| Personal goals can be broadly defined as individualised representations of “statesor outcomes that one would like to achieve (or avoid)”, which is the basic way of selfmanagement and the core element of motivation. During adolsescence, facing withnew development task and social roles, individuals need to make new decisions andset new goals, which is particularly pertinent when establishing identity is offundamental importance. Although a lot of research has been carried out on personalgoals for a long time, the research has several limitations. First, personal goals arediversity and multidimensionality; however, the previous research only paid attentisonto some domains or some dimensions, lacking exploration on its system. Secondly,the development of goal setting is a process of socialization, and is shaped bydevelopmental tasks and social and cultural norms. However, the overwhelmingmajority of the research in this area was conducted in Western cultures, and researchon how contemporary Chinese adolescents’s goals has been rare. Thirdly, previousresearch on how family or peer contexts influce personal goals were isolatioin,lacking research regarding family and peer contexts as a system. Fourthly,methodologically, existing research findings were mainly based on studies ofcross-sectional design, resulting in very limited information available about thelongitudinal development of personal goals.Using a short-time longitudinal design, the present thesis was aimed to exploresystematically the characteristics of adolescents’ personal goals and its associationswith family and peer contexts. This thesis included three empirical studies as follows:the first study examined the characteristics of density, control belief and temporalspan of adolescents’ personal goals; the second study explored the independent effectsof family contexts and peer contexts on personal goals, and the systematic effects offamily-peer contexts; and the third study recognized subgroups of adolescents withdifferent goal systems by dividing the types of goal system, and explored thecharacteristics of goal systems under different family-peer contexs.The participants were from five junior high schools and four senior high schoolsin Jinan City and Yantai City of Shandong Province. At Time1, a total of1309 adolescents (706males) of grades8and10were employed to complete a series ofquestionnaires assessing personal goals, family contexts (socioeconomic, parentalacceptance/involvement and strictness/supervision), and peer contexts (the number offrieds with high achievement motivation and friends with deviant behaivors). A yearand a half later, at time2, the personal goals were investigated again on1155adolescents (606males). The main findings were as follows:1. In regarding to the developmental characteristics of adolescents’ personalgoals, this study showed that:(1) During early and middle adolescence,10domains of personal goals werereported by adolescents: education, academic, occupation, marriage/family,well-being of parents, leisure activities, self issues, interpersonal relationships, wealth,and collective issues.(2) The developments of personal goals were different according to specificdomain.①On density, early adolescents’ educatioin density increased with age, anddecreased during middle adolescence; Early adolescents’ academic density decreasedwith age, and increased during middle adolescence; During early and middleadolescence, the domain density of marriage/family and interpersonal relationshipswere increased with age.②On control belief, compared with middle adolescents,early adolsescents had more personal control over their goals concerning education,and less control over their fears concerning academic.③On temporal extension,during early and middle adolescence, the temporal extension of goals related toeducation, academic, occupation, marriage/family, and wealth were decreased withage.(3) Gender differences were found in adolescent personal goals.①Comparedto females, males paid more attention to occupation, marriage/family and wealth, andless concerned with well-being of parents and leisure activities.②Compared tofemales, males had more personal control over their goals concerning theirmarriage/family.③Males extended their personal goals further into the future thanfemales.(4) Location differences were also found in the present study.①Adolescentsliving in rural areas paid more attention to well-being of parents and interpersonal relationships, while adolescents in urban area were more concerned with leisureactivities and collective issues.②Compared to urban adolescents, rural adolsescentshad more personal control over their goals concerning the well-being of parents, andless control over their fears for academic.③Rural adolsescents extended theirpersonal goals related to education, academic and leisure activities further into thefuture than urban ones, and urban adolsescents extended their personal goals relatedto occupation and the well-being of parents further into the future than rural ones.2. In terms of the relationship between family factors and personal goals, thepresent study found that:(1) Socioeconomic status (SES) was linked to adolescents’ personal goals.①On density, SES positively predicted the density of goals related to marriage/family,leisure activities, self issues and collective issues, and negtively predicted the densityof goals related to the well-being of parents and fears for education. After controllingfor the density of personal goals at Time1, SES positively predicted the domaindensity of leisure activities, self issues and collective issues, and negtively predictedthe density of academic, occupation and the well-being of parents longitudinally.②On control belief, the higher level of SES, the less control over their hopes for theirmarriage/family adolescents had.③On temporal extension, SES positivelypredicted the temporal extension of goals related to occupation and the well-being ofparents. After controlling for temporal extension at Time1, SES positively predictedthe temporal extension of occupation, marriage/family, and leisure activitieslongitudinally.(2) Parenting behaviors influenced adolescents’ personal goals.①On density,parental acceptance/involvement negtively predicted the density of goals related toleisure activities. After controlling for the density of personal goals at Time1, parentalacceptance/involvement positively predicted the density of education and academic,and negtively predicted the density of wealth longtitudinally. Parentalstrictness/supervision negtively predicted the density of fears for leisure activities.After controlling for the density of personal goals at Time1, parentalstrictness/supervision negtively predicted the density of wealth.②On controlbelief, the higher level of parental acceptance/involvement, the more control over their hopes for education, occupation, marriage/family and leisure activitiesadolescents had. The higher level of parental strictness/supervision, the more controlover their hopes for education, and less control over their hopes for theirmarriage/family adolescents had.③On temporal extension, parenting behaviors didnot influence the temporal extension conturrently. Parental acceptance/involvementonly positively predicted the temporal extension of education.3. Regarding to the relationship between peer factors and personal goals, thepresent study showed that:(1) On density, affiliation with more high achievement motivation friendspredicted higher density of goals related to academic and collective issues, and lowerdensity of the well-being of parents. Affiliation with more deviant friends predictedlower density of goals related to education, academic and occupation, and higherdensity of marriage/family, interpersonal relationship and wealth.(2) On control belief, affiliation with more high achievement motivation friendspredicted more control over their goals related to education, while affiliation withmore deviant friends predicted less control over their goals related to occupation andself issues.(3) On temporal extension, affiliation with more deviant friends predicted shortertemporal extension of occupation.4. With regards to the relationship between family-peer contexts and personalgoals, this study showed that:(1) The family-peer contexts were divided into four types: low SES-high parentalsupervision (35.9%), high resources (22.2%), low resources (18.4%), and moredeviant friends (23.5%).(2) There are commonalities and differences on personal goals under the fourtypes of family-peer contexts.①On density, all adolescents of the four types offamily-peer contexts were similar in the density of goals related to education,occupation and self. Adolescents in the low SES-high parental supervisionfamily-peer contexts paid more attention to academic, less concerned withmarriage/family, and were more feared for education failures. Adolescents in the highresources contexts paid more attention to leisure activities and collective issues, and less concerned with their parents’ well-being. Those with more deviant friends paidmore attention to marriage/family, interpersonal relationship and wealth, and lessconcerned with academic. Adolescents in the low resources family-peer contexts paidless attention to academic and education.②Adolescents in the four family-peercontexts showed no differences on control belief, except that adolescents in the lowSES-high parental supervision family-peer contexts had more control over their goalsrelated to education than those in the other three contexts.③Adolescents in the fourfamily-peer contexts showed no differences on temporal extension, except thatadolescents in the high resources family-peer contexts extended their personal goalsrelated to occupation, marriage/family, well-being of parents and wealth further intothe future than those in the other three contexts.5. With respect to the relationship between personal goal systems andfamily-peer contexts, this study showed that:(1) Based on the density of hopes and fears related to10domains, the personalgoal systems were divided into three types: achievement orientation (41.6%),self-interpersoanl fears (28.6%), and broad-goals (29.8%).(2) The distribution of adolescents with three goal systems was differentaccording to the four types of family-peer contexts.①In the high resourcesfamily-peer contexts, adolescents’ goal systems mainly belonged to achievementorientation and broad-goals. In the low SES-high parental supervision contexts, thenumber of adolescents with achievement oriented goal systems were more than thosewith broad-goals. In the contexts of low resources and more deviant friends, thenumbers of adolescents with three types of goal system were in equal sizie. |
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