A life-span theory of control.

“Perceived control differs from choice and indicates whether workers attribute the retirement decision foremost to their own initiative or to environmental contingencies ( Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995 ).”

“…1999, 2000; Heckhausen, Wrosch, & Fleeson, 2001; Wrosch & Heckhausen, 1999) and the ways in which individuals manage transitions associated with developmental deadlines have been conceptualized in the context of the life-span theory of control (Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995; Schulz & Heckhausen, 1996).”

“Each of these constructs captures one or more specific aspects of motivation and action (Bandura 2006, Carver & Scheier 1990, Heckhausen & Heckhausen 2018, Pearlin & Schooler 1978, Rotter 1966, Ryan & Deci 2000).”

“Coping strategies represent efforts to restore control over life outcomes, with control theory offered as a framework for understanding the employment of specific strategies over the life course ( Heckhausen and Schulz 1995; Rothbaum et al. 1982).”

“Individuals socialized to have an independent, autonomous self-concept may be more oriented toward primary control coping, as this orientation prioritizes aligning the environment with one’s desires and goals (Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995; Morling & Fiske, 1999).”

“Primary and secondary control strategies The two-process model of primary and secondary control is a conceptualization that proposes two main coping strategies by which people may develop a sense of control [18–20].”

“Extending the SOC model and their earlier lifespan theory of control (Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995; Schulz & Heckhausen, 1996), Heckhausen et al. (2010, 2019) developed a comprehensive theory of action regulation across the lifespan.”

“Individuals who present high generalized self-efficacy have higher hopes of success (Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995).”

“Heckhausen and Schulz (1995) posited a universal human desire to exert primary control over the environment, which is defined as the production of "behaviorevent contingencies."”

“…(Carstensen, 2006) posits that people limit their resources to emotionally meaningful goals and activities as one's time horizons decrease, while life span theories of control (Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995) posit that people place less importance on exerting control over their environment as they age.”

“Collaborative strategies were examined in contrast to uninvolved strategies (an individual acting on his or her own; Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), supportive strategies (involvement of spouse through provision of instrumental or emotional support, consistent with the social support literature; C…”

“…self-regulation has been assigned a more explicit role in cognition, memory, learning and skilled performance (Gopher & Koriat, 1999; Kanfer & Ackerman, 1996; Schunn & Reder, 2001), and more generally goal attainment (Carver & Scheier, 1998, 2000; Heckhausen, 1999; Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995).”

“The absence of a choice about staying in a career job can motivate forced retirees to search for other ways to achieve a sense of perceived control over the work domain and to recapture their work role identities (Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995; Szinovacz & Davey, 2005; Elder & Johnson, 2003).”

“…(1992, 1995) theory of socioemotional selectivity and other theories that posit a developmental shift toward different ways of coping and maintaining psychological equanimity in one’s later years (e.g., Diehl et al., 1996; Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995; John & Gross, 2004; Lawton et al., 1993).”

“Given these results, the MAPA may be capable of explicating personal subjective evaluations relevant to the selection, maintenance and relinquishing of individual goal pursuits (Baltes & Baltes, 1990; Brunstein, Schultheiss, & Maier, 1999; Heckhausen & Schultz, 1995).”

“The voluminous research on concepts such as self-efficacy, intrinsic motivation, mastery, control, and competence (Bandura, 1997; Deci & Ryan, 1995; Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995; Peterson, 1999) suggests the importance in American society of can-do ideology— believing in personal control and efficacy…”

“Specifically, as individuals reach late middle age, they often have less self-efficacy about their ability to perform and view themselves as less likely to be successful at work (Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995).”

“…tend to rely more on primary control strategies, by " bringing the environment into line with one's wishes " (Rothbaum et al., 1982), whereas older adults more frequently apply secondary control strategies, " bringing oneself in line with the environment " (Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995, p. 285).”

“Theorists have claimed that having control is an important motive guiding human behaviors (Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995) and a lack of perceived control is central in the development of depression (e.g., Seligman, 1975).”

“In the terminology of the goal persuit literature (e.g. Gollwitzer, 1993; Heckhausen & Schultz, 1995), an individual will be dissatis®ed when outcomes are beneath what he believes to be within his ``primary control'': for example, an individual's expectation of his future income depends on the…”

“The power of such comparative designs has been illustrated in research on the development of subjective well-being in aging populations (e.g., Carstensen et al., 1999, 2003; Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995).”

“The Gerontologist Copyright 2007 by The Gerontological Society of America Vol. 47, No. 2, 215–223”

“So far, there have been hardly any attempts to translate existing theories about successful ageing into concrete interventions, although a number of social and psychological models concerning ageing-related life management or self-regulatory processes exist (e.g. Baltes and Baltes 1990; Brandtstädter and Rothermund 20…”

“…whereas intrapsychic behaviour in order to stabilise one’s self will dominate if there are no good behavioural choices available, or if the individual does not have the resources to take advantage of the new opportunities (Brandtstädter & Greve, 1994; Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995; Lazarus, 1998).”

“When individuals reach late-middle and even older ages, they often have lower levels of self-efficacy about their ability to perform and view themselves as less likely to be successful at work (Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995; Ng & Feldman, 2009).”

“The likelihood of failure is heightened when individuals undertake new tasks, experience major transitions and are faced with uncertainty (Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995) – experiences common to new university students.”

“…and reliably in their general tendencies to disengage from unattainable goals and to reengage in other goals across different domains (i.e., in goal adjustment capacities, Wrosch et al., 2003b, 2007a; for conceptually related approaches, see Brandtstädter & Renner, 1990; Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995).”

“…the disengagement from unattainable goals and the channeling of resources to attainable ones ( Baltes & Baltes, 1990 ; Brandtstädter & Greve, 1994 ; Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995 ), it can be reasonably argued that feelings of disrespect would lead to subsequent disengagement from generative goals (H…”

“Developmental gains in terms of engaging in goal-directed behaviour are in line with past research evidence documenting increases of flexible goal adjustment in late adulthood (Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995 ).”

“The frame provides the needed context for contrasting the academic demands in modern schools with the inherent motivational, cognitive, and behavioral biases of children, as these would be expressed in ecologies more similar to those in which humans evolved (Geary & Bjorklund, 2000).”

“This finding highlights the possibility that music may support secondary control strategies in older adults (Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995).”

“Both types of control are assumed to be intertwined, ‘shifting from one to the other depending on the challenges and obstacles encountered’ ( Heckhausen and Schulz 1995: 285), but it is assumed that primary control holds functional primacy over secondary, in that secondary control serves to protect the motivational re…”

“The shift-and-persist theory is based in part on life span theories of control, which postulate that human beings strive for primary control (being able to change the environment so that it fits one’s needs and desires), but that when this type of control is not possible, they engage in secondary control efforts (atte…”

“…Strengths Will Matter According to several emotion regulation theories of aging (Blanchard-Fields, 2007; Carstensen et al., 2003; Charles, 2010; Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995), older adults use attentional strategies (Charles, Mather, & Carstensen, 2003; Mather & Carstensen, 2005), reappraisals…”

“In current psychological research, two major modes of coping are distinguished (Brandtstädter and Renner 1990; Heckhausen and Schulz 1995; Staudinger et al. 1999) : ‘active ’ instrumental activities that aim at preventing, alleviating or compensating age-related losses (assimilative/primary mode)…”

“Here, lifespan control theory (Heckhausen and Schulz 1995) states that the individual’s”

“…been categorised around problem-focused and emotion-focused coping (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984), primary and secondary coping (Band & Weisz, 1988; Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995; Rothbaum, Weisz, & Snyder, 1982), or assimilative versus accommodative coping (Brandstädter & Greve, 1994), although…”

“Although other social cognition models have been applied to this area of visual impairment, namely that of bereavement [23], coping [24], control across the lifespan [25], and stages of change [26], self regulatory models of adjustment have yet to be employed to explain adjustment to acquired visual impairment.”

“Based on the principle that people prioritize attaining existing goals and only if necessary change their goals (Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995; Heckhausen et al., 2010), we propose that individuals should generally prefer to apply the strategy of Sequencing over Revising whenever possible.”

“The Importance of Control Strategies for Successful Development The life span theory of control is an integrative model for characterizing human motivation from infancy to old age (Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995; Schulz & Heckhausen, 1996).”

“This literature suggests that differences in motivation and achievement-striving are not the result of some students experiencing less academic failure, but rather their interpretation of such failure (see also Heckhausen and Shultz, 1995; Rothbaum, Weisz, and Snyder, 1982).”

“We know from studies of other domains of human functioning that people's subjective evaluations of what they can do often are not accurate reflections of their objective competencies (e.g., Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995; Taylor & Brown, 1988).”

“The two sides of perceived control have been already addressed in the relevant literature (e.g., Rothbaum, Weisz, & Snyder, 1982; Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995).”

“Heckhausen and Schulz (1995); Schulz and Heckhausen (1996, 1998) have proposed a life span theory of control as an integrative model for”

“Past research has examined control orientations in the context of coping with changes during the life span (Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995) and coping with other stressful events (Band & Weisz, 1988).”

“Finally, various theories of control (e.g., Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995) argue that control beliefs allow people to mobilize social support, particularly in times of strain, thereby serving as a buffer against the effects of stress (see Antonucci, 2001; Cohen & Wills, 1985; Lang et al., 1997).”

“Personal growth goals and companionship goals are relatively subjective and easier to achieve by secondary control strategies, such as selective attention, reappraisal, and downward comparison (Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995; Schulz & Heckhausen, 1996).”

“In a similar vein, goal-related behaviors may depend on differences in the importance of people’s goals or may be influenced by automatic cognitive processes and contextual factors (e.g., Bargh & Chartrand, 1999; Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995; Shah, 2005; Wrosch, Scheier, Carver, & Schulz, 2003).”

“Despite the popular and scientific enthusiasm for persistence, there are contexts in which it is likely to be maladaptive ( Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995; Klinger, 1975; Nesse, 2000; Wrosch, Scheier, Carver, & Schulz, 2003).”

“Disablement models and the Life Span Theory of Control guided the multicomponent intervention.(12) The theory suggests that humans are motivated to exert control over behavior–event contingencies in their environments throughout their life spans.”