Developmental emergence and functionality of Sehnsucht (life longings): the sample case of involuntary childlessness in middle-aged women.

Sehnsucht (life longings), the intense desire for optimal (utopian) states of life that are remote or unattainable, was recently introduced into life-span psychology as a concept of self-regulation (P. B. Baltes, 2008; S. Scheibe, A. M. Freund, & P. B. Baltes, 2007). The authors propose that as a compensatory strategy to deal with nonrealizability and loss, life longings may develop out of blocked goals. Individuals would cease to invest behavioral effort into its attainment and instead maintain the goal target in imagination. In a sample of 168 middle-aged childless women, the present study investigated the circumstances under which the wish for children emerges as a goal or life longing and whether the representation of the wish for children as a life longing is beneficial for well-being. The wish for children was expressed as a goal when participants rated this wish as currently intense and attainable. In contrast, it was expressed as a life longing when participants rated it as highly intense and long-standing. The pursuit of the wish for children as a life longing was positively related to well-being only when participants had high control over the experience of this life longing and when other self-regulation strategies (goal adjustment) failed. (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved.