Life goals play a major role in shaping people's lives and careers. Although life goals have prior documented associations with occupational and other life outcomes, no prior studies have investigated associations between life goal development and occupational outcomes. Using two representative samples of Icelandic youth (Sample 1: n = 485, Sample 2: n = 1,339), followed across 12 years from adolescence to young adulthood, we examined life goal development and associations with educational attainment and a wide range of occupational outcomes. We found that life goals had relatively high rank-order and profile stability across the 12 years. Most life goals decreased in importance during the transition from adolescence to young adulthood, except for family- and community-related goals, pointing to a continued focus on building social relationships in young adulthood. We also found meaningful variation in change at the item level within certain goal domains. Furthermore, adolescent levels of life goals, as well as changes in certain goals, predicted educational attainment and occupational outcomes in young adulthood. This suggests that life goals motivate career behaviors beginning at an early age and that subsequent changes in certain life goals also matter for educational and occupational outcomes. Dominance analyses revealed that education and prestige life goals were generally the strongest predictors of future outcomes. Overall, these results highlight the importance of life goal development in predicting later educational attainment and occupational outcomes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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人生目标发展、教育程度和职业成果：一项为期 12 年的多样本纵向研究。


人生目标在塑造人们的生活和职业方面发挥着重要作用。尽管之前已经记录了生活目标与职业和其他生活结果的关联，但之前没有研究调查过生活目标发展与职业结果之间的关联。我们使用冰岛青年的两个代表性样本（样本 1：n = 485，样本 2：n = 1,339），对从青春期到成年初期的 12 年进行跟踪调查，研究了人生目标的发展以及与教育程度和广泛的职业成果的关系。我们发现，人生目标在 12 年中具有相对较高的排名顺序和形象稳定性。除了与家庭和社区相关的目标外，大多数人生目标在从青春期到成年早期的过渡过程中重要性下降，这表明人们继续关注在成年早期建立社会关系。我们还发现某些目标域内项目级别的变化存在有意义的变化。此外，青少年的生活目标水平以及某些目标的变化可以预测成年初期的教育程度和职业结果。这表明，人生目标从小就激励职业行为，而某些人生目标的后续变化也对教育和职业成果很重要。优势分析显示，教育和声望生活目标通常是未来结果的最强预测因素。总体而言，这些结果凸显了人生目标发展在预测后期教育程度和职业成果方面的重要性。 （PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2024 APA，保留所有权利）。