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CHAPTER 4

Personality Theories of

Successful Aging

NATALIE C. EBNER and ALEXANDRA M. FREUND

N THIS CHAPTER

, we combine an action-theoretical view with a life span-

developmental perspective on personality and successful aging to examine the

role of goals and goal-related processes for adaptive development. One of the

basic assumptions of this integration is that goals and goal-related processes mo-

tivate, organize, and direct behavior and development over time. By setting, pur-

suing, and maintaining goals, persons can actively shape their development in

interaction with their given physical, cultural-historical, and social living con-

text. This renders goals and goal-related processes central to personality and suc-

cessful development across the life span as they constitute a link between the

person and his or her life contexts over time.

We start this chapter by defining the concept of successful development and

aging. Then we outline the concept of personality underlying our approach using

McAdams’s (1990, 1995) model of levels of personality. This model integrates dis-

positional traits, personal concerns and goals, and life narratives as three levels

of personality. We discuss the notion of goals as personality-in-context by de-

scribing goals as dynamic aspects of personality reflecting the interaction of a

person with his or her environment over time. Finally, to highlight the role of

personal goals for successful development, we present three prominent concep-

tual frameworks of developmental regulation: the model of selection, optimiza-

tion, and compensation (P. B. Baltes & Baltes, 1990), the dual-process model of

coping (Brandtstädter & Renner, 1990), and the model of primary and secondary

control (Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995).

WHAT IS SUCCESSFUL DEVELOPMENT?

On a very broad level, current life span-developmental psychology often de-

scribes adaptive (or successful) development as a lifelong process of generating

new resources as well as adjusting to physical, social, and psychological changes

with the overall aim to simultaneously maximize developmental gains and

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minimize developmental losses (M. M. Baltes & Carstensen, 1996; P. B. Baltes,

1997; P. B. Baltes & Baltes, 1990; Brandtstädter, 1986; Labouvie-Vief, 1981). At

present, however, the literature offers no commonly accepted set of criteria that

defines successful aging on a more specific level. As elaborated by Freund and

Riediger (2003), different authors make different suggestions regarding criteria

for successful development in general and successful aging in particular. P. B.

Baltes and Baltes, for example, list as criteria for successful aging longevity,

physical and mental health, cognitive functioning, social competence, produc-

tivity, perceived personal control, and life satisfaction. Similarly, Lawton (1983)

proposes to combine perceived life quality such as subjective satisfaction with

various life domains, psychological well-being (e.g., happiness or goal achieve-

ment), behavioral competence with respect to health, motor behavior, and cog-

nition, and objective environmental conditions such as financial or living

situation as measures of “the good life.” One of the shortcomings of such lists,

however, is that they leave open how these criteria should be combined, whether

a different weight should be attached to one over the other, and whether the

lists should be considered comprehensive or simply a collection to which crite-

ria could be added or from which criteria could be deleted.

Freund and Riediger (2003) distinguish two approaches to defining successful

development: (1) Criteria-oriented approaches focus on characteristics constitut-

ing success as an end point or outcome of development; the guiding question of

these approaches is What is successful development?; (2) process-oriented ap-

proaches to defining successful development focus on the question What are the

processes and conditions that foster developmental success over time? These approaches

are dynamic in that they view individuals as continuously adapting to changing

environmental situations, acting on and creating environments to fit their needs,

and generating new resources (Lawton, 1989; Lerner & Busch-Rossnagel, 1981).

They emphasize the balance or fit between a person’s needs and capabilities on

the one hand and environmental opportunities and constraints on the other

(Lawton & Nahemow, 1973; Thomae, 1976).

There is general agreement that a comprehensive characterization of success-

ful development entails multiple criteria instead of one specific, single criterion.

Most empirical research, however, still follows the single-criterion approach that

employs the individual’s global sense of well-being as the only criterion for suc-

cessful aging and adaptive developmental regulation. Therefore, to understand

the concept of successful aging as often conceptualized in empirical studies it is

necessary to reflect on the notion of subjective well-being.

As is true for the concept of successful development, there is no single defini-

tion of subjective well-being. Often, subjective well-being is seen as indicating

that the person successfully manages his or her life and ages well (Neugarten,

Havighurst, & Tobin, 1961). Kunzmann (1999) distinguishes between “broad”

and “narrow” conceptualizations on the basis of the number of defining facets.

Broad definitions encompass various facets of well-being (e.g., Lawton, 1975).

Ryff (1989, 1995; Ryff & Keyes, 1995), for instance, stresses the importance of

going beyond happiness to define positive psychological functioning. Her con-

ception takes six dimensions into account: self-acceptance, environmental mas-

tery, positive interpersonal relations, purpose in life, personal growth, and

autonomy. Narrower conceptualizations typically distinguish between two di-

mensions of subjective well-being: a cognitive dimension (life satisfaction) and

Personality Theories of Successful Aging 89

Table 4.1

Approaches to Conceptualizing Successful Development and Aging

Approach Aim of Approach (Leading Question)

Criteria-oriented Description of characteristics constituting success as an outcome

of development (“What

successful development?”)

Process-oriented Perspective on individuals as in continuous interaction with their

environment (“What are the

processes

and

conditions

that foster

developmental success over time?”)

Multiple criteria Integration of subjective and objective indicators (“How can

subjective and objective indicators

be integrated into one index of

successful development?”)

Single criterion

Assessment of a person’s global or domain-specific subjective well-

being (“How can

subjective well-being

as one indicator of successful

development be assessed [general or domain-specific, once or

repeatedly]?”)

an emotional dimension (encompassing positive and negative affect; Bradburn,

1969; Campbell, Converse, & Rodgers, 1976; Diener, 1984; Veenhoven, 1991).

These dimensions can be either used in a domain-general way or applied to spe-

cific life domains.

One of the critiques of subjective well-being as the main or even sole criterion

for successful development is that it does not explicitly take environmental condi-

tions into consideration that support successful aging or the successful inter-

action between a person and his or her life context (Havighurst, 1963; Lawton,

1989). A multiple-criteria approach, in contrast, aims at an integration of subjec-

tive indicators (e.g., personal life satisfaction and happiness) and more objective

indicators (e.g., everyday instrumental competence). These criteria can be either

short term (e.g., last week’s happiness) or long term (e.g., meaning and purpose

in life), domain-specific (e.g., satisfaction with financial situation) or general

(e.g., overall life satisfaction), as well as static and with a definite end point (e.g.,

life satisfaction at a given point in time) or dynamic (e.g., change in life satisfac-

tion over time; Freund & Riediger, 2003).

Taken together, we distinguish four main approaches to conceptualizing success-

ful development and aging: criteria-oriented, process-oriented, single-criterion, and

multi-criteria approaches. Table 4.1 summarizes these four outlined approaches.

As we pointed out, there is currently no agreement as to which single criterion

or combination of criteria best defines successful development. One of the rea-

sons for this lack of consensus is that there is no generally agreed-upon model of

successful development and aging that could serve as the basis for such a defini-

tion. Instead, there are numerous theoretical approaches to successful develop-

ment and even more empirical findings pertaining to more or less specific factors

contributing to adaptive development. Integration of these findings is difficult

because studies use different indicators for successful aging.

It is beyond the scope of this chapter to offer a comprehensive, integrative

model of successful development. Instead, we aim at approaching the topic

of successful aging on different levels of personality, focusing on the level of

personal goals and taking different criteria and dimensions into account.

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Endorsing the life span-developmental view (P. B. Baltes, 1987, 1997) that (a) de-

velopment from birth to death has no clear end point and that developmental

trajectories, (b) are multidirectional (i.e., encompass both gains and losses), and

more than one function), we favor a process-oriented approach. This approach

focuses on how people interact with their environment in adaptive ways (M. M.

Baltes & Carstensen, 1996). As we will elaborate in more detail, we posit that

personal goals are particularly well suited for understanding the processes of suc-

cessful developmental regulation (Freund & Riediger, 2006). Before elaborating

on the role of goals for successful aging, however, we embed the concept of per-

sonal goals into a broader conceptualization of personality in terms of three lev-

els, as proposed by McAdams (1996).

LEVELS OF PERSONALITY

How is personality related to successful development and aging? To address this

question, we first need to clarify what we mean by personality. Following Freund

and Riediger’s (2006) approach to the relationship between personality and suc-

cessful aging, we use a model of personality by McAdams (1995, 1996) compris-

ing three levels of personality. Level I refers to dispositional traits. Traits are

conceptualized as broad, decontextualized, and relatively nonconditional dispo-

sitions that generalize across a variety of situations and show considerable sta-

bility over time. Level II constructs are personal concerns. Personal goals are a

prototypical instance of such Level II constructs. Other personality descriptions

on this level are personal strivings, life tasks, defense mechanisms, coping strate-

gies, and a wide range of other motivational, developmental, and strategic con-

structs. These concepts contextualize a person’s life in time, place, and/or social

roles. Level III pertains to people’s identity, that is, to how they integrate and in-

ternalize their life stories as narrations of their personal reconstructed past, per-

ceived present, and anticipated future. According to McAdams (2001), most

adults who live in modern societies seek to provide their lives with unity, pur-

pose, and meaning by constructing internalized and evolving life narratives,

including specific settings, scenes, characters, plots, and themes. Level III of per-

sonality is seen as being embedded in and echoing cultural, political, economic,

and social environments. As these contexts change, so does the life story of a

person. Moreover, the flexibility of life stories is also evident in the notion

that “people offer different stories about themselves in different contexts”

(McAdams, 1996, p. 307). Identity is not merely the sum of all of these life narra-

tives but the overall story that binds together high and low points in life, chance

encounters, critical life events, and social relations. The following sections elab-

orate on these three levels of personality.

EVEL

I: S

TABLE

SPECTS OF

ERSONALITY

On Level I, personality can be described in terms of basic personality traits, that is,

behavioral dispositions that are independent of the context and stable across time

and situations (see Costa & McCrae, 1994, for a strong version of the stability argu-

ment; but see also Srivastava, John, Gosling, & Potter, 2003, for a softer version of

the “plaster” hypothesis). The main question of research on personality traits

Personality Theories of Successful Aging 91

refers to the identification of a universal structure of personality, individual dif-

ferences, and the extent of longitudinal stability (Costa & McCrae, 1994, 1995).

There is consensus that personality can be well described by the Big Five per-

sonality traits: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and

openness to new experiences. These five factors have been identified by means of

factor analysis across various instruments and samples. Cross-sectional as well as

longitudinal evidence on the structural invariance of the Big Five exists for adult-

hood and into old age (Costa & McCrae, 1994; Small, Hertzog, Hultsch, & Dixon,

2003). Moreover, according to a meta-analysis by Roberts and DelVecchio (2000),

the rank-order stability of the Big Five increases across the life span. These results

were recently supplemented with regard to old and very old age by longitudinal

aging studies (Mroczek & Spiro, 2003; Small et al., 2003).

Contrary to some trait personality theorists’ view that personality is “set like

plaster” after the age of 30 (Costa & McCrae, 1994), cross-sectional as well as lon-

gitudinal evidence on mean levels of personality show changes in some of the Big

Five characteristics across adulthood. Neuroticism, for example, decreases across

adulthood (Mroczek & Spiro, 2003) and shows some increase again in very old

age (Small et al., 2003). Moreover, in addition to becoming more neurotic, elderly

people tend to become less open to new experiences and less extraverted (Costa,

Herbst, McCrae, & Siegler, 2000), whereas they tend to become slightly more

agreeable and conscientious (Helson & Kwan, 2000).

Summarizing this empirical evidence based on trait as well as growth models of

personality clearly suggests that personality development in adulthood and old

age is characterized by both stability and change. Regarding the relationship of the

Big Five to subjective indicators of aging well, neuroticism is typically found to be

negatively associated with measures of subjective well-being, whereas extraversion

shows a positive relation to well-being. For instance, Isaacowitz and Smith (2003)

demonstrated that in old and very old age (70 to 102 years), neuroticism is linked to

higher negative and lower positive affect. The opposite pattern was found for extra-

version (negative correlation with negative affect, positive correlation with positive

affect). Note, however, that this pattern also holds for younger age groups (e.g., Di-

ener, 1984) and thus does not seem to constitute a developmental phenomenon.

UMPING TO

EVEL

III: P

ERSONAL

DENTITY

In contrast to dispositional traits, life narratives are heavily influenced by speci-

ficities of the context and are subject to change across situations and time.

McAdams (1990) argues that a unified or integrated life story, however, provides

individuals with an identity and allows them to maintain a coherent self-concept

across the entire life span (Cohen, 1998). Life stories are told to different audi-

ences with different purposes: A life story told to a future spouse might look very

different from the life story told to a future employer, not because the narrator

becomes a different person in between the two events but because different as-

pects of a biography seem important and merit elaboration in these two contexts.

According to McAdams, identity is not derived from one (veridical) life story but

from the very act of meaning-making and integration of different aspects of a life

into one coherent story (albeit possibly a different one each time it is told).

The concept of autobiographical memories is closely related to the concept of

life stories (see also Habermas & Bluck, 2000). Some theories on autobiographical

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memory (e.g., Pillemer, 1992) hold that it can serve three broad functions: direc-

tive (planning for present and future behaviors), self (self-continuity, psychody-

namic integrity), and social (social bonding, communication; Bluck & Alea, 2002).

The directive function involves using the past during conversations to guide pres-

ent and future thought and behavior such as problem solving, developing opin-

ions and attitudes, or providing flexibility in the construction and updating of

rules. The self-function provides the ability to support and promote continuity

and development of the self and preserves a sense of being a coherent person over

time. This function serves to explain oneself to others (and to oneself). The social

(intimacy or bonding) function, finally, is important for developing, maintaining,

and nurturing social relationships. This makes us a more believable and persua-

sive partner in conversations, provides the listener with information about our-

selves, and allows us to better understand and empathize with others.

Life stories can be related to successful development and aging in multiple

ways. As pointed out by Erikson (1968), life review becomes a major developmen-

tal task in old age. This life stage, according to Erikson, is characterized by

the two opposite poles of “integrity” and “despair.” Following Erikson, wisdom

emerges when people are able to accept both the positive and negative events of

their lives and do not simply gloss over disappointments and failures but are able

to integrate them in a coherent life story together with positive aspects of their

past lives. If one understands successful aging as reaching this point, one might

argue that positivity of the life story should not be a criterion of aging well. Inter-

estingly, already at midage, it is the theme of redemption (i.e., turning a negative

event into a positive one), not a smooth life path filled with positive events, that

is, for instance, related to generativity (i.e., giving to the next generation in some

way; McAdams, 2001) as a possible indicator of successful development.

Another argument could be made for continuity of the life story as a milestone of

successful development and aging (Bluck & Alea, 2002). As it turns out, however,

continuity of a life story over time is not necessarily related to positive functioning

in old age. In a study by Coleman, Ivani-Chalian, and Robinson (1998), a substantial

percentage of their sample of older adults (> 80 years) did not conceive of their life

story as a coherent one, but were not necessarily dissatisfied with their present life.

The specific autobiographical memories that are most accessible at a given time

may largely depend on a person’s goals. As goal-relevant information is more im-

portant than information not related to personal goals, it is also more likely to be

activated and accessible at a certain time point (Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000).

As we will see, personal goals can change over the life span. As a consequence, a

set of memories that was once goal-related and self-defining may no longer be so

at a later point in life (Singer & Salovey, 1993). Abandoned earlier goals, however,

can define one’s “past self” and thereby provide a psychological history of

changes in the self. In this way, changes in goals can contribute to life narratives

(“What did I use to want in the past, and how did it change over time?”).

People construe their self and their identity partially around their personal

goals because goals can offer a sense of purpose and meaning in life (Little, 1989)

and provide the possibility for integration of otherwise unconnected behaviors

into one unifying frame (Freund, 2006b). As will be elaborated more in the next

sections, personal goals can therefore be seen as part of the binding thread that

links the person with his or her context (Freund, 2006b; Little, 1989; McAdams,

1996). This will then clarify how personal concerns and personal goals as Level II

constructs link Level I and Level III.

Personality Theories of Successful Aging 93

PERSONAL GOALS: PERSONALITY-IN-CONTEXT

From early on, personality psychology has conceptualized goals as building

blocks of personality (Freund & Riediger, 2006). In his dynamic theory of person-

ality, Allport (1937, pp. 320–321) regards

motives as personalized systems of tensions, in which the core of impulse is not to

be divorced from the images, ideas of goal, past experience, capacities, and style of

conduct employed in obtaining the goal. Only individualized patterns of motives

have the capacity to select stimuli, to control and direct segmental tensions, to ini-

tiate responses and to render them equivalent, in ways that are consistent with, and

characteristic of, the person himself.

Personal goals are often defined as consciously accessible cognitive representa-

tions of states a person wants to achieve, maintain, or avoid in the future (Em-

mons, 1996). They are relatively consistent across situations and over time. Cantor

(1990) suggests locating goals at an intermediate level of personality, the level be-

tween “being” (i.e., personality traits, basic dispositions) and “doing” (i.e., behav-

ioral responses in a given situation), a distinction introduced by Allport (1937).

That is, goals are not as broad and comprehensive as personality traits, although

they may be influenced by them. They are also not as specific as behaviors. Rather,

they motivate, structure, and direct behavior over time and situations into mean-

ingful action units (Baumeister, 1991; Emmons, 1986; Ford, 1987; Gollwitzer, 1990;

Klinger, 1977) and favor the acquisition and use of resources to obtain the goals

(cf. Boesch, 1991; Freund, 2003). Goals can focus attention on those stimuli and ac-

tions in a given situation that are goal-relevant (Bargh & Ferguson, 2000; Goll-

witzer & Moskowitz, 1996; Kruglanski, 1996; Pervin, 1989). As a consequence, they

reduce situational complexity and facilitate interaction with the environment.

As goals are inherently content- or domain-specific, Little (1989) called this

Level II of personality the “personality-in-context.” According to Little, the notion

of personality-in-context is based on the idea of an interaction between the person

and his or her environment over time. Personal goals reflect the interface between

the person’s basic personality traits and the specific environment in which he

or she lives. Specifically, the content a goal refers to as well as the goal-related

processes that specify how people select, pursue, and disengage from goals are

crucial in this regard. Addressing the issue of successful development and aging

in the present context, we do not focus on the content of goals (see Freund & Riedi-

ger, 2006, for a recent overview) but on the motivational processes that accompany

and underlie goal-related processes and their relations to successful development.

EFINING

ONTEXT

Context can be broadly defined as the set of circumstances that surrounds a

person, such as culture, historical time, family, social relations, and geographical

environment. It does not only serve as a background for the behavioral expression of

personality, but also plays an important role in shaping personality. Cultural, social,

or geographic conditions may represent limitations as well as chances and opportu-

nities in that they exclude or allow certain possibilities of whether and how a person

can express his or her basic personality traits. For example, growing up with older

siblings may render a person more agreeable because only by being more agreeable

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might the younger child, constantly lagging behind the older siblings regarding ver-

bal, cognitive, and motor skills, be able to achieve his or her goals. Contextual con-

straints fulfill an important function in that they specify the boundaries without

which personality development would be impossible, as the space of possible devel-

opmental trajectories would be too vast and unstructured otherwise.

Life span-developmental psychology (P. B. Baltes, 1987, 1997) provides a useful

framework for understanding how person and context interact over time. This the-

oretical framework regards development as a lifelong process of flexible adapta-

tion to changes in opportunities and constraints on biological, social, and

psychological levels (P. B. Baltes, Lindenberger, & Staudinger, 2006; P. B. Baltes,

Reese, & Lipsitt, 1980; Brandtstädter & Lerner, 1999; Bronfenbrenner, 1988; Lerner

& Busch-Rossnagel, 1981). This assumption has two implications: (1) Individuals

exist in environments that create and define possibilities and limiting boundaries

for individual pathways; (2) individuals select and create their own living contexts

and thus can play an active part in shaping their lives.

OW TO

NTERACT WITH

’

ONTEXT

: G

OALS AND

OAL

-R

ELATED

ROCESSES

Goals and the basic regulatory processes of goal selection, pursuit, and disengage-

ment are central aspects that help to explain an individual’s interaction with his or

her environment (Brandtstädter, 1998; Chapman & Skinner, 1985; Emmons, 1986; Fre-

und, 2003, 2006b; Freund & Baltes, 2000; Gollwitzer & Bargh, 1996; Heckhausen,

1999). Goals emerge from and determine the nature of people’s transactions with the

surrounding world. Experiencing the effects but also the limitations of goal-directed

action can feed back to the individual’s view of the world, the self, personal goals, be-

liefs and wishes, and further goal-directed actions. Thus, there is an interplay among

goals, goal-directed actions, and developmental contexts (Brandtstädter, 1998).

Addressing the contextual nature of goals, Freund (2003) distinguishes two in-

teracting levels of representation: social expectations and personal goals. Social

expectations are reflected in social norms that inform about age-graded opportu-

nity structures. Age-related social norms can define opportunities and limita-

tions for developmental trajectories of a person’s life course. For example, they

indicate the appropriate time to marry and to have children. Thereby, age-related

social expectations or norms can also give an indication about the availability of

resources in certain life domains for specific age groups (Freund, 2003; Heck-

hausen, 1999). Setting personal goals in accordance with social norms and expec-

tations may help to take advantage of these available resources. Through social

sanctions as well as approval or disapproval by the society, social expectations

can serve as an orientation or standard for the development, selection, pursuit,

maintenance, and disengagement of personal goals (Cantor, 1994; Freund, 1997;

Nurmi, 1992). Social expectations are also reflected in personal beliefs about the

appropriate timing and sequencing of goals, and personal beliefs incorporate in-

dividual values and experiences. Together, social and personal expectations di-

rectly influence behavior and also the personal goals an individual selects and

pursues. This influence can be conscious or unconscious, as, in addition to con-

sciously represented goals, automatized goals and unconscious motives impact

on behavior and development (Bargh & Ferguson, 2000).

In sum, goals can be viewed as the building blocks of personality, person-context

interactions, and lifelong development. The concept of personal goals seems partic-

Personality Theories of Successful Aging 95

ularly well suited for a developmental approach to personality theories of success-

ful aging as it allows integrating motivational processes into a life span context and

furthers our understanding of both the direction of development and of interindi-

vidual differences in the level of functioning in various life domains over time. Of

particular importance in this regard is the selection of goals from a pool of possible

alternatives and the investment of resources into the pursuit and maintenance of

goals, also in the face of setbacks and losses. Goal selection and pursuit can im-

prove individual competences and generate new resources, which can then be used

for further goal attainment.

One of the basic assumptions of joining an action-theoretical with a life span-

developmental perspective in personality theories of successful aging is that, in

interaction with a given physical, cultural-historical, and social context, people

actively shape their own developmental context (Brandtstädter & Lerner, 1999;

Ford, 1987; Freund & Baltes, 2000; Lerner & Busch-Rossnagel, 1981). Goals link

the person to his or her life contexts and thus are central to personality and devel-

opment across the life span. In the following, we introduce three approaches that

consider goal selection, initiation of goal-related actions, and the investment of

goal-related resources as crucial for achieving desired developmental outcomes.

OLE OF

OALS AND

OAL

-R

ELATED

ROCESSES

FOR

UCCESSFUL

EVELOPMENT

By nature, human beings are goal-oriented organisms. They organize their lives

around the pursuit of goals that reflect their fundamental needs (e.g., autonomy,

competence, relatedness; Ryan, 1995). Goals provide persons with standards and

ideal outcomes against which they can evaluate their actual level of functioning,

their progress in the direction of higher levels of functioning, and the effective-

ness of their goal-related behaviors (Carver & Scheier, 1990). Empirical evidence

has shown that personal goals are positively related to well-being (Emmons, 1986;

Omodei & Wearing, 1990; Palys & Little, 1983; Sheldon & Elliot, 1999). What are

the mechanisms underlying this relation? That is, how do goals and goal-related

processes influence well-being and successful aging?

There are different views on how goals affect well-being. It is often argued that

successful development implies that individuals succeed in progressing toward

their goals or reaching desired states (M. M. Baltes & Carstensen, 1996; Maslow,

1954; McClelland, 1987). Humanistic psychology proposes that a person’s sense of

well-being depends on the person’s progress toward his or her goals, especially

when these are in accord with “organismic” or “innate” needs (Maslow, 1954;

Rogers, 1963; Ryan, 1995; see also Brunstein, Schultheiss, & Grässman, 1998). Other

authors argue that having goals can in itself be a predictor of life satisfaction

(Brunstein, Schultheiss, & Maier, 1999; Emmons, 1996). Still others posit that not

goals themselves but rather the availability of goal-related resources is positively

related to life satisfaction (Diener & Fujita, 1995). Finally, Brandtstädter and

Rothermund (2002) maintain that goals can ambivalently affect well-being. They

argue that neither goals nor resources themselves bring about goal attainment or

successful development. In fact, unattainable goals can lead to dissatisfaction and

depression if they are not abandoned or readjusted.

Thus, setting and pursuing challenging but attainable goals and standards are

important self-regulatory processes conducive to successful aging (Brandtstädter

& Renner, 1990; Carver & Scheier, 1981, 1982; Freund & Baltes, 2000; Heckhausen,