Foundations of generativity: Personal and family correlates of emerging adults’ generative life-story themes

Recently, the Eriksonian midlife personality strength of generativity has been described as existing in many forms and in persons of differing ages (McAdams, 2001). In this longitudinal study, narratives of life “turning points” and significant accomplishments were examined for generative themes in 32 adolescent/emerging adults (aged 16 and 20 years). We also explored these emerging adults’ volunteering behavior, prosocial reasoning, and parental influence as potential factors in generativity. Several parenting factors when adolescents were 16 (parents’ autonomy-encouraging practices, their emphasis on caring in stories of family value teaching, and adolescents’ reports of authoritative parenting style) were associated with more generative themes in narratives at age 20. Adolescents’ levels of prosocial reasoning, volunteering behavior, and personal value choices were also associated as expected with generative theme usage at age 20 in life stories, supporting the meaningfulness of this construct in emerging adulthood.