This article had four goals. First, the authors identified a set of general challenges and questions that a life-span theory of development should address. Second, they presented a comprehensive account of their Motivational Theory of Life-Span Development. They integrated the model of optimization in primary and secondary control and the…

Maintains that Josephs (1998) identifies a new and significant research question: how individuals relate to loved one's death through an imaginary dialog created in an "as-if" manner. Discusses the issues of how adults' as-if activities are related to children's pretend play and how such dialogs might transform the self over time.…

Sociological literature on careers reveals that there are four major approaches framing career study, i.e., developmental, objective-empirical, normative, and interactive perspectives. Analysis of these approaches points to an orienting conceptualization of career based on the core characteristics of centrality, duration, and public…

A dialectical conception of career development focuses on self and environmental interactions involving four dimensions: physical, physiological, psychological, sociological, and economic. When indivdiuals perceive the relationships among experiences in these dimensions as synchronous (complementary), they experience relative stability in their…