[Experiencing the finality of one's situation: biographical aspects]

In the sample of 81 survivors of the Bonn Longitudinal Study of Aging a relationship is shown to exist between the coping style of facing the definitude of human life and some other variables which represent the experience of being fixed to certain possibilities and of being reduced in one's possibilities to manipulate one's own life. This relationship is found to change significantly from measurement point to measurement point. The findings are interpreted in the framework of a cognitive theory of personality.