Developmental Trends in Wishes, Confidence, and the Sense of Personal Control from Childhood to Middle Maturity

The three wishes of a random sample of 100 subjects were obtained from each of five age groups: elementary, junior high, high school, early college (18-24 years), and late college (25-50 years). The wishes were placed in appropriate categories and into subcategories including possessions, activities...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The journal of psychology 1973-07, Vol.84 (2), p.241-252
Main Authors: Horrocks, John E., Mussman, Milton C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Achievement
Adolescent
Adult
Aging
Attitude
Child
Child Development
Female
Humans
Internal-External Control
Male
Middle Aged
Personality
Psychology, Adolescent
Self Concept
Sex Factors
Social Behavior
Social Class
Social Values
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Summary:The three wishes of a random sample of 100 subjects were obtained from each of five age groups: elementary, junior high, high school, early college (18-24 years), and late college (25-50 years). The wishes were placed in appropriate categories and into subcategories including possessions, activities, maintenance, achievement, and altruism. Exploratory measures of "confidence" and "sense of personal control" were taken for each subject. Sex and socioeconomic condition were analyzed. Results supported previously established trends of increasing generality, increasing altruism, and decreasing materialistic content up to different ages in adolescence and early adulthood depending on the data chosen to relate to the generalizations. In addition, a gradual increase in achievement wishes through middle adulthood was observed. The measure of "sense of personal control" was found to yield significant variation, while the data related to "confidence" varied only within chance limits. Comparisons with previous studies led to speculation that achievement orientations of adolescents may have lessened over the past decade.
ISSN:0022-3980
1940-1019
DOI:10.1080/00223980.1973.9923838