Age effects in cultural life scripts

Life scripts are culturally shared expectations about the timing of life events in an idealized life course. Because they are cultural semantic knowledge, they should be known by all adult age groups including those who have not lived through all events in the life script, but this has not been test...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Applied cognitive psychology 2011-03, Vol.25 (2), p.291-298
Main Authors: Janssen, Steve M. J., Rubin, David C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult. Elderly
Age
Biological and medical sciences
Cognitive ability
Cognitive psychology
Developmental psychology
Effects
Elderly people
Expectations
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Human
Infants
Internet
Knowledge
Learning. Memory
Life
Life course
Memory
Middle aged people
Prevalence
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Scripts
Semantics
Timing
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Summary:Life scripts are culturally shared expectations about the timing of life events in an idealized life course. Because they are cultural semantic knowledge, they should be known by all adult age groups including those who have not lived through all events in the life script, but this has not been tested previously. Young, middle‐aged and older adults from the Netherlands were therefore asked in this online study to imagine an ordinary Dutch infant and to name the seven most important events that were likely to take place in the life of this prototypical child. Participants subsequently answered questions about at what ages these events were expected to occur and about their prevalence, importance and valence. We found that the cultural life script was similar for young, middle‐aged and older adults and for adults with different educational attainment. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
ISSN:0888-4080
1099-0720
1099-0720
DOI:10.1002/acp.1690