Life Tasks and Daily Life Experience

ABSTRACT This article explores the assumption that the goals on which an individual works structure the experience of daily life. One set of important goals are those consensual tasks that reflect the age‐graded expectations of a living environment (e.g., the task of being on one's own at colle...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of personality Vol. 59; no. 3; pp. 425 - 451
Main Authors Cantor, Nancy, Norem, Julie, Langston, Christopher, Zirkel, Sabrina, Fleeson, William, Cook-Flannagan, Carol
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.09.1991
Blackwell
Duke University Press
Subjects
Biological and medical sciences
Careers
Everyday Life
Females
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Life Satisfaction
Personality traits
Personality. Affectivity
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Social life & customs
Social research
Human
Affect affectivity
Emotionality
Personal experience
Motivation
Environment personality relation
Daily living
Satisfaction
Woman
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Summary:ABSTRACT This article explores the assumption that the goals on which an individual works structure the experience of daily life. One set of important goals are those consensual tasks that reflect the age‐graded expectations of a living environment (e.g., the task of being on one's own at college). Whereas most members of a common age group share these consensual life tasks, individuals in a group differ in the relative importance they place on different tasks and in their appraisals of them. In the present study of 54 women living in a college sorority, the importance of a life task was associated with increased relevance of the task to daily life events, as revealed in experience sampling. The women were more emotionally involved in events that they saw as highly relevant to their life tasks than in less relevant events and, for each person, positive affect and emotional involvement in task‐relevant events were related to her initial life task appraisals.
Bibliography:istex:AE277D4F57B314B25AFB86A8D8C8E3B6AEC74D1C
ArticleID:JOPY425
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We are pleased to acknowledge the technical assistance of Nancy Exelby and the comments on this article by Michele Acker, Robert Harlow, Susan Jenkins, Hazel Markus, the editors of this special issue, and two anonymous reviewers. This research was supported in part by Grant BNS 87‐18467 (to Nancy Cantor and Julie Norem) from the National Science Foundation, as well as a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship (to William Fleeson).
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ISSN:0022-3506
1467-6494
DOI:10.1111/j.1467-6494.1991.tb00255.x