Bibliographic record
Abstract
ABSTRACT Humans are able to project the future on very complex dimensions, aiming at accomplishing various desires, wishes or projects. The present article conducts a critical analysis of personal goals at adult age, through an integrative review of the literature regarding structures and relevant for these types of goals. Starting with a brief presentation of goal definitions, we then discuss the elaboration of personal goals at adult age, through differential integration of normative requirements and individual characteristics. We next present theoretical tenets of developmental personal goal processes, through integration of gains and losses. In the last segment of the article, we analyze the transformation of action independent personal goals (wishes, desires and fantasies about the future) into operational goals, with adequate action commitment. KEYWORDS: personal goals, developmental tasks, adult development, action commitment. Goals are pervasive constructs in human existence. We project our actions in the future, aim at reaching outcomes, set standards, and create desired end states. We seem to organize our lives around the plans we make for ourselves, the goals we set, and the outcomes we expect. Individuals tend to project their development in terms of goals, intentions, or purposes. Contemporary psychological discourse defines goals as internal representations of desired states, where states are broadly construed as outcomes, events, or processes (Austin & Vancouver, 1996, p. 338). Elliott and McGregor (2001) view goals as being not only oriented toward accomplishment of desired outcomes (approach goals), but also toward escaping dreaded outcomes (avoidance goals). Shah and Kruglansky (2003) conceptualize goals as knowledge structures, is, as cognitive representations characterized by particular contents and particular functions (p. 1109). Goals are linked to the activation of specific cognitions and actions and they bias behavior adaptively (Gray and Braver, 2002, p. 295) when they dynamically adjust to situational conditions which shape levels of goal priority. Definitions of goals denote a future finality or outcome that is mentally construed in the present, aimed at increasing personal and contextual organization of resources, toward the achievement of that outcome. There are multiple theoretical and methodological approaches of goal contents, structures and processes, on different domains (eg., learning, health, work), and levels of analysis (for reviews on goal and structures see Austin & Vancouver, 1996; Carver & Scheier, 1998; Emmons & Kaiser, 1996; Fishbach & Ferguson, 2007; Locke & Latham, 2000). These theoretical or applied tenets reflect a Babel tower approach of goals, with many overlapping different concepts, a large array of postulated and different taxonomies of goal contents. It is difficult to construct an integrative view of human goals, because there are multiple levels of analysis, from molecular mechanisms to molar regularities, each offering complex information, framed in multiple, often antagonistic theories (eg., control theory versus self-efficacy models). From these complex approaches we view the following as major statements regarding human goals: (a) behavior is directed by the pursuit of goals; (b) goals are cognitive representations of outcomes (desired or feared); (c) goals influence and are influenced by evaluations, emotions and behaviors that are linked to goal structures, and contents; (d) goals are hierarchically organized in dynamic systems of superordinate and subordinate goals. Goals imply the assumption of intentionality in adult development. At various levels of content and structure, they give direction to our actions and meaning to our becoming. Personal goals, seen as goals of high long-term relevance for a person, maintain strength over time and adversities and represent subjectively important means or end-states. …
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".