Development of Orientation to the Future during Early Adolescence: A Four-Year Longitudinal Study and Two Cross-Sectional Comparisons.

In 1982, fifty-seven 11-year-old and forty-eight 15-year-old adolescents were interviewed about their hopes and fears for the future. Similarly, in 1987, fifty-seven 11-year-old and fifty-six 15-year-old adolescents were interviewed. The content and extension of each hope and fear as well as the levels of planning, realization, internality, probability estimation and overall emotional evaluation were estimated from the answers. As expected, adolescents' hopes concerned major developmental tasks, i.e. occupation, education, family and property related topics. Both 11- and 15-year-olds extended their thinking to the same stage of their future life, about the age of twenty. A comparison of extension according to hope content showed that adolescents' orientation to the future reflected the 'cultural prototype' of expected life-span development. Levels of planning, realization and knowledge concerning hopes increased with age as did internality and optimism concerning the future, especially among boys.