Purpose and Well-Being in Adulthood

1. Purpose and Well-Being in Adulthood Daniel K. Lapsley and Jay Brandenberger University of Notre Dame Anthony Burrow Loyola University-Chicago Jessica Collado and Patrick Hill University of Notre Dame Association for Moral Education, New York, 2007

2. Two Research Goals Report evidence on the measurement properties and convergent validity of the Stanford Center of Adolescent “Youth Purpose Scale” Examine whether the linkage between Purpose and life satisfaction is mediated by agency and pathways of “Hope”

3. “A stable and generalized intention to accomplish something that is at once meaningful to the self and is of consequence to the world beyond the self” --Damon, Menon & Bronk (2004)

4. There is an ethical dimension bound up with the desire to live a purposive life Purpose may be the ground of living well the life that is good for one to live and point in the direction of classical sources on eudemoniaand what it means to flourish

5. Two claims about purpose crucial for understanding adolescent development not necessarily related to well-being struggle to live purposive life not restricted to adolescence relation to well-being an open empirical question

6. ND Moral Purpose Study Survey ND Class of ’94 (purpose, well-being, life-satisfaction, generativity, integrity, ‘hope’) Aligned with Service learning experiences Freshman survey Senior survey 10-year out survey

7. Participants N = 399 Mean age: 35 57% Male Caucasian/European-American

11. YP Searching YP Identified

12. How are YP-Identified and YP-Searching related to “well-being”?

13. Psychological Well-Being (C. Ryff, 1989) Subscales High scorers… Purpose in Life (14-items, α = .91) Has goals in life and sense of directedness; feels there is meaning to present and past life; holds beliefs that give life purpose; has aims and objectives for living. Personal Growth (11-items, α = .88) Has a feeling of continued development; sees self as growing and expanding; is open to new experiences; has sense of realizing one’s potential; sees improvement in self…. Environmental Mastery (11-items, α = .87) Has a sense of mastery and competence in managing environment; controls complex array of external activities; makes effective use of opportunities; chooses or creates contexts suitable to personal needs and values

14. Life Satisfaction, Generativity, Integrity Measure Items Description Satisfaction with Life (Diener et al., 1985) 5 items, α = .87 Global appraisal of life-satisfaction drawing upon domains self finds relevant Loyola Generativity Scale (D. McAdams) 20 items, α = .88 Passing on knowledge & skills; making a significant contribution to betterment of community; leaving a legacy; being creative & productive Integrity Scale (B. Schlenker, 2006)) 18 items, α = .83 “character strength” that reflects steadfast commitment to ethical principles

15. YP-Identified r with Environmental Mastery .593** Personal Growth .565** Purpose in Life .810** Satisfaction with Life .656** Generativity .660** Integrity .304** YP-Searching -.233

16. YP-Searching r with Environmental Mastery -.260** Personal Growth ns Purpose in Life -.234** Satisfaction with Life -.226** Generativity ns Integrity ns

17. Is the relationship between Youth Purpose and Life Satisfaction mediated by “hope”? Hope Scale (Snyder et al., 1991. JPSP, 60, 570-585)

18. Hope is fueled by: perception of successful agency with respect to goals or sense of successful determination in meeting goals in past, present & future “agency” (goal-directed determination)

19. Hope is fueled by: perceived availability of successful pathways related to goals or sense of being able to generate successful plans to meet goals “pathways” (planning of ways to meet goals)

20. The agencyandpathways of hope are “reciprocal, additive and positively related, although they are not synonymous” --Snyder et al., 1991) “Where there is a will there is a way” (is only partly true)

21. Hope Scale (Snyder et al., 1991) Subscales Examples… Agency (4-items) α = .87 I energetically pursue my goals My past experience has prepared me well for my future I’ve been pretty successful in life I meet the goals that I set for myself Pathways (4-items) α = .86 I can think of many ways to get out of a jam There are lots of ways around any problem I can think of many ways to get the things in life that are most important to me Even when others get discouraged, I know I can find a way to solve the problem

22. Identified Purpose Satisfaction with Life β = .66 (.61) β = .42 β = .36 Hope Pathways

23. Identified Purpose Satisfaction with Life β = .66 (.47) β = .67 β = .58 Hope Agency

24. Conclusions • Youth Purpose scale coalesces around two internally consistent factors • “Identified” and “Searching” • “Identified” Purpose • strong convergent validity • strong associations with well-being, life-satisfaction and integrity • “Searching” Purpose • not so much (at least in adulthood)

25. “Identified” purpose is robustly related to indices of well-being but “Searching” for purpose is not

26. But Identified Purpose“ contributes to life satisfaction only when there is “hope” (or the agentic aspect of hope)

27. Agentic-Hope mediates the relationship between Identified Purpose and Life Satisfaction Life satisfaction seems to require both “purpose” and “agency”

28. www.nd.edu/~dlapsle1 danlapsley@nd.edu jbranden@nd.edu