Adolescents' ideas of normative life span development and personal future goals

We investigated how 57 adolescents (23 girls and 34 boys), aged 12 to 15 years, compared their idea of normative life span development to their personal future goals. A two-stage study (questionnaire and follow-up interview) included two open-ended "life paths", measures for self-evaluation and self-other comparisons. Overlap of content categories in the life paths supported the relationship between individual goals and normative expectations about life span development, especially when it comes to the life domains of education, occupation, family, property and retirement. The respondents showed an awareness of the accumulation of social problems, reporting that crises (e.g. alcoholism) and negative events (e.g. unemployment) are more likely to occur to the average adult than in their personal future. If adolescents rated their future as better than the future of others, they also regarded that future as different from the normative life span. Self-evaluation was indirectly related with self-other comparisons. Similarity between the normative life span and personal future correlated with higher probability of problem occurrence and possibility to avoid the problems.