In this paper, we consider how the life story develops through the creation of self-event connections in narrating experiences. We first outline the ways in which such connections have been implied by existing work on the life story, and then consider the varieties of such connections that we see in our own work. That work suggests that self-event…

How do the goals we once cherished but can no longer pursue relate to maturity? The authors asked adults who have experienced challenging life transitions to describe the life goals they once sought but no longer do and those goals that motivate their lives now. The authors conducted research which examines how adults' views of their lost and…

Post-formal operational thought is characterized by both relativism and dialecticism. To examine age differences across adulthood in relativistic and dialectical thought, and to determine whether formal operations are necessary but not sufficient for these forms of thought, 20 young (mean age, 19.6), 20 middle aged (mean age, 46.2), and 20 older…

Mezirow restates the major ideas of his transformation theory and addresses criticisms in terms of adult development, ideology, and Freire's concept of conscientization. Tennant and Newman's reactions are followed by Mezirow's response. (SK)

The study was aimed at characterizing the exact algebraic structure of the love schema in order to trace possible changes in the conceptualization of love throughout the adult life cycle, notably as regards the weight attributed to the three components of love: passion, intimacy, and commitment. The methodological framework was the Functional…

A study examined the effects of an intensive, 7-week, introductory workshop-type experience using recommended techniques to promote adult growth for a group of 29 aspiring educational administration students. The study specifically examined whether the process and experience of the academy (workshop) produced a change in cognitive-developmental…

Outlines theoretical issues associated with the presupposition that sociocognitive features of maturity can potentially generate worthwhile learning. Reviews recent research into the impact of adult-education-certified courses on mature students' sense of identity that supports claims for continued adult learning. Links are made to lifelong moral…

Attribution theory and gerontology would be enriched by the application of a life-span approach to attribution, involving increased attention to the age of the stimulus person and developmental factors associated with self-attribution. In studies on achievement attributions about older people, chronological age appears to be a more salient cue for…

This paper explores the readiness of student affairs professionals to utilize adult development knowledge in everyday interactions with college students. Four types of knowledge about the adult development process (cognitive-developmental, psychosocial, person-environment interaction, and humanistic-existential) are briefly defined, with…

This report reviews a theoretically inspired empirical investigation of individual differences in knowledge, abilities, and nonability traits as part of an ongoing effort to better understand adult intellectual development and to develop more accurate measures of adult intelligence. Twenty Knowledge Scales were constructed, drawing on…

The learning and development experiences of English-speaking Caribbean immigrant women in the United States were examined in a transcultural study. A heuristic phenomenological approach was used to explore how a sample of 15 Anglophone women from the British Caribbean islands who had immigrated to the midwestern, southwestern, and eastern United…

Robert Kegan's constructive-development theory of adult growth postulates three different ways of knowing (instrumental, socializing, and self-authoring) and suggests that, although individuals develop differently, individual development can never be separated from culture. The potential of the constructive-development perspective on adult…