Life Goals - An Intergenerational Comparison

This thesis deals with the subject of life goals. It presents selected life goal theories and possible life goal classifications. Attention is also paid to developmental characteristics of life goals in the context of Theories of life-span development. Another related subject is meaningfulness of life - which is closely related to life goals. It outlines philosophical roots of this concept and some psychological theories. The last subject of the theoretical part is psychological construct of well-being, which is presented by selected theories. Empirical part of this thesis is trying to verify the hypothesis that there is a significant difference between the content of important goals of younger and older adults. It also examines the connexion between intrinsic and extrinsic aspirations and Life satisfaction. In order to attain this aim, we used two methods trough two different questionnaires - Satisfaction with Life Scale and Aspiration Index (AI). Samples were made by assessing answers of 962 Czech adult respondents, and the survey packet was distributed to participants online. We found significant differences between younger and older adults in the importance attributed to different goals which concerned: Affiliation, Sense of community, Physical health, Financial Success, Image, Popularity,..