lerner & Busch-Rossnagel, 1981). One important characteristic of ISD is that it is concerned with going forward. ISD is not something at rest, but rather life being lived, and implies a self-regulating system equipped with various forward-looking competencies. In ordinary life situations (e.g. if we make a coffee), we take smooth, short-time courses for granted and do not notice the behavioural routines we are used to doing. Instead, we notice our intentions when something else happens and blocks our plans. Intentions are, however, lifelong processes, and ISD, in general, refers to the self or identity of an ageing person in the sense of the conduct or construction of the life course from the early beginnings until dusk.

The present investigation focuses mainly on adulthood and a developmental window with a disappearing future, and not on the evolving self during the childhood. The main aim of the first chapter is to position the concept of ISD among other related concepts. Many of its core assumptions have been formulated in psychological models during the last decades, and we will introduce some of these models to illustrate the scope of the intentional approach to development. We are aware of the long tradition that the underlying question of how individuals strive for positive development has – outside of psychological research. A comprehensive discussion including the insights from other disciplines is beyond the intended scope of this book. Indeed, in psychology, there is much theory and empirical research on ISD, and we have to be content with bringing a few assumptions, empirical results, and, of course, some open questions about this difficult venture home to the reader.

Preliminary remarks: The roles we play in life

To better understand the theoretical background and related psychological concepts, and to put into a nutshell certain central features and perspectives of ISD, one can use the metaphor of roles we wish to have in our life. Central to ISD are two perspectives in particular:

Action perspective: ISD presupposes an acting self, that is, a person who monitors, adjusts, and evaluates his or her situation and surroundings (Brandtstädter, 2006). The role metaphor suggests that individuals play an active and effective part in pursuing life projects. Some issues gain or lose significance and require the ability to reverse prior decisions. That means, for instance, that one could be disappointed with a particular health insurance company and endeavour to negotiate better conditions or leave the company. Acting individuals who expect, perform, and evaluate (in short, play) their role in social life are the units from which we start to investigate ISD.

Time perspective: Human development and ISD include both a short-term as well as a long-term perspective. The metaphor of role-taking illustrates developmental changes in the context of the whole life course. Although many deliberate decisions in everyday life pertain to imminent problems, they sometimes occur with regard to the distant future. For instance, parents wish to offer a better education for their children and invest time and money, not only because it needs to be decided now and quickly, but also driven by the expectations that education would be useful in later life.

The following examples (Box 1.1) describe three case studies of persons in different periods of life and illustrate the phenomenon of ISD and identity from different points of view.

Box 1.1 Three examples for ISD

Michael, age 25, recently completed a degree in business sciences quite successfully. He would like to pursue a career and therefore is thinking about a move to another city where he can obtain a leading position. He plans his life around business meetings and occupational success. He spends most of his leisure time hanging around the country club and joins professional organizations.

Linda, 57 years old and married, is a committed teacher and satisfied with her life. She and her husband have been planning their approaching retirement together. Recently, however, the doctor diagnosed her with a severe form of cancer. She is now thinking about what she should do and how she can restructure their life goals.

Mary, age 72 and widowed, has three sons and one daughter. She is family oriented, likes music, and is content with her situation. As a friend asks her whether or not she would relive her life again in the same way, Mary becomes pensive and regrets that she decided in her youth to concentrate on her family and not to take up a profession. In addition, she regrets that she had not learned to play an instrument.

The different examples demonstrate that in all three cases individuals are embedded in social relations and have meaningful goals. They want to influence and shape their life in accordance with their ideals, are confronted with concrete tasks, and have to protect themselves from long-term losses. They are convinced that they can, at least partly, influence the status quo or the next project. Linda and Michael want to play their well-chosen roles, but they have different opportunities to reach them (see also Mary), and they differ in the current situations giving cause for concern. In general, some important questions remain regarding the developmental perspective. First, the challenging question of this book is to ask to what degree can individuals who act, and evaluate themselves and their surroundings, intentionally contribute to their future. A second question is whether we can compensate for losses and missed opportunities? In this book, we also have to deal with the time perspective, which is essential for developmental changes across the lifespan.

Because we are often used to thinking, or finding the idea captivating, that we (should) build our lives autonomously and with self-determination, and not by following a prescribed plan, it seems quite intriguing to take note of the counterpart. The Italian writer Luigi Pirandello (1922) provides an interesting view of a fundamental role problem in the play Six Characters in Search of an Author. Six strange people interrupt the rehearsal of a play and explain that they are unfinished characters in search of an author to bring their story to its conclusion. There is no manuscript in which their story is written, but they want to act out their drama on stage instead of it being half finished or even irrelevant. Their playwright has left them unfinished and they asked the producer to perform their drama. They wish to play an appropriate part. This is a general need for identity many persons have in the play of their life.

From the perspective of intentional self-development, individuals are the co-authors of their life stories and are able to make substantial contributions to their development over the lifespan. The wishes cited can be quite comprehensible: the wish to get what one deserves, the wish for authority over one’s life, being able to shape one’s prospective development without constraints, and being able to bear responsibility for one’s actions. The answers are modest. ISD does not proceed like a magnet that aligns iron filings and assembles them into an individual life course. For the moment, I will introduce several mental processes involved when people plan their lives. It seems useful to begin with a closer examination of psychological constructs similar to those to which ISD refers.

Psychological approaches to ISD

Charlotte Bühler was one of the earlier developmental psychologists who emphasized an individual’s process of setting goals at different phases in life and across the life course (Bühler, 1933, 1935). Her observations on the human life course grew out of a systematic study of over 200 biographies. She emphasized the role of life goals taking shape in adolescence and becoming developmental tasks during adulthood (see also Erikson, 1959; Havighurst, 1948). The active and intentional conduct of life, the ideas of how individuals can create their future states in adulthood, came to the fore in Bühler’s work, before systematic complex longitudinal and cross-sectional research designs investigated whether claims about age differences were actually valid and representative for many adults.

In psychology, over the last four decades we have witnessed a growing interest in lifelong development (Baltes & Schaie, 1973; Baltes, Lindenberger, & Staudinger, 2006) and the importance of action-theoretical approaches (e.g. the constructs of self-efficacy, agency, and control experience; Bandura, 1977; Heckhausen, Wrosch, & Schulz, 2010; Skinner, 1985, 2017). The major link between ISD and control beliefs or self-regulative competencies is the creative potential which is assumed to be based on the expectation that the individual is in control of skills producing specific developmental outcomes one has wished.

As mentioned above, questions about how to develop positively have a long tradition, but the answers are still far from conclusive or comprehensive. A central intent of the present book is to draw attention to several mechanisms taking place when individuals plan and create their future. The following selection of psychological concepts or theories is intended to provide simple examples demonstrating processes that are involved when individuals plan to solve short-term problems or long-term concerns for themselves and their relatives. At the moment, I will refer to psychological constructs that are characteristic of ISD and aimed at several developmental outcomes, for instance, developmental growth (e.g. to improve one’s abilities), survival, and resistance against loss:

Self and identity

Self-regulation

Self-efficacy, competence, and control

Self-efficiency and self-cultivation

These concepts cannot be sharply distinguished from one another. Each is part of the creative potential of human actions and refers to persons’ evaluative standards (ideal, ought, or feared standards). They are essential facets of ISD and include general and, in part, abstract mechanisms that have been used to explain specific interests and preferences of the individual.

Self and identity

ISD includes the unwieldy term of the ‘self’ and relates to concepts such as I, person, or character, which have stimulated generations of philosophers and scientists to extensive and countless treatises. For the present purpose, it is sufficient to highlight the relevance of two concepts that have often been used as introductions into the subject: The Oracle of Apollo at Delphi (‘know thyself’ – Greek: gnothi sauton) and William James’ (1890) distinction between the ‘I’ and the ‘me’. The first concept has led in part to quite different epistemological, ethical, and theological interpretations about what could have been meant. In any case, the oracle presents a comprehensive task and puts a finger on man’s need to learn more about his nature and position.

The concept of the ‘self’ is marked by several ambiguities. William James distinguishes the agency – the dynamic or creative power (the ‘I’) – from the different contents, roles, or self-definitions (the ‘me’) of a person. The latter (the ‘me’) can be seen as the whole of several subjects or life projects persons have chosen to strive for. Following William James, a research tradition developed that speaks of the self or identity in terms of a ‘self-concept’, a cognitive structure that incorporates all of a person’s answers to the question ‘Who am I?’. In a similar way, Baltes, Lindenberger, and Staudinger (2006, p. 620) clarify ‘self-conceptions are not meant to encompass any self-referent attitude but rather are confined to those beliefs or cognitions that constitute important (fundamental) self-components’. Many contemporary models assume that an individual has multiple self-concepts (e.g. physical abilities, social roles, values, or interests). Insofar, the different contents of the ‘me’ denote the range of possible examples with which individuals define themselves and which they intentionally strive to fulfil according to specific standards they have. In terms of ISD, the ‘I’ refers to processes of self-regulation or coping. They become evident when the answers to the identity questions ‘Who am I?’ and ‘Who would I like to be?’ are not balanced.

Self-regulation

The concept of self-regulation (Bandura, 1991; Carver & Scheier, 1999, 2016) is widely accepted and empirically well-underpinned. It describes regulatory processes which are characterized by intentionality and automaticity. The idea that human behaviour is a self-regulatory process goes back to Miller, Galanter, and Pribram (1960) who assume that beha...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• 1. What is intentional self-development (ISD)?
• 2. Developmental prerequisites and challenges across the lifespan
• 3. The role of non-intentional processes, affect, and evaluation
• 4. Cognitive-motivational processes of intentional self-development
• 5. Positive development and resilience
• 6. Balance and dimensions of meaning
• References
• Index