Goals in old age: What we want when we are old and why it matters.

Across the lifespan, goals change in response to developmental changes in opportunities and demands, but they also bring about developmental changes regarding the acquisition of skills and resources. Generally, developing (selection), pursuing (optimization), and maintaining goals in the face of losses (compensation) contributes to successful development across the lifespan and to healthy aging in particular. Goals are dynamic; their content changes in sync with developmental goals.

COVID-19 protective behaviors: A longitudinal study applying an extended protection motivation theory.

Objective: Behavioral measures have proven indispensable to slow down the spread of COVID-19. However, adopting new health behaviors is generally challenging. This study aimed at identifying determinants of adopting protective behaviors over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Predicting the use of a COVID-19 contact tracing application: A study across two points of measurements.

Contact tracing mobile applications (apps) were important in combating the COVID-19 pandemic. Most previous studies predicting contact tracing app use were cross-sectional and not theory-based. This study aimed at contributing to a better understanding of app use intentions and app use by applying an extended version of the protection motivation theory across two measurement points while accounting for the development of the pandemic.

What do you focus on? An investigation of goal focus from childhood to old age.

Goals constitute an important construct in developmental psychology. They represent a central way in which individuals shape their development. Here, we present two studies on age-related differences in one important goal dimension, goal focus, that is, the relative salience of the means and ends of goal pursuit.

The Role of Subjective Expectations for Exhaustion and Recovery: The Sample Case of Work and Leisure.

We propose a new model of exhaustion and recovery that posits that people evaluate an activity as exhausting or recovering on the basis of the subjective expectation about how exhausting or recovering activities related to a certain life domain are. To exemplify the model, we focus as a first step on the widely shared expectations that work is exhausting and leisure is recovering. We assume that the association of an activity related to a life domain associated with exhaustion (e.

Pay One or Pay All? The Role of Incentive Schemes in Decision Making Across Adulthood.

Objectives: This research addresses how younger and older adults' decisions and evaluations of gains and losses are affected by the way in which monetary incentives are provided. We compared 2 common incentive schemes in decision making: pay one (only a single decision is incentivized) and pay all (incentives across all decisions are accumulated).

Method: Younger adults (18-36 years; n = 147) and older adults (60-89 years; n = 139) participated in either a pay-one or pay-all condition and made binary choices between two-outcome monetary lotteries in gain, loss, and mixed domains.

Age and information preference: Neutral information sources in decision contexts.

Do adults of different ages differ in their focus on positive, negative, or neutral information when making decisions? Some research suggests an increasing preference for attending to and remembering positive over negative information with advancing age (i.e., an age-related positivity effect).

Spelling out some unaddressed conceptual and methodological challenges in empirical lifespan research.

The importance of taking a lifespan approach to describe and understand human development has long been acknowledged (e.g., Baltes, 1987).

Does Goal Orientation Modulate Satisfaction With Cognitive Performance in Different Age Groups?

Objectives: The current experiment tested the causal effect of goal orientation on subjective satisfaction with performance on a cognitive task.

Method: A sample of N = 231 young, middle-aged, and older adults (21-79 years) completed a dot-memory task in one of 3 goal orientation conditions aiming for improvement, maintenance, or avoidance of decline in performance.

Results: Bayesian analyses showed that in all age groups, goal orientation influenced actual performance, but did not affect perceived performance or performance satisfaction.

Adult age differences in remembering gain- and loss-related intentions.

Motivational and emotional changes across adulthood have a profound impact on cognition. In this registered report, we conducted an experimental investigation of motivational influence on remembering intentions after a delay (prospective memory; PM) in younger, middle-aged, and older adults, using gain- and loss-framing manipulations. The present study examined for the first time whether motivational framing in a PM task has different effects on younger and older adults' PM performance ( = 180; age range: 18-85 years) in a controlled laboratory setting.

Goal Changes and Healthy Aging.

This article discusses ways in which aging individuals respond to physical, social, and environmental changes and constraints by modifying their goals. We review aging-related trends, which we derive from several theoretical approaches, including goal systems theory, the motivational theory of life-span development and its action-phase model, and the Selection, Optimization, and Compensation model. These theories explain how biological and social role changes in later adulthood prompt individuals to make changes to the content, orientation, and composition of their goals, including disengaging from and adjusting previously central goals.

Effort Mobilization and Healthy Aging.

Healthy aging is in part dependent upon people's willingness and ability to mobilize the effort necessary to support behaviors that promote health and well-being. People may have the best information relating to health along with the best intentions to stay healthy (e.g.

The Backup Planning Scale (BUPS): A Brief, Self-Reported Measure of a Person's Tendency to Develop, Reserve, and Use Backup Plans.

To mitigate uncertainty in their goal pursuits, people use backup plans, i.e., alternative means that are developed to potentially replace "Plan A.

Adult age-related differences in appetitive and aversive associative learning.

This study investigated age differences in appetitive and aversive associative learning using a Pavlovian conditioning paradigm. Appetitive and aversive associative learning is the process by which an initially neutral cue is systematically paired with an aversive or appetitive outcome, eventually itself prompting aversive or appetitive responses. Mimicking the motivational shift from a primary gain orientation in young adulthood toward a stronger orientation toward loss prevention in old age, we expected older adults to learn associations between novel stimuli and losses more rapidly than associating neutral cues with gains (here: donations to charity).

Sociohistorical Change in Urban Older Adults' Perceived Speed of Time and Time Pressure.

Objectives: Perceptions of time are shaped by sociohistorical factors. Specifically, economic growth and modernization often engender a sense of acceleration. Research has primarily focused on one time perception dimension (perceived time pressure) in one subpopulation (working-age adults), but it is not clear whether historical changes extend to other dimensions (e.

Self-control from a multiple goal perspective of mixed reward options.

We introduce a distinct type of choice that has yet to be addressed by self-control research: Choosing between activities that offer both delayed and immediate rewards. We describe when and why such mixed-reward choices pose challenges to self-control, and suggest that self-control in mixed-reward choices may be supported (rather than undermined) by delay discounting.

Age-Related Changes in the Role of Social Motivation: Implications for Healthy Aging.

Prior research has established the importance of social relations and social embeddedness for motivation in healthy aging. Thus, social orientation appears to be essential for understanding healthy aging. This article focuses particularly on age-related changes in goals concerning social orientation, such as increased prioritization of emotional goals, increased prosociality/altruistic motives, generativity, and ego transcendence.

Determinants of protective behaviours during a nationwide lockdown in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Objectives: Without pharmaceutical measures available, endorsement of protective behaviours, such as hygiene behaviours, social distancing, and adherence to recommended behaviours in case of symptoms is of key importance to curb the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Based on an extended version of the protection motivation theory, this study examined the role of perceived risks to oneself and to others, self-efficacy, response efficacy, and perceived social norms for intentions to and the endorsement of several protective behaviours and alternative behaviours known to be ineffective. Further, it was hypothesised that effects of risk perceptions depended on high levels of self-efficacy.

Beyond money: Nonmonetary prosociality across adulthood.

Empirical evidence suggests that self-reported prosociality and donations increase with age. The majority of this research was conducted using monetary donations as outcome measures. However, on average older adults hold a significant advantage in financial and material assets compared to younger adults, effectively lowering the subjective cost of small monetary donations.

Does focusing on others enhance subjective well-being? The role of age, motivation, and relationship closeness.

Prosociality (i.e., voluntary thoughts and actions intended to benefit somebody else) is arguably essential for positive social relationships.

Managing conflicting goals through prioritization? The role of age and relative goal importance.

Three studies tested the role of prioritization in solving conflict between multiple goals in different age groups. Study 1 (N = 185 young, middle-aged, older adults) stressed the importance to solve two competing tasks equally well within a short time. Older adults prioritized more than younger adults.

From gains to losses: Age-related differences in decisions under risk in a non-monetary gambling task.

Lifespan theory suggests a shift from a primary orientation towards attaining gains in young adulthood to preventing losses in older adulthood. The current research tested if this motivational shift is reflected in behavioural and emotional responses to risks in non-monetary gains and losses. Study 1 established in a sample of N = 168 younger (18-30 years) and older adults (65-79 years) that a non-monetary gambling task was experienced similarly by the age groups with respect to arousal and valence of the task, and the willingness to continue playing.