A life-span theory of control.

“Another key resource is people’s characteristic degree of goal pursuit, which has been examined on both ends of the continuum between tenacious goal pursuit (Brandtstädter & Renner, 1990) and relinquishment of control (Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995).”

“…tend to trigger a problemsolving response (instrumental action, strategizing, etc.), whereas an appreciation of the impossibility of changing a stressful situation is likely to trigger cognitive restructuring or other forms of accommodation (or secondary control coping; Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995).”

“Flexible goal adjustment measured by items like “I usually find something positive even after giving up something I cherish” increases from young to old age (Brandtst¨ adter & Renner, 1990; Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995 ).”

“…1997); they also show a higher degree of personal initiative (Speier & Frese, 1997); they have higher hopes for success and, therefore, take a long-term perspective (Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995); they also actively search for information (Ashford & Tsui, 1991), which leads to a better knowledge.”

“An important area involves adaptive transformation of goals (Carver & Scheier, 1991; Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995; Stein et al., 1993).”

“The life-span theory of control proposes that the motivational system is set up to maximize primary control across life domains and lifetime (J. Heckhausen & Schulz, 1993, 1995, 1999b; Schulz & Heckhausen, 1996, 1997).”

“…and adaptive human behavior often emphasizes the role played by goal attainment, along with the attendant processes and variables that support the attainment of goals, such as persistence, self-efficacy, or optimism (e.g., Bandura, 1977; Carver & Scheier, 1981; Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995).”

“Although people are or may become impoverished, they are not out of control in every experience of their lives (Hill and Stamey 1990). For instance, the homeless consumers Hill and Stamey (1990) discussed were not without need, but they met some of their needs by scavenging, finding nontraditional forms of employment,…”

“…adults appraise stressful events as more positive than young adults (Diehl, Coyle, & Labouvie-Vief, 1996) and cope via processes that focus more on accommodative changes in goals and motivations rather than persistent problem-focused coping (Brandstädter & Greve, 1994; Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995).”

“This shift in the experience of regret over the life course may well be related to the general decline in control over one’s life as a whole that comes with age (see Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995).”

“Secondary control (Heckhausen and Schulz 1993, 1995; Rothbaum et al. 1982) and accommodative coping (Brandtstadter and Renner 1990) refer essentially to cognitive selection strategies in that they involve the reorganisation of goal structures and goal hierarchies so that a fit between personal…”

“The developmental processes that allow successful adaptation to age-related losses have been described in detail by life-span theorists (Baltes, 1997; Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995).”

“In the following, we refer to these projects as Project I and Project II, respectively. strategy of ‘‘secondary control’’ (e.g., Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995), we propose that they are functional to buffer generalized control beliefs from the experience of losses of control in particular goal domains.”

“One possible explanation for this finding, related to the Life Span Theory of Control, is that these workers have more control over their environment (i.e., over subordinates) than workers in service and blue-collar jobs, and therefore do not need to rely on secondary control strategies.”

“Naturally, individual differences are apparent: Improvements to well-being are general trends, not guarantees. dispositional tendencies, life events, and individuals’ management of such events can all influence whether well-being improves or deteriorates with age.”

“Similarly, secondary control involves changing oneself and one’s reactions in relation to the environment, whereas primary control involves controlling the environment itself (Bailis & Chipperfield, 2002; Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995).”

“These concepts, however, encompass all possible types of control individuals exert on themselves and their environment and include undesirable behavioural regulations such as ‘‘taking drugs to change mood states’’ (Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995, p. 285).”

“In this way, our results echo theories of successful aging (e.g., M.M. Baltes & Carstensen, 1996; P.B. Baltes, 1997; Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995).”

“Consistent with this observation, it is our impression that people tend increasingly to rely on the management of meaning of difficult situations rather than the management or change of the situations themselves (Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995; Lerner & Gignac, 1992).”

“Whereas coping efforts can be conceptualized as developmental mechanisms (e.g., Brandtstadter, 1998; Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995), Skinner and Edge (2002) further proposed that coping is the key loci of self-development and that prolonged negotiations with environmental demands characterize the…”

“…may play a primary role in adaptation at young ages, transformational change processes that involve a lowering of equilibrium set-points become increasingly prominent at older ages (e.g., accommodation, Brandtstädter & Renner, 1990; compensatory secondary control, Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995).”

“Controlrelated cognitions may focus directly on cause-effect relations (e.g. action-outcome expectancies, see Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995) and indirectly refer to conditional relations between personal characteristics and contingent outcomes.”

“Different processes have been proposed to play a role in successful aging, such as the development and maintenance of primary control (Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995), socio-emotional selectivity (Carstensen, 1995), accommodation and assimilation (Brandstädter, 2002) and selective optimization with…”

“Control beliefs have been found to reflect a driving force in explaining the course and outcome of aging (Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995; Smith, Marsiske, & Maier, 1996).”

“…is either impossible or when protecting selfesteem sustains motivation and facilitates later attempts at engaging one’s problems (Nussbaum & Steele, 2007; Sherman & Cohen, 2006; Wayment & Taylor, 1995; Wood, Taylor, & Lichtman, 1985; see also Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995; Rothbaum et al., 1982).”

“…em in at ed br oa dl y. Journal of Educational Psychology © 2013 American Psychological Association 2013, Vol. 105, No. 3, 728–746 0022-0663/13/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0032794 728 maintain healthy development (Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995); thus, adaptability is particularly pertinent during adolescence.”

“Given the importance of these effects on health and well-being, it is not surprising that scholars have invested a great deal of effort in identifying the determinants of perceived control (for reviews, see Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995; Skinner, 1995).”

“As Hess et al. (2001) observed, most view selection as motivated by age-related loss and the subsequent need to husband resources toward increasingly circumscribed domains of life (Baltes & Baltes, 1990; Brandtstädter & Greve, 1994; Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995).”

“…of AoA-related processes on adult development may even be conceived broader if one considers other models of life-span development, such as Heckhausen and Schulz’ (1995) life-span theory of control or Brandtstädter’s idea of lifespan development as the increasing tendency to engage in…”

“Heckhausen and Schulz, 1995, conceptualized this in the following manner: “We base the distinction between primary and secondary control principally on its target (i.e., self vs. external world)” (p. 285).”

“The awareness and acceptance of human limitations is especially crucial in old age, a time when many people are confronted with a decline in their social significance, pronounced physical deterioration , and the approach of death (Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995).”

“Primary control strategies are directed at attaining personal goals and overcoming obstacles ( Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995; Rothbaum, Weisz, & Snyder, 1982).”

“An evolved tendency to make attributions of this type has the benefit of maintaining effort and controlrelated behavioral strategies in the face of inevitable failures (Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995).”

“…of coping postulate two types of control efforts: primary control coping (efforts to influence the external world) and secondary control coping (efforts to adjust the self to fit into the world; Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995; Heckhausen, Wrosch, & Schulz, 2010; Rothbaum, Weisz, & Snyder, 1982).”

“…be specific, models such as the assimilative/accommodative coping theory (e.g., Brandtstädter & Rothermund, 2002), the life-span theory of control (Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995), or the model of selective optimization with compensation (P. Baltes et al., 2006) all rely to some extent on the…”

“In many situations, a person can overcome difficulty with goal attainment by increasing confidence and effort or finding an alternative path to attaining the threatened goal (Bandura, 1997; Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995 ).”

“One difference may be that Western cultures consider that actively changing one's environment to fit one's goals is preferable as long as it is possible to invest sufficient resources (Brandtstädter and Rothermund, 2002 and Heckhausen and Schulz, 1995).”

“Heckhausen and Schulz life-span theory of control.(130) 131 Usage of internal resources (such as time and effort) was positively associated with ability to carry”

“Behavior regulation is proposed as a capacity to adjust the nature, level and degree of behavioural application to successfully negotiate new and changing situations and conditions (Heckhausen, 1999; Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995; Heckhausen et al., 2010; Schulz & Heckhausen, 1996).”

“Examples include hostility in interpersonal theory [47], or constructs related to personal control in control theory [48].”

“Thus, this may be adaptive for older adults because of their limited resources (Gross et al., 1997; Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995).”

“…that people actually feel), relatively little 1 Some scholars use the terms primary control and secondary control to describe “influence” and “adjustment,” respectively (e.g., Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995; Weisz et al., 1984), whereas others use the terms dominance and submission (Wiggins, 1979).”

“In many situations, such difficulty can be overcome if a person invests more effort, strengthens the psychological commitment toward, or finds an alternative path to realizing the threatened goal (e.g., Bandura, 1997; Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995).”

“Starting from Heckhausen’s life-span theory of control (Heckhausen 1999; Heckhausen and Schulz 1995; Wrosch and Heckhausen 2005), I hypothesized (a) that—on average—family size intentions would be adjusted downwards with increasing age, (b) that inter-individual differences in family size intentions would increase wit…”

“Moreover, such processes of adaptation may involve not only primary control strategies (i.e., “influence my partner”) but also secondary control strategies (e.g., change one’s own plans to fit the partner; cf. Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995 ).”

“Not only do individuals differ in their values, they also have different commitments to pursuing certain goals at different times in life ( Heckhausen & Schultz 1995; McGregor & Little 1998).”

“As predicted, Americans with compromised personal control and Japanese with strained relationships reported high perceived constraint.”

“Such passive strategies may be adaptive for older adults because of age-related limitations in resources required for more proactive problem-solving strategies (e.g., Blanchard-Fields, Stein, & Watson, 2004; Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995).”

“For example, socioemotional selectivity theory (Carstensen et al.) posits better regulation of emotion among older adults, and better emotion regulation is a key aspect of optimal aging (Baltes & Baltes, 1990; Baltes, Lindenberger, & Staudinger, 1998; Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995; Magai, 2001).”

“Because some of these aspects are addressed in other life-span theories such as the life-span theory of control ( Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995 ), making greater efforts to integrate models of successful aging could be beneficial to advance the field (see also Kahn, 2002).”

“They drew on the life-span theory of control (Heckhausen & Schultz, 1995) to distinguish two fundamental modes of adaptation, primary and secondary control, which reflect goal-engagement and disengagement efforts.”

“Nardi Steverink and Siegwart Lindenberg University of Groningen In this study the authors investigated how satisfaction levels of affection, behavioral confirmation, and status, as three human social needs, relate to age, physical loss, and subjective well-being.”