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The methodology of Personal Projects Analysis: Four modules and a funnel
... Usually, with some notable exceptions (e.g., Milyavskaya et al., 2012;Sheldon et al., 2010), single items were used for goal evaluations. As an illustrative example we use the Personal Projects Analysis (PPA; Little & Gee, 2007). Applying this flexible tool consisting of several modules, a researcher chooses the modules they want to apply. ...
... When estimating criterion validity of the DGRS, we expected that daily goal realization would be positively correlated with other goal scales, selected from the PPA (Little & Gee, 2007) -namely, with the evaluations of progress in goal achievement, engagement, likelihood of success, and goal importance. Of all the dimensions proposed in the PPA, we selected the ones that were most likely to be related to the daily level of goal realization. ...
... Of all the dimensions proposed in the PPA, we selected the ones that were most likely to be related to the daily level of goal realization. According to Little and Gee (2007), the progress dimension is the current level of success in achieving the goal. This is why we assumed that there would be a positive correlation between DGRS scores and this PPA dimension. ...
Background
This paper presents the results of three studies allowing the design and initial validation of the Daily Goal Realization Scale (DGRS). Goal realization refers to the engagement in goal-directed behavior that leads to progress in personal goal attain-ment; it is considered one of the adaptive personal characteristics.
Participants and procedure
Three studies, including an initial study to develop and select the items (Study 1), an intensive longitudinal study (Study 2), and a multiple goal evaluation study (Study 3), tested factorial structure, reliability and validity of the measure.
Results
Multilevel confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the unidimensional structure of the DGRS (obtained in Study 1) both at the individual and goal level, captured as daily goal realization (Study 2) and as multiple goal realization (Study 3). The va-lidity of the DGRS was supported by meaningful associations with other goal evaluations (Study 3). As expected, the DGRS was positively related to evaluations of progress in goal achievement, engagement, likelihood of success, and goal im-portance. The DGRS also demonstrated measurement invariance allowing for meaningful comparisons of scores between men and women.
Conclusions
The findings indicate that the DGRS is a brief and reliable idiographic measure of daily goal realization. The scale has excel-lent internal consistency and good criterion validity.
... A personal project is an activity that is significant for the person pursuing it, extended in space and time, contextually embedded within one's life and encompassing interrelated actions led by an intentional sequence of behavior. PPA provides an open-source, multimodular, and flexible research methodology with personal projects as basic analytic units (Little and Gee 2007). ...
... In the next step of PPA, the list of personal projects is narrowed to about 10 personal projects, for example by selection of the most important personal projects or thematic selection, such as work-or health-related projects. In PPA, participants are regarded as experts in their own life space, and it is assumed that the processes participants use in funneling personal projects are those that they use in everyday life (Little and Gee 2007). ...
... This selection of personal projects is then evaluated by the participants, the so-called 'project appraisal'. The resulting evaluation of personal projects, such as exercise regularly, study for exams, teach at an exam institute, see friends, etc., can be analyzed at the individual level (person-centered measurement) or at the level of normative, comparative analysis (variable-centered measurement) (Little and Gee 2007). In general, people experience more well-being when their personal projects are more meaningful, manageable, positively connected with others, and associated with more positive than negative affect (Little and Coulombe 2015). ...
Understanding how teaching interest and motivation develop during the academic STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) study program is essential to design effective interventions to increase teacher recruitment. This article describes a new approach to study STEM teachers’ career choice processes. The retrospective method, which is based on personal projects analysis, focuses on the career choice process of STEM teachers during the academic study program as well as on their current personal values and goals, and the interconnection between these two. Evaluation took place in a small-scale explorative study with recently graduated STEM teachers. The results illustrate that the methodology provides insight into STEM teachers’ career choice processes in a personally salient and ecologically valid way. The use of personal projects provides structure and focus, but also enables large-scale data collection. Therefore, this research methodology could be positioned to complement survey studies and narrative inquiry.
... Beyond the conceptual definitions, many similarities can be found in the methods used to study these constructs. In both cases, participants are asked to think of the personal projects or personal goals that they are currently pursuing, engaged in, or are planning to pursue, and are asked to name between 3-15 goals/projects (e.g., Koestner et al., 2002;Little & Gee, 2007). Each goal or project is then rated on several characteristics. ...
... 1. Using the personal projects methodology, including a definition of personal projects (from Little & Gee, 2007). 2. Asking about personal goals, with a definition most commonly used in the personal goal literature (e.g., Koestner et al., 2008;Werner et al., 2016). ...
... In exploratory analyses examining differences between variables computed across all goals and the first three or four goals that a person reported, we did find some differen ces. This suggests that contrary to the personal project elicitation, which typically asks for 10-15 projects (Little & Gee, 2007), asking about three or four goals as is typically done in goal research (e.g., Holding et al., 2017Holding et al., , 2019Werner et al., 2016) results in a focus on goals that are particularly important and more likely to be attained. This is potentially important for generalizing to goal pursuit more broadly. ...
There are many ways in which researchers ask participants about their personal goals or projects, yet findings are subsequently considered interchangeable. This study experimentally tested whether different ways of asking participants about their goals elicits different goals and impacts reports of goal progress. Undergraduate participants (N = 285) were assigned to one of three conditions (personal projects, personal goals, open-ended goals), listed an unlimited number of goals they were currently pursing, rated each goal on a series of goal characteristics, and six weeks later reported on their goal progress. Results indicated that participants reported significantly more goals in the personal project condition than in the other two conditions, and that these goals were rated as less difficult. Overall, the present study provides further insight into the effects of the elicitation methods employed in goal pursuit research.
... school, recreational) and social domains of life (i.e. relationships, community; Little and Gee, 2007). Studies conducted with youth have demonstrated great variability in the projects that are pursued, although consistent themes have been identified. ...
... Personal project pursuit is central to wellbeing. Research has consistently shown that people experience more wellbeing when they appraise their projects as more meaningful, manageable, associated with more positive affect relative to negative affect and positively connected to other people (Little and Gee, 2007; see also Little, 1989Little, , 2011b. In addition, both hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing are promoted through personal projects pursuit (Little, 2014;Little and Coulombe, 2015). ...
... As a second step, they are invited to select a certain number of projects (number that varies depending how much time is available) that are most representative of who they are. The second module (appraisal module) invites participants to rate each project on a scale from 0 to 10 on a series of cognitive and affective dimensions which have been found to constitute five distinct themes related to wellbeing (Little and Gee, 2007; see also Little, 1989Little, , 2011b: meaningfulness (e.g. self-identity), manageability (e.g. ...
Youth wellbeing is a pressing international problem, and it is a key concern of educational institutions, considering the substantial amount of time that youth spend in school. Educators require empirically validated and theoretically sound methods to support students’ wellbeing. This article critically examines the literature on youth wellbeing and interventions in positive education and proposes an innovative, social ecological approach to promoting wellbeing in education. Personal Projects Analysis is a complementary approach addressing several gaps identified in existing interventions (e.g. lack of consideration of ecological and cultural contexts, need for a person-centred approach to support unique goals of diverse students). Implications and applications are discussed to demonstrate how school leadership and educators can apply Personal Projects Analysis to promote the wellbeing of all students.
... In their daily lives, people pursue many goals in parallel. For instance, when people are asked to list the personal projects they are currently pursuing, each person lists about 15 projects on average (Little & Gee, 2007). People's goals are often highly interdependent and hierarchically organized such that attaining a high-level goal requires attaining multiple subgoals (Austin & Vancouver, 1996;Carver & Scheier, 1998;Miller, Galanter, & Pribram, 1960). ...
... People often simultaneously pursue multiple goals with hierarchically nested subgoals (Little & Gee, 2007;Newell, Shaw, & Simon, 1958). In line with this observation, previous psychological research has suggested that people mentally represent their goals, subgoals, and the means available to attain them as nodes in interconnected networks known as ``goal systems" (Bandura & Cervone, 1983;Shah & Kruglanski, 2000;Kruglanski et al., 2002;Fishbach, Shah, & Kruglanski, 2004;Huang & Zhang, 2013;Louro et al., 2007). ...
... A possible direction for future investigations would be to measure people's goal systems with an extension of personal projects analysis (Little & Gee, 2007) properties can be used to reason about whether instances faced by the cognitive system are likely to be hard or easy to solve. This research program can be seen as a version of rational analysis (Anderson, 1990) that characterizes the structure of the problems people face in terms of properties that can be exploited by specialized algorithms. ...
Extant psychological theories attribute people's failure to achieve their goals primarily to failures of self-control, insufficient motivation, or lacking skills. We develop a complementary theory specifying conditions under which the computational complexity of making the right decisions becomes prohibitive of goal achievement regardless of skill or motivation. We support our theory by predicting human performance from factors determining the computational complexity of selecting the optimal set of means for goal achievement. Following previous theories of goal pursuit, we express the relationship between goals and means as a bipartite graph where edges between means and goals indicate which means can be used to achieve which goals. This allows us to map two computational challenges that arise in goal achievement onto two classic combinatorial optimization problems: Set Cover and Maximum Coverage. While these problems are believed to be computationally intractable on general networks, their solution can be nevertheless efficiently approximated when the structure of the network resembles a tree. Thus, our initial prediction was that people should perform better with goal systems that are more tree-like. In addition, our theory predicted that people's performance at selecting means should be a U-shaped function of the average number of goals each means is relevant to and the average number of means through which each goal could be accomplished. Here we report on six behavioral experiments which confirmed these predictions. Our results suggest that combinatorial parameters that are instrumental to algorithm design can also be useful for understanding when and why people struggle to pursue their goals effectively. keywords: goal systems, computational complexity, bounded rationality, graph theory 3 The computational challenges of perusing multiple goals
... A basic assumption amongst many theorists and researchers in the goals-related fields is that goals can be conceptualized as existing in a hierarchical structure. This ranges from the highest order life meanings to the most concrete, immediate desires (e.g., Austin & Vancouver, 1996;Carver & Scheier, 1990;Little & Gee, 2007). Much of this is derived from Powers' (1973) control theory and its hierarchy of purposes. ...
... These associations between higher order, and lower order, goals are termed vertical relationships; while associations between goals at the same level are termed horizontal relationships (Cooper, 2012). Although this hierarchical framework posits the existence of highest order goals-or what have been termed 'terminal values' (Austin & Vancouver, 1996;Little & Gee, 2007), 'core projects' (Little, 2007), or 'original projects' (Sartre, 1958)-it leaves open the question of what they might be. Indeed, the framework allows for the possibility that there may be multiple highest order goals (as with, for instance, self-determination theory, Ryan & Deci, 2000); or that no universal set of highest order goals exist --rather, people differ in what they most fundamentally strive for (Cooper & McLeod, 2011). ...
... On the other hand, it may take a more formal and prominent form: particularly through the use of written goal-based measures and instruments (see Chapter 6, this volume) (Hurn, Kneebone, & Cropley, 2006). Through completing forms such as the Goal-Based Outcome Measure (Law & Jacob, 2015), or through processes such as Personal Projects Analysis (Little & Gee, 2007), clients can be explicitly encouraged to reflect on-and reconsider-their personal goals. ...
This chapter, ‘The psychology of goals: A practice-friendly review’, examines psychological evidence and theory on goals and goal processes, and draws out implications for clinical practice. Research indicates that psychological wellbeing is associated with the actualisation of goals: having important goals in one’s life, believing that they are attainable, progressing towards them (at an appropriate pace), and achieving them. These processes, however, are mediated by several significant goal dimensions, such as how important the goals are, whether the goals are ‘approach’ or ‘avoidance’, and the extent to which the goals are conscious. Goals can be conceptualised as existing in a hierarchical framework, with ‘higher order’ goals achieved through ‘lower order’ goals. Here, wellbeing is also associated with lower levels of goal conflict, and more effective means of goal-actualisation. This conceptual framework can be used to facilitate the process of formulation in therapy, and to inform therapeutic practice.
... Activity participation was measured in relation to frequency on an item for each role, where women selected if their participation was never, daily, several times per week, weekly, fortnightly, monthly or quarterly. The remaining within-role characteristics were explored through a series of eleven point scales based on the Personal Project Analysis (PPA) appraisal matrix [38]. Values were measured with 'How important is this role to you?' Interest was measured by 'To what extent do you feel enjoyment while engaged in this role?' Perceived competence was measured by the question 'To what extent do you feel competent to carry out this role?' Finally, habits were measured through asking, 'How adequate is the amount of time you spend working on this role?'). ...
... Between-role interactions were measured through the Personal Project Analysis (PPA) cross-impact matrix, with individual items reported to overcome limitations identified in earlier research using this tool [38,39]. Participants quantified the impact of their roles on each other using a five-point scale, from a strong negative impact (-2) to a strong positive impact (þ2). ...
... Although the psychometric properties of The Role Checklist and Personal Project Analysis technique have been well documented [e.g. [36,38]], these tools were modified for this study. Whilst some effort was made to investigate face and content validity through pilot testing and member checking [25,31], future research is recommended to examine other aspects of reliability and validity, such as test-retest reliability and construct validity [31]. ...
Women combining paid employment with dual caring responsibilities for children and aging parents, otherwise known as the sandwich generation, experience both benefits and costs related to role participation and quality of life. However, previous literature is inconclusive regarding the impact of this role combination on role balance. In the context of these mixed findings on role balance for working sandwich generation women, this study aimed to explore how within role characteristics and between role interactions are related to role balance for these women. This aim was achieved through the use of a questionnaire administered to 18 Australian working sandwich generation women. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and correlation coefficients, with findings suggesting the women studied tended to experience neither role balance or role imbalance. Within-role characteristics, particularly within the mother and family member roles, were related to role balance. In addition, between-role conflict and role interactions involving either the home maintainer or family member roles had the greatest impact on role balance.
... Despite this assumption, we are not aware of studies examining the amount of expected and received goal support from the partner simultaneously. Hence, such investigations would be of utmost importance as, on the one hand, those being in a less favorable physical condition perceive lower levels of social support [33]; moreover, they are exposed to the partner's avoidance or social restrictions to a greater extent [34]. On the other hand, when the physical status of women with BC becomes worse, compassionate communication from the partner gains special significance in reducing distress [19]. ...
... Since previous research did not assess partner support in terms of both expected and received support and their combination with the type of support (autonomy, directive, and emotional), to address the gap, we developed a new set of personal project items specifically for this study that covers these aspects. It is important to note that personal project assessment is a flexible process that can be customized to measure various types of experiences and evaluation criteria, depending on the focus of the research being conducted [34]. ...
Background
For breast cancer patients, the partner’s support for personal projects can serve as a means of adaptation. We aimed to investigate the associations between the intimate partner’s personal project support and women’s well-being.
Methods
A sample of 274 Hungarian women (breast cancer patients n = 137, control n = 137) took part in the study. Expected and actually received autonomy-, directive- and emotional project support was assessed by the procedure of Personal Project Assessment. Well-being was measured by the Relationship Assessment Scale and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. For investigating the associations between project support and well-being in a multivariate way, structural equation modelling was used.
Results
Except for autonomy support, participants expected more support than they received. A path model indicated multiple associations between types of project support and relationship satisfaction and self-esteem. The partner’s emotional project support was predictive of women’s relationship satisfaction and self-esteem, while directive support was predictive of self-esteem only. The associations showed similar patterns in the subgroups of patients with breast cancer and control.
Conclusions
Our results highlight the importance of involving women’s subjective perspectives regarding the partner’s project support while also have implications for praxis. Teaching women how to communicate their needs to their partner effectively (whether it is the need for autonomy or directive guidance) can help close the gap between expected and received support, which may in turn enhance relationship satisfaction and self-esteem.
... Each selected and rated goal was classified by two independent evaluators into one of seven categories on the basis of content. The categorization followed the guidelines given by Little and Gee (2007): interpersonal ("spend more time with my family"), academic ("language learning"), work ("better position at work"), intrapersonal ("more order to my life"), recreational/leisure ("holiday"), health ("lose some weight") and maintenance ("buy a new car"). The responses also contained several skill-oriented learning goals ("get a driver's license") that can be acquired in non-academic settings or through self-development. ...
... The responses also contained several skill-oriented learning goals ("get a driver's license") that can be acquired in non-academic settings or through self-development. In order to maintain the original categories of the guidelines (Little & Gee, 2007) while incorporating the broader meaning in the present study, these projects were labeled as 'academic/learning.' The cross-rater reliability of the ratings measured by the κ was .842, ...
Personal projects represent a person’s pursuits in different life domains. The present study examines the orientations of adults’ personal projects and how these orientations are embedded in the dynamics of romantic relationships. Cross-sectional data from 249 married or cohabitating Hungarian heterosexual couples were collected (mean age 42 ± 10.76 and 39.64 ± 10.21 years for male and female partners, respectively). An adapted version of the Personal Project Assessment procedure was completed by both partners individually. Four of their chosen projects were evaluated based on perceived cooperation and conflict regarding these projects and other predefined aspects. First, after applying a person-oriented approach, four meaningful content domains emerged from the thematically coded data using cluster analysis: (1) Practical, (2) Work-Life Balance, (3) Relationships, and (4) Learning and Growth orientations. For both genders, people with Learning and Growth orientation were younger than those with Practical orientation, and among women, the Work-Life Balance orientation group was older. Second, we linked the content domains to relationship experiences on the dyadic level. Both partners with Learning and Growth orientation goals perceived less cooperation. Female partners whose spouses had Work-Life Balance or Learning and Growth orientation goals perceived less conflict regarding their own goals. Overall, Learning and Growth-oriented goals can be considered more distant from the dynamics of romantic relationships because they involve fewer joint experiences and less cooperation and conflict.
... They can be integrated in comprehensive and distinct categories: interpersonal, academic, work, intrapersonal, leisure, health, maintenance (Little, 2007(Little, , 2011. Individuals judge their own personal projects through several cognitive and affective dimensions, which correspond to cognitive and affective components (Little & Gee, 2007). Some personal projects can contribute to the achievement of other pursuits mutually fostering themselves or, conversely, they may be difficult and preclude their reciprocal development. ...
... Frequently, they are molecular actions that facilitate the advancement of core projects, but personal projects may be merely individual and disconnected actions that are not associated with other projects. Personal pursuits range in stages of implementation, going from a simple intention or goal to an advanced stage of accomplishment (Little & Gee, 2007;Little, 2011). Little (2008) refers that the focus of personal projects is at the juncture of goal and action, of internal aspirations and external contexts. ...
... The first author is a researcher in humanistic psychology with previous experience using the Personal Projects Analysis Workbook (Kim et al., 2020), while the fourth author has previous experience coding life narrative research. Personal projects were sorted into categories established by previous research in personal projects analysis (Little and Gee, 2007). Discrepancies were resolved via discussion between the authors. ...
... Each personal project reported was categorized as one of nine possible types: Academic, Work, Health, Recreational, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, Maintenance, Creative, and Other. All categories come from the established work on personal projects analysis (Little and Gee, 2007), except for "Creative" projects, added to classify projects that were neither academic, work, or recreational. "Other" projects did not fit cleanly within any existing category, nor align with other idiosyncratic items to suggest a new category, and were excluded from the present analysis. ...
The physical distancing measures necessitated by COVID-19 have resulted in a severe withdrawal from the patterns of daily life, necessitating significantly reduced contact with other people. To many, such withdrawal can be a major cause of distress. But, to some, this sort of withdrawal is an integral part of growth, a pathway to a more enriching life. The present study uses a sequential explanatory QUAN-qual design to investigate whether people who felt that their lives had changed for the better after being forced to engage in physical distancing, what factors predicted such well-being, and how they spent their time to generate this sense of well-being. We invited 614 participants who reported closely following physical distancing recommendations to complete a survey exploring this topic. Our analyses, after controlling for all other variables in the regression model, found a greater positive association between presence of meaning in life, coping style, and self-transcendent wisdom and residualized current well-being accounting for retrospective assessments of well-being prior to physical distancing. An extreme-case content analysis of participants' personal projects found that participants with low self-transcendent wisdom reported more survival-oriented projects (e.g., acquiring groceries or engaging in distracting entertainments), while participants reporting high self-transcendent wisdom reported more projects involving deepening interactions with other people, especially family. Our findings suggest a more nuanced pathway from adversity to a deeper sense of well-being by showing the importance of not merely coping with adversity, but truly transcending it.
... Cette grille d'analyse fournit l'évaluation la plus complète disponible des buts des personnes dans le contexte de leurs projets personnels ( Aux fins de l'étude, cette grille a servi à évaluer le type de projets des parents d'un enfant ayant une DI, leur nature, la signification qu'ils revêtent pour eux, leur faisabilité, leur aspect social ainsi que les affects positifs et négatifs qui leur sont associés. Afin d'éviter que la grille d'analyse soit trop lourde à compléter, les parents l'ont fait sous forme d'un entretien semi-dirigé avec l'aide d'un assistant de recherche comme suggéré par Little et Gee (2007). Celle-ci a été enregistrée en mode audio pour recueillir des informations précises sur les projets personnels des parents. ...
... L'étude des qualités psychométriques de la grille des projets personnels a permis d'en démontrer la fidélité et la validité. En effet, de hauts niveaux d'accords interjuges ont été observés lors de la catégorisation des projets dans les domaines d'activités (Little & Gee, 2007). Des analyses factorielles intégrant les différents aspects des dimensions cognitives et affectives ont permis de dégager cinq facteurs : signification, faisabilité, interrelation, affects positifs et affects négatifs (Little & Coulombe, 2015). ...
... The assessment procedure involves the individual-level elicitation of personal projects (e.g., BI want to complete my university degree^), followed by asking the respondent to evaluate their experiences related to the actual project (e.g., BHow stressful is this project for you?^). Since the choice of studied experiences depends only on the research question, the applied targets of evaluation can be flexibly adjusted to the actual aims of the study (Little and Gee 2007). In our study, we have adapted this personal-project-based procedure to capture dyadic coping strategies and evaluations in relation to stressful personal projects of respondents. ...
... We assessed dyadic coping experiences related to the personal projects of the participants using an adapted version of the standard personal project assessment procedure (see Little and Gee 2007). First, participants were asked to write a list of their current personal projects defined as Bthe goals and strivings that you are currently working with in your everyday life.^Second, ...
In the present study we describe a context-sensitive, personal-projects-based approach to dyadic coping with stress which adapted the Dyadic Coping Inventory (DCI) for the assessment of dyadic coping strategies in stressful personal projects. In a cross-sectional study, 149 heterosexual Hungarian couples provided evaluations pertaining to their dyadic coping experiences in a stressful everyday project. Explorative factor analyses of personal project-related DCI items provided theoretically meaningful factor structures and the resulting subscales showed excellent reliability. The subscales’ predictive validity was tested in two dyadic analyses using the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM) whereby positive and negative dyadic coping experiences served as predictors of satisfaction with the dyadic coping process in particular, and with the relationship in general as outcomes. Our results showed that satisfaction with dyadic coping in personal projects is predicted only by the dyadic coping experiences of the respondents (the actor effect), while actor and partner effects proved to be predictive of relationship satisfaction. Negative partner experiences related to dyadic coping predicted lower relationship satisfaction of the female partner, while for males the positive experiences of the partner were found to be more predictive. These results confirm that the contextualized assessment of dyadic coping experiences in specific stressful personal projects is a reliable and valid method. Further methodological and theoretical conclusions are discussed.
... The corresponding methodology of personal project assessment is a flexible and complex measurement tool that is suitable for assessing ecologically valid, contextually embedded experiences of respondents. The typical assessment procedure includes an individual elicitation of personal projects (e.g., "arranging a vacation trip for my parents"), followed by the measurement of several projectrelated characteristics (Little and Gee, 2007). In our study, we have adapted this personal project based procedure to capture stress experiences and dyadic coping strategies, as well as experiences of positive emotions and sense of community with the partner. ...
... Partners individually completed an adapted version of the Personal Project Assessment procedure. We assessed the experiences of participants related to stressful personal projects via an adapted version of the personal project assessment procedure (see Little and Gee, 2007). As a first step (project elicitation), participants were asked to write a short list of their current personal projects. ...
Relational accounts of goal striving have barely considered dyadic coping as an element of the process, nor has dyadic coping research utilized the unique advantages of the goal construct (e.g., in form of personal project assessment) so far. Therefore, the primary aim of the present study was to explore stress and dyadic coping experiences associated with the personal projects of partners in a close relationship. Moreover, we approached data analysis in a pattern-oriented way, instead of using variable-centered linear models. We used cross-sectional data from 270 married and cohabiting Hungarian heterosexual couples (mean age 40.1 ± 11.2 and 37.8 ± 10.9 years for male and female partners, respectively). Partners individually completed an adapted version of the Personal Project Assessment procedure. First, they named an important but stressful personal project. Respondents appraised their experiences with the chosen personal project along several predefined aspects. These included: (1) stress experiences; (2) dyadic coping, using the adapted Dyadic Coping Inventory; (3) positive emotions; and (4) sense of community. The Relationship Assessment Scale was also assessed. Cluster analysis of both partners’ stress experiences, positive and negative dyadic coping strategies in their own personal projects revealed six relationship-level clusters. Cluster solutions represented typical variations of the stress and dyadic coping patterns of the couples, and could be arranged in a three- (lower, medium, and higher stress) by-two (positively vs. negatively balanced dyadic coping pattern) array. Further analyses indicated the general trend that couples with lower (vs. higher) stress together with more positively (vs. negatively) balanced dyadic coping may have experienced better functioning in projects (more positive emotions and higher sense of community) and higher relationship satisfaction. Results confirm that the partners’ pursuit of their personal projects is embedded in their relationship, and their functioning in these projects may partly depend on dyadic coping with the stress that arises during the accomplishment of the project. By using a pattern-oriented approach to dyadic data, we were able to distill stress and coping patterns that capture the specific types of couples’ relationships and indicate the non-linear and multidimensional nature of stress and dyadic coping processes.
... A basic assumption amongst many theorists and researchers in the goals-related fields --and one that can be simply extended to the concept of wants --is that goals, or personal projects, can be conceptualized as existing in a hierarchical structure: from the highest order life wants to the most immediate desires (e.g., Austin & Vancouver, 1996;Little & Gee, 2007). Much of this is derived from Powers' (1973) control theory and its hierarchy of purposes, which has formed the basis for a number of attempts to develop integrative models of clinical practice (e.g., Goldstein, 1990;Mansell, 2005). ...
... Although this framework posits the existence of highest order wants --or what have been termed terminal values (Austin & Vancouver, 1996;Little & Gee, 2007), core projects (Little, 2007), or original projects (Sartre, 1958) --it does not specify what these are. This is an important feature of the present model, as the question of our highest order wants is highly contested, and not one that is likely to be answerable without considerable further research. ...
... So far, there has been little research on the mechanisms and consequences of the pursuit of altruistic long-term goals (e.g., Niemiec et al., 2009;Sheldon et al., 2010). Much more research remains to be done, and personal projects analysis could be one promising methodology to conduct it (Little & Gee, 2007;McGregor & Little, 1998 Table 4). The most popular intervention, nudging, usually targets intuitive reactive mechanisms (see Section 2.2). ...
People’s intentional pursuit of prosocial goals and values (i.e., well-doing) is critical to the
flourishing of humanity in the long run. Understanding and promoting well-doing is a shared goal across many fields inside and outside of social and personality psychology. Several of these fields are (partially) disconnected from each other and could benefit from more integration of existing knowledge, interdisciplinary collaboration, and cross-fertilization. To foster the transfer and integration of knowledge across these different fields, we provide a brief overview with pointers to some of the key articles in each field, highlight connections, and introduce an integrative model of the psychological mechanisms of well-doing. We identify some gaps in the current understanding of well-doing, such as the paucity of research on well-doing with large and long-lasting positive consequences. Building on this analysis, we identify opportunities for high-impact research on well-doing in social and personality psychology, such as understanding and promoting the effective pursuit of highly impactful altruistic goals.
... Individuals should be committed to a series of 'actions' to reach goals expressed by their values. They should evaluate the goals' attainability, formulate positive outcome expectations, create a well-structured action plan, monitor all the plan phases, and remain engaged in the action (Little & Gee, 2007). Consequently, it might not be sufficient to activate consistent values to promote desirable behavior. ...
The COVID-19 pandemic has severely affected people’s health, daily routine, and behaviors. Its effects have been most pronounced for the youngest and oldest generations. Their daily lives have completely changed throughout the pandemic. Self-transcendence values and positive orientation could facilitate optimal adjustment to this situation by promoting prosociality. The present study aimed to discover if applying a new, web-based intervention could activate self-transcendence values in a group of Italian adolescents, fostering COVID-19 prosocial behaviors while also considering the role of positive orientation. The study adopted a longitudinal, web-based, and quasi-experimental design. One hundred and forty adolescents between 15 and 19 years of age were involved in the study two times (T1-T2). Participants were assigned to an intervention or control group. All participants completed the self-transcendence subscale extracted from the 21-item Portrait Values Questionnaire, the Positive Orientation Scale, and the COVID-19 Prosocial Experiences Scale. The results showed that adolescents’ self-transcendence values and positive orientation were positively associated with COVID-19 prosociality. However, the relationship between self-transcendence values and COVID-19 prosocial behaviors was significantly more robust in the intervention group. Finally, a three-way interaction (self-transcendence*group*positive orientation) emerged as significant. For the intervention group, the effect of self-transcendence values on COVID-19 prosocial behaviors was significant only for adolescents who reported a strong positive orientation. Limitations of the study, future research developments, and practical implications are discussed.
... In summary, there is some limited evidence to indicate that the supportiveness of physical and social settings plays a role in project accomplishment and associated wellbeing outcomes. Whilst thousands of personal project data stored in Little's SEA bank (Social Ecological Assessment Bank) has undergone meta-analyses, to date this has focused on the relation between project appraisals and wellbeing (Little and Gee, 2007) and not on the place ecology of personal projects. ...
This paper sets out a framework for exploring flourishing in older age through the lens of what older adults are doing in their lives. Applying a model from positive psychology called personal project analysis (PPA) our study captures a snapshot of older people's goals and their environmental context. Targeting older people aged 80+ we applied PPA methods in a semi-structured interview to elicit participants’ personal projects which were scored on eight wellbeing dimensions (e.g., fun, stress). Qualitative data analysis identified what types of personal projects are employed by this older demographic and the environments in which they are carried out. Results showed our participants were vitally engaged in a wide spectrum of projects exercised in a range of ‘enabling places’ which we categorised as (1) restorative niches (places that afford psychological restoration) such as nature settings (e.g. a garden, local park or riverside); (2) affinity niches (places that afford social opportunities) such as religious venues, social clubs, or cafés; and (3) flow niches (places that afford immersion in mental or physical tasks) such as the home (e.g. the kitchen) or a place associated with a previous career or amateur sport (e.g. cricket club). Our findings are discussed in relation to older people's wellbeing and the role of the built environment. Despite the increasingly negative stereotyping of the ‘older-old’ our study shows that the final decades of life can be a period of continuing growth and learning, a life stage with its own distinct character, rather than a period of decline.
... To consider the multiple dimensions of personal goals, a translated and adapted version of the Personal Project Analysis (PPA; Little & Gee, 2007) was administered. This measure allows the analysis of goal content and goal appraisal, which represents a strong asset compared to other goal measures. ...
The objective of this pilot study was to assess the effects of the indicated level of a multilevel preventive program on depressive symptoms and to examine personal goals appraisal as a moderating factor among college students aged between 16 and 29 years old with depressive symptoms. Students were screened for anxious and depressive symptoms in the beginning of their semester. Those who scored higher than the cut-off score were invited to be part of the intervention group. A comparison group was formed with students who did not wish to participate with the intervention group. Thirty-six students were included in the analyses. Both groups completed pre-test, post-test, and follow-up questionnaires. Results indicated a reduction in depressive symptoms at post-test and these gains were maintained three months later. Students in the intervention group with a more positive appraisal of their academic and career goals showed fewer depressive symptoms than students in the intervention group with a less positive appraisal of these goals. Limitations and implications for further implementation are discussed.
... At Time 1, participants' goal descriptions were collected using Personal Projects Analysis (PPA; Little, 1983), a flexible instrument that combines ideographic and nomothetic assessment approaches to the goal construct and can be adapted for specific research questions (Little & Gee, 2007). First, participants were provided with a definition of personal projects: "Everyone has different types of goals, wishes, dreams, and projects in mind. ...
In the present study, we investigated the ways in which the ideographic goal descriptions and goal appraisals of European American high school seniors reflect potentials for intentional self-development during emerging adulthood (EA), a lifespan phase characterized by increasing levels of freedom and decreasing age-graded, socially sanctioned developmental norms.
Additionally, we investigated whether variation in participants’ goal appraisals and the motivational qualities emergent in their goal descriptions would predict variation in dimensions of identity development, both concurrently at age 18 and prospectively at age 23. Results of an exploratory, mixed method analysis of participants’ (N = 129, 56.6% male, Mage = 18.24, SD = 0.37) goal data revealed diversity in education and work goals, strong potentials for intentional self-development reflected across goal appraisals, and more nuanced reflections of intentional self-development across the motivational qualities emergent in goal descriptions. Results partially supported the hypothesis that goal appraisals and motivational qualities that reflect potentials for intentional self-development would predict kindred processes of identity development across the first five years of EA. These findings contribute to a nascent empirical literature focused on the interrelationship of goal and identity constructs during EA and suggest new avenues for future research.
... Three out of 54 participants declared that they did not have any current life projects in their lives; 23 participants generated one LP, and 28 of them spontaneously generated two or three of them. Thematic analysis showed convergence with the structure of the personal-project categories of Little and Gee (2007): work (n = 27), academic (n = 25), interpersonal (n = 15), intrapersonal (n = 14), maintenance (n = 2), health (n = 1), and leisure (n = 0). ...
This article presents the findings of a study on life projects (LPs) created by adult females. It aims to show the specifics of future plans and of ideas on aspects of narrative identity in order to extend the existing literature. The study revealed the broad spectrum of LPs, with the most common categories related to study and work, regardless of the narrative identity incorporated into the study. However, separately taken, motives of agency and communion turned out to show some visible differences within the other types of LPs. The adoption of the identity development construct showed the specific meaning that projects had for each subgroup of narrators, who were distinguished based on the identity maturation level. In consequence, it exposed both content and formal aspects of LPs that appeared to differentiate and be characteristic for the next stages of maturity in the surveyed sample.
... By calculating the impact each project has on others in the matrix, the degree of conflict or complementarity can be assessed. The Joint Cross Impact-Matrix follows a similar logic to the Cross Impact-Matrix except it examines the impact of another person or group on an individual's project system (Little & Gee, 2007). ...
George Kelly was an influential psychologist who offered the Personal Construct Theory (PCT; 1955) to the field of personality psychology. PCT proposed a theoretical perspective of how people make sense of their worlds through the continuous testing and refinement of personal constructs in an effort to achieve a sense of mastery over their environment for the purpose of creating a greater sense of predictability and understanding of themselves and the people and events around them. PCT was also used by Kelly as the bases of personality assessment with the development of the Role Construct Repertory Test and his therapeutic approach to helping individuals with psychological problems understand and modify their maladaptive constructs.
... A ação de hierarquizar os próprios projetos exige um questionamento específico para cada projeto que permite traçar a relação de cada projeto com outros de nível mais elevado, e traçar a relação do mesmo projeto com outros de nível hierárquico inferior (Little, 2011;Little & Coulumbe, 2015). Quanto mais próximos os projetos estão de um valor final, mais significado têm para os indivíduos e quanto mais próximos os projetos estão dos atos, maior é a sua manejabilidade, ou seja, mais fácil é a sua concretização (Little & Gee, 2007). A investigação tem mostrado que não basta os projetos terem significado para o indivíduo para que promovam o seu bemestar psicológico e subjetivo, sendo também necessário que, em conjunto com o significado, haja eficácia e progresso (manejabilidade) e, para isso, os projetos necessitam de serem desdobrados em atos concretizáveis (Albuquerque, 2006(Albuquerque, , 2015. ...
... The number of aspirations for each subject was counted, and two independent assessors (trained psychologists) performed a content analysis on the answers and compared the results, mediating the disagreements (less than 10%) through discussions. The categories created based on the material were similar to the ones suggested by and used in previous works (Little 1983;Little and Gee 2007;Marttinen and Salmela-Aro 2012). To ensure that agreements were not due to chance, Choen's Kappa coefficient was computed for each answer category, and k values were always higher than random patterns (p < 0.01). ...
Limited research in the psychology literature has addressed the specifics of children’s future orientations. Using a thematic approach, the present study investigates children’s personal aspirations for their adult lives via a questionnaire that addressed (1) the types of aspiration profiles present in a sample of 456 Italian students aged 8–13 and balanced for gender, and (2) how these profiles differ according to demographics, the number of aspirations, academic and social self-efficacy, life satisfaction, and academic achievement. Using cluster analysis, three aspiration profiles emerged, which include individualistic (focused on the possible future self), independent (concentrated on one’s own future family and independence), and social (focused on future friends and the family of origin). The independent profile demonstrated better overall psychological and academic adjustment than did the other two profiles. The article discusses the results of the study using the framework of self-determination theory in the context of Italian society.
... The steady pursuit of even a single goal is challenging, yet the self-regulation story becomes more demanding (and intriguing) when one considers that every day individuals are pursuing several goals. Most individuals report pursuing 7-15 goals at a given moment in their life (see Emmons & King, 1988;Little & Gee, 2007), and these goals, when considered alongside each other, can have both positive and negative effects on goal success. In this section, we introduce these issues in the simplest form of multiple goal relations (and the one that has been most studied): the context of two goals. ...
Juggling multiple goals is an inescapable reality of human life. Over the past two decades, the study of the nature of multiple (vs. single) goals has emerged to become an influential topic. To facilitate the understanding of the current state of the literature, this article presents an overview of the study of multiple goals. It first addresses the nature and impact of dual‐goal relations and reviews strategies people use to manage goal conflict (i.e., choosing, multitasking, and prioritizing). It then examines ways to conceptualize the relations among a collection of goals (i.e., goal structure), highlights emerging research in this area, and discusses factors that contribute to optimizing the pursuit of multiple goals. Throughout, the review highlights knowledge gaps and the need for future research to study subjective experiences in managing multiple goals.
... They are assessed by Personal Projects Analysis (PPA), a multi-modular methodology assessing the content, structure, dynamics and impact of project pursuit (Little, 1983;Little & Gee, 2007). Psychometrically PPA facilitates both idiographic and normative analysis and is guided by measurement criteria that challenge conventional approaches (Little, 2000). ...
Structural approaches to personality have brought about considerable progress in description and prediction of interindividual differences in thoughts, feelings, and behavior. However, in order to move towards personality psychology as an explanatory science, we argue that structural, process-oriented and developmental approaches to personality have to be integrated. We summarize the main propositions of a theoretical framework published in a target article in the European Journal of Personality (Baumert et al., 2017a), and highlight the resulting challenges for future personality research.
... Similarly, studies such as those conducted by Nurmi, Salmela-Aro and Koivisto (2002) investigate the impact of assessing the importance and achievement of work-related goals on the success of young adults in finding a job after graduation. Studies such as those conducted by Little and Gee (2007), Salmela-Aro (2008), andHyvonen et al. (2009) describe the content of sets of personal goals at work; however, such studies are not successful in proposing unified models of possible contents of career goals, reducing the reliability of these studies and the possibility of replication. ...
This paper aims to propose a concept and an instrument of professional fulfillment (PF), which is theoretically defined as the perception of having attained or being on the right track for attaining one’s most important career goals. The Professional Fulfillment Scale (PFS) was developed in order to operationalize PF, being tested across two studies. Regarding Study 1, in which 406 workers took part, results from exploratory factor analysis evidenced construct validity for PFS. In Study 2, in which 270 workers took part, results from confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling presented satisfactory model fit indices for PFS. We conclude that both the professional fulfillment concept and the scale are useful for mapping people’s importance and achievement of career goals and evaluation of progress, working as a diagnostic tool for career management.
... Personal goals are identified by the participant using his or her own phrasing, but goal dimensions are scored by standard means, allowing for comparison across participants [5]. The PPA allows for the assessment of multiple goals simultaneously and has been used to assess personal goals among a range of populations including people with cancer and people experiencing illness [6,9,[17][18][19]. Consistent with the PPA, at T1, we will ask participants to list up to twelve personal goals, in their own words, over the next three to four months. ...
Objectives: This study aims to identify the personal goals of women with breast cancer, to describe the characteristics of partici- pants’ personal goals over four months, and to identify barriers and facilitators to their pursuit.
Methods: This protocol outlines plans to conduct a prospective cohort study. We will recruit women participating in the Ottawa In- tegrative Cancer Centre’s Head Start program (an integrative oncology psychoeducational program in Ottawa, Canada), and those on the program’s waiting list if possible. We anticipate a sample size of approximately 18 to 36 women. Prior to the beginning of Head Start, participants will identify their current personal goals and rate them on various dimensions on a questionnaire. At one and three months, participants will re-assess their goals and their goal pursuit. In a one-on-one interview at three months, they will identify barriers and facilitators to the pursuit of their goals. We will analyze quantitative data using descriptive and inferential statistics, and qualitative data using thematic content analysis.
Conclusion: Findings from this study will identify important information about the personal goals of women recently diagnosed with breast cancer that can help to support the process of positive goal adjustment and enhance support to these women.
Résumé
Objectifs : Cette étude vise à identifier les objectifs personnels des femmes atteintes d’un cancer du sein, à décrire les caractéristiques des objectifs personnels des participantes sur une période de quatre mois, et à identifier les obstacles et les facilitateurs à leur poursuite.
Méthodes : Ce protocole décrit les plans pour mener une étude de cohorte prospective. Nous recruterons des femmes qui participeront au programme Head Start du Centre de cancérologie intégrative d’Ottawa (un programme psychopédagogique intégratif en oncologie à Ottawa, au Canada) et celles qui sont sur la liste d’attente du programme, si possible. Nous prévoyons un échantillon d’environ 18 à 36 femmes. Avant le début de Head Start, les participantes identifieront leurs objectifs personnels actuels et les noteront sur différentes dimensions dans un questionnaire. À un et trois mois, les participantes réévalueront leurs objectifs et la poursuite de leur objectif. Dans une entrevue individuelle à trois mois, elles identifieront les obstacles et les facilitateurs à la poursuite de leurs objectifs. Nous analyserons les données quantitatives à l’aide de statistiques descriptives et inférentielles, et les données qualitatives à l’aide d’analyses de contenu thématiques.
Conclusion : Les résultats de cette étude permettront d’identifier des informations importantes sur les objectifs personnels des femmes récemment diagnostiquées avec un cancer du sein qui peuvent aider à soutenir le processus d’ajustement positif des objectifs et améliorer le soutien à ces femmes.
... They are assessed by Personal Projects Analysis (PPA), a multi-modular methodology assessing the content, structure, dynamics and impact of project pursuit (Little, 1983;Little & Gee, 2007). Psychometrically PPA facilitates both idiographic and normative analysis and is guided by measurement criteria that challenge conventional approaches (Little, 2000). ...
Based on the thoughtful and thought-provoking comments, we strengthened some of the main proposals of
our framework to integrate research on personality structure, process, and development. Integration is an important, yet challenging goal for personality science, and we see considerable potential for it, theoretically and in empirical research. We clarified our use of critical concepts, such as behaviour, trait, and personality structure. We suggest that avoiding use of broadly construed traits will be helpful in preventing circularity in explanations. Strictly speaking, we see no causal role for broadly construed traits. We discuss how observed structural differences between measures taken over different time scales or within and between individuals, can inform hypotheses about shared and unique causal mechanisms, and argue for the unique relevance of psychological processes in personality science.
... Critically, everyday problem solving requires people to juggle multiple goals in parallel (Atkinson & Birch, 1970;Miller, Galanter, & Pribram, 1960). Concretely, when people are given ten minutes to list their current pursuits they will report about 15 goals on average and each of those goals typically entails multiple subgoals at several levels of abstraction (Little & Gee, 2007). ...
Most psychological theories attribute people's failure to achieve their goals exclusively to insufficient motivation or lack of skill. Here, we offer a complementary explanation that emphasizes the inherent complexity of the computational problems that arise from the structure of people's goal systems. Concretely, we hypothesize that people's capacity to achieve their goals can be predicted from combinatorial parameters of the structure of the network connecting their goals to the means available to pursue them. To test this hypothesis, we expressed the relationship between goals and means as a bipartite graph where edges between means and goals indicate which means can be used to achieve which goals. This allowed us to map two computational challenges that arise in goal achievement onto two classic NP-hard problems: Set Cover and Maximum Coverage. The connection between goal pursuit and NP-hard problems led us to predict that people should perform better with goal systems that are tree-like. Three behavioral experiments confirmed this prediction. Our results imply that network parameters that are instrumental to algorithm design could also be useful for understanding when and why people struggle in their goal pursuits.
... To construct the teacher's goal system representation, we adapted the widely used and well known laddering method (Grunert and Grunert 1995;Veledo-de Oliviera et al. 2006) for coconstructing the teacher's goal system (Janssen et al. 2013). The laddering method, which originated in clinical psychology, is a well-established procedure in several fields for constructing personal goal-means structures to predict and influence behavior (Little and Travis 2007;Reynolds and Olson 2001) and has been previously used to construct a teacher's GS for teaching a lesson (Janssen et al. 2013(Janssen et al. , 2014a. In case 1, however, we were interested in the teacher's goal system for the task of teaching a unit. ...
Curriculum ideals often get compromised as a curriculum moves through its various levels of representation. Across the different science reforms, this process of slippage is clearly present. Research shows that teacher subject matter knowledge, PCK, beliefs and context factors all influence implementation. Professional development arrangements focus on fixing deficiencies in teachers’ knowledge, beliefs or work context. This approach has not solved the problem of slippage, as we still do not understand what mechanisms operate when teachers make decisions about change proposals. In this study, we unpacked the decision mechanisms of three highly qualified chemistry teachers who subsequently adapted an innovative context-based chemistry unit. In spite of a state of the art professional development arrangement and the teachers being highly qualified, slippage occurred. The teachers’ goal systems were used to interpret their reasoning. A goal system is a context-dependent, within-person mental construct that consists of a hierarchy of a person’s goals and means in pursuit of a task. We showed that all three teachers adopted or redesigned elements of the change proposals to meet their core goals, i.e., goals that had multiple connections with other goals. This indicated that the adaptations teachers made were perfectly reasonable ways to serve their professional goals. For change to happen, we contend that one should begin with ways to connect teachers’ core goals with the lesson or unit goal demands of a proposed innovation. Change emerges from the adaptions teachers make in the service of their core goals.
... The present study adopts the " Personal Project Analysis " (PPA, Little, 1983) to assess personal goals and their characteristics. According to PPA, personal projects are " extended sets of personally salient action " (Little and Gee, 2007, p. 25). ...
Objectives: In individuals with chronic pain (ICPs), controlling pain often is a salient goal, despite the difficulty to achieve it. This situation may bring along frustration and distress. Yet much remains unknown about the content, appraisal, and structure of goals that ICPs pursue. Here, we explore these goals, and specifically focus upon possible differences and interrelations between pain control goals (e.g., “to control my pain”) and non-pain goals (e.g., “to go to work”).
Design and Methods: “Personal Project Analysis” was used in 73 ICPs (48 females; 25 males; Mage = 49.85 years; SD = 9.72) to elicit goals and goal appraisals. Interrelations between pain and non-pain goals, namely interference (i.e., negative influence), facilitation (i.e., positive influence), and necessary condition (i.e., conditional relation between pain control goal and non-pain goals) were measured with three items. Self-report measures of pain intensity, pain catastrophizing, problem solving and acceptance were completed.
Results: Participants reported a variety of goals. Appraisals of pain control goals were less favorable than appraisals of non-pain goals. ICPs with higher acceptance and meaningfulness of life reported more control over pain goals, and more progress in reaching pain control goals. These individuals also reported an overall much more positive appraisal of non-pain goals (i.e., less stress, difficulty, more progress, control). In contrast, high catastrophizing and the need to solve pain were negatively related to goal appraisals. Importantly, ICP’s with high perceived meaningfulness of life despite pain experienced less necessity to achieve pain control goals in order to achieve non-pain goals. This was opposite for individuals with high levels of catastrophizing.
Discussion: An understanding of why ICPs may become stuck in attempts to control their pain does not only require an understanding of how individuals appraise their pain, but also requires an understanding of how pain and non-pain goals interrelate. In particular, the view that controlling pain is necessary in order to be able to achieve other goals seems detrimental.
Background
The promotion of multiple healthy lifestyles has been implemented as part of public health efforts to prevent and reduce the burden of non-communicable diseases. However, these interventions have shown a heterogeneity in their effectiveness. The pursuit of multiple daily goals may influence overall progress in achieving health goals. Horizontal inter-goal relations can be conflicting (due to time constraints) or facilitating (due to goal compatibility) and impact progress towards goal achievement. Personal values also play an important role in health promotion. Personal values direct attention towards accomplishing a higher-level goal through goal setting. Identifying the conflicting or facilitating relationships between health goals and personal values would provide insights in how individuals value health and the personal values that may support the adoption of a healthy behavior. The health goals that this study will focus on are physical activity and a healthy diet.
Methods
Participants between 18 and 30 years old residing in Belgium and interested in a healthy diet and/or physical activity, will be recruited. The study will be a mixed-methods research study based on an adapted personal project analysis for goal elicitation, goal appraisal, and rating of inter-goal conflicting or facilitating relations on a cross-impact matrix. The main objectives include examining the conflicting and facilitating relations between health goals and personal values. Secondary objectives include: examining correlations between horizontal and vertical goal relations; and the goal self-concordance score as a method of data triangulation of facilitating relations between goals and personal values.
Discussion
This study will provide insights into how the emerging adult population relate healthy behaviors, specifically physical activity and a healthy diet, to their personal values. The degree to which individuals are able to pursue a health goal is also influenced by other life goals, and therefore the conflicting and facilitating relations between health goals and other life goals will also be examined. This study contributes to multiple health behavior change theories and has implications for the formulation of interventions for the promotion of healthy behaviors.
The consciousness of self in the educational project is associated with a substantially reduced dramatic sense of alienation and emptiness in adult students. Still, the basis of this reflective mechanism remains unknown. The author tested the hypothesis that biographical reflection increases the positive effects of purpose and project education in students. This sample of convenience consisted of 250 participants at each of the ages of 17–35 years. The study focused on three aspects, which were measured: biographical reflection, and purpose in life, and educational projects. Biographical reflection was assessed via the author’s “Biographical-Reflection Test”. Purpose in life was assessed via the “Purpose-in- Life Test” adapted to the Russian context. A life project was assessed via “Personal Projects Analysis (PPA)” of B. R. Little adapted to the Russian context. A higher level of biographical reflection increases the meaningfulness of educational projects and clear purpose in adult students. It reduces the effect of projects’ dependence on social expectations when people do not think educational projects have much personal meaning. These results increase the theoretical validity of support for students’ project activities.
We present a novel personality assessment method that applies social cognitive personality theory, and more specifically, the Knowledge and Appraisal Personality Architecture model (KAPA; Cervone, 2004 ; 2021 ; see Scott & Cervone, 2016 ). Our assessment method generates descriptions of how personality structures, including temperament, beliefs, goals, and evaluative standards, are activated in “functionally equivalent” situations to generate if–then personality signatures ( Mischel, 2004 ). These descriptions represent models of personality coherence, which we characterize as strong attractor states. We define personality incoherence as nonexistent or perturbed attractor states, in which the situational “if” does not consistently produce a coherent “then” pattern of thinking, feeling, and behaving. We provide a step-by-step description of our personality assessment method, and include lists of measures that can be used to assess temperament, beliefs, goals, and standards. To illustrate our personality assessment method, we present a case study of a man in his forties who met criteria for persistent depressive disorder, with intermittent major depressive episodes, with current episode and generalized anxiety disorder. For this client, we describe two “attractor states,” one maladaptive and one adaptive, each providing an example of personality coherence. We conclude by discussing potential future directions and limitations of our personality assessment method.
Historically, the study of multiple goals has focused on the dynamics between two goals as the prototypical example of multiple goals. This focus on dyadic relations means that many issues central to the psychology of more than two goals are still unexplored. We argue that a deeper understanding of multiple-goal issues involves moving beyond two goals. Doing so not only reveals new insights about goal relations (e.g., how one dyadic relation affects another) but also introduces goal structure (how goals and goal relations are positioned relative to each other) as a variable in its own right worthy of study. In our review, we discuss current knowledge gaps, review methodologies both in terms of existing techniques and novel techniques we propose, and highlight new directions from moving beyond two goals-what new questions emerge and what dynamics, including intersectional issues (e.g., between goal properties and goal structure), become possible to explore.
Historically, the study of multiple goals has focused on the dynamics between two goals as the prototypical example of multiple goals. This focus on dyadic relations means that many issues central to the psychology of more than two goals are still unexplored. We argue that a deeper understanding of multiple goal issues involves moving beyond two goals. Doing so not only reveals new insights about goal relations (e.g., how one dyadic relation affects another), but also introduces goal structure (how goals and goal relations are positioned relative to each other) as a variable in its own right worthy of study. In our review, we discuss current knowledge gaps, review methodologies both in terms of existing techniques and novel techniques we propose, and highlight new directions from moving beyond two goals—what new questions emerge and what dynamics, including intersectional issues (e.g., between goal properties and goal structure), become possible to explore.
In personality science, the choice of units of analysis is a key factor for understanding the dynamic transactions of people in context. One of the earliest analytic units adopted for such purposes is that of personal projects—extended sets of personally salient action in context that are pivotal for understanding how individuals can partially shape their lives. Personal projects can range from the tedious tasks of a Tuesday morning to the joyous passions of a lifetime and serve as the vehicles through which we shape our lives and those of others. We review four decades of research on the social ecology of personal project pursuit and focus on personal projects analysis (PPA), a multimodular methodology that allows us to examine project content, appraisal, dynamics, and impact. Adopting the social ecological framework within which projects are embedded provides us with novel ways of looking at personality in terms of “free traits,” personal contexts, and well-doing. We conclude that the quality of human lives is contingent on the sustainable pursuit of core projects and that our fates, beyond traits, can be salutary and fulfilling.
Resumo O presente artigo visa propor um conceito e um instrumento de realização profissional (RP), definida teoricamente como a percepção de se ter alcançado as metas de carreira mais importantes ou a avaliação positiva de que se está no caminho para alcançar tais metas. A Escala de Realização Profissional (ERP) foi desenvolvida para operacionalizar a RP, sendo sua estrutura testada em dois estudos. No Estudo 1, no qual participaram 406 trabalhadores, resultados da análise fatorial exploratória evidenciaram a validade de construto da ERP. No Estudo 2, no qual participaram 270 trabalhadores, os resultados oriundos da análise fatorial confirmatória e da modelagem por equações estruturais indicaram que a ERP apresenta índices de ajuste do modelo satisfatórios. Conclui-se que tanto o conceito de realização profissional quanto a ERP são úteis para mapear o grau de importância, alcance e progresso das metas de carreira, funcionando como ferramenta de diagnóstico para o gerenciamento de carreira. Palavras-chave: realização profissional; carreira; metas 1 O artigo original, em inglês, está publicado na Revista Psico-USF, podendo ser acesso pelo link
Baumert and colleagues argued that research on between- and within-individual differences and expression of personality processes in context should be integrated. We applaud this effort and their focus on developmental processes but felt that their descriptions remained too unspecific. This comment highlights six issues that may contribute to a fruitful debate of future personality research: (a) induction time, (b) co-development of disorder states, (c) theory testing, (d) non-ergodicity and inferences at the within-individual level, (e) development as a complex dynamic system and (f) integration of literatures from neighboring scientific disciplines.
Baumert and colleagues make a compelling case for integration in personality research, but fall short of presenting a convincing program for achieving it. I argue that evolution is the “missing catalyst” of integration and that the field is destined to remain fragmented until it fully embraces the evolutionary paradigm. I illustrate the heuristic and integrative power of an evolutionary approach by focusing on the central issue of motivation; recasting motivational processes in a modern biological perspective affords a wealth of integrative insights that cut across process, development, and structure.
This overview of the psychology of personality dynamics locates contemporary trends within the field's long history. Investigators of the 19th and 20th centuries are recognized as having identified scientific challenges that must be addressed today if one is to attain a comprehensive understanding of personality architecture and dynamics. We outline four themes that were highlighted by investigators of the past. We then consider how theoretical and methodological challenges associated with these themes are addressed by two contemporary models of personality architecture, dynamics, and functioning: the Knowledge-and-Appraisal Personality Architecture (KAPA model) and the social ecological perspective of Personal Projects Analysis (PPA).
Has research by psychologists truly advanced our understanding of human flourishing and the quality of lives? Some philosophers (e.g. Nussbaum, J Leg Stud 37(52):S81–S113, 2008)) are sceptical and believe that the models and methods of psychology obscure or ignore those features of lives constitutive of flourishing. I engage this debate by calling for a reformulation of how we study the quality of lives by focusing upon well-doing or felicitous action. Well-doing comprises the sustainable pursuit of core projects in our lives. A social ecological model of project pursuit is presented in which the stable and dynamic features of individuals and the contexts of their daily lives are highlighted. Research on the social ecology of well-doing provides a thickly textured and granular level of analysis of how people craft their lives. It opens up a research agenda in which philosophers and psychologists can find congenial intellectual company and common purpose.
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