The codevelopment of generativity and well-being into early late life.

Abstract

The current manuscript replicates and extends the few existing studies of generativity in later adulthood with regard to two aims: (1) to model individual differences in the development of generativity into early late life and (2) to quantify the relationship between development in generativity and development in well-being into late midlife and early older adulthood. Data from the Rochester Adult Longitudinal Study (RALS) are used to address these aims in a preregistered secondary analysis of existing RALS data (see https://osf.io/syp2u). Analyses quantify individual development of generativity in a sample of 284 RALS participants who completed the Loyola Generativity Scale (LGS; McAdams & de St. Aubin, 1992) and the Psychological Well-Being Scale (PWB; Ryff, 1989a) during the most recent two waves of the RALS (2000 – 2012). Both generativity and well-being demonstrated substantial rank-order stability and mean-level change as well as individual variability on both. Dual score change models showed a robust concurrent relationship between both constructs at the first assessment and meaningful correlated change between generativity and well-being over time. While demographic covariates were not associated with study findings, one of the most important limitations of the RALS is the racial and ethnic homogeneity of the sample that constrains generalizability to other racial and ethnic groups. Results are discussed in the context of our current understanding of the development and impact of generativity in later adulthood anddirections for future research in this area are identified.

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