Psychologists have long studied the structure and content of autobiographies and other life narratives as a way of understanding personality structure; the underlying premise is that what happens to people, and the ways in which the make sense of their past, reveal a great deal about who they are and how they function. Empirical studies of life events have demonstrated significant connections between negative experiences and psychosocial functioning, while qualitative analyses of life narratives have been used for diagnostic and assessment purposes. Although the literature on life narrative is extensive, comparatively less attention has been paid to the ways in which young adults predict their future. This project proposes to extend the research on life narrative an future orientation through the testing of the Anticipated Life History (ALH), a psychological instrument prompting subjects to describe a realistic account of the future course of their life in a free-written narrative, coded for the presence/absence of future life events, as well as for psychological qualities according to a manual developed by the Principal Investigator and Co-Investigator. Pilot data collected from first year students at a private liberal arts college, analyzed with convergent measures, indicates significant differences in the way that men and women compose ALH narratives; current mood and mental health also have significant effects. Small Grant funding will allow for the collection of substantial new data from three additional sites - - a regional community college, a local high school, and a university mental health center. The analysis of the ALH and the convergent measures from the aggregate sites may provide important insights into the current generation of young adults -- such as economic optimism/pessimism, gender divergence, and expectations of personal relationships -- as well as an opportunity to explore the psychological connections between current experience and expectations of the future. Finally, this project is designed to be longitudinal: subjects will be contacted three times, in 3-4 year intervals, to allow for a study of how the ALH changes with new developmental phases.
| Segal, Harry G; Wood, Geoffrey A; DeMeis, Debra K et al. (2003) Future events, early experience, and mental health: clinical assessment using the anticipated life history measure. Assessment 10:29-40 |
| Segal, H G; DeMeis, D K; Wood, G A et al. (2001) Assessing future possible selves by gender and socioeconomic status using the anticipated life history measure. J Pers 69:57-87 |
