Adolescents' future-orientation

The primary focus of this volume is on the adolescents' ability to direct their thoughts and actions towards the future and to create mental construals of hypothetical future events: present images, wishes, hopes, fears and plans regarding action-goals in the future. The major aim is to understand how young people construct their future-oriented goals and the plans related to them as a means of navigating into adulthood, how these efforts are determined by their previous life history, and the extent to which they think future-orientation will influence their later lives. The contributions included in this volume take one further step towards a full understanding of these complex mechanisms.

Autorentext

The Editors: Janusz Trempala received his M.A. (1977), Ph.D. (1983) and Habilitation (1993) in psychology from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan (Poland). In 2001 the President of the Republic of Poland conferred him a title of Professor of Humanistic Sciences. He has taught, lectured, and conducted seminars on general and developmental psychology at many universities in Poland, including Bydgoszcz University of Casimirus the Great where he is deputy director of the Institute of Psychology and chairman of the Department of Human Development.
Lars-Erik Malmberg received his MEd (1989) and EdD (1998) from Åbo Akademi University (Vasa, Finland). He has been lecturer and researcher at the Department of Teacher Education 1990-2001, focusing on quantitative methods, cross-cultural research and developmental psychology. He was a visiting fellow at Yale University, USA, 1999-2000.

Inhalt

Contents: J. Trempala/L-E. Malmberg: Preface - J-E. Nurmi: An introduction: Thinking about, preparing for and negotiating the future - M. Lanz/R. Rosnati: Adolescents' and young adults' construction of the future: Effects of family relations, self-esteem, and sense of coherence - E. Confalonieri: A narrative perspective on the future: Transition to adulthood - H. Liberska: Life perspectives of adolescents in the context of social and economic changes in Poland - M. Artar: Comparison of future time perspective of adolescents from an earthquake and a non-earthquake region in Turkey - L-E. Malmberg: Adolescents' biased means and future expectations - G. Katra: Attributional style, self-esteem, and future time perspective of adolescents - J. Trempala: Models of psychological time in the research on time perspectives - Z. Zaleski: Future horizon: A challenging concept for psychology.