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Personal Goals During Emerging AdulthoodA 10-Year Follow Up
Katariina Salmela-Aro
University of Jyväskylä, Finland, katariina.salmela-aro{at}psyka.jyu.fi
Kaisa Aunola
University of Jyväskylä, Finland
Jari-Erik Nurmi
University of Jyväskylä, Finland
To examine (a) how young adults' personal goals change as they progress from emerging to young adulthood in their university studies and immediately after and (b) the extent to which such changes are associated with the normative transitions and the life events they experience and their age, 297 university students completed the revised Personal Project Analysis and a life-event questionnaire five times over 10 years. The changes in young adults' personal goals reflected changing developmental tasks, role transitions, and life situations: They disengaged from goals related to education, friends, and traveling and engaged in goals related to work, family, and health. The older the participants, the more family- and work-related goals and the fewer friend-related goals they reported. The results showed further that the more family-related goals they had, the earlier they married, started to cohabitate, and had children. The earlier they had graduated and found permanent jobs, the more their education-related goals decelerated.
Key Words: personal goals • emerging adulthood • life events • university studies • latent growth curve modeling
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Journal of Adolescent Research, Vol. 22, No. 6,
690-715 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0743558407303978
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