Adolescents’ Future-Orientation: Theory and Research

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. Contents: J. Trempal a/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. Trempal a: Models of psychological time in the research on time perspectives - Z. Zaleski: Future horizon: A challenging concept for psychology.