Studying Persons and Lives

This chapter on the life course begins with a review of preliminary studies of lives and changing times, examines the emergence of life course ideas and projects during the 1960s, and considers cohort analysis as a way of thinking about social change in lives. Next, it explores the limitations of cohort studies for relating social change to lives and presents a conceptual framework that permits the explication of historical effects. The authors describe the 5 key orienting principles (control cycles, situational imperatives, the accentuation principle, the life stage distinction, and the concept of independent lives) and shows their usefulness in explaining 2 key historic events as they affected Americans: the Depression and World War II. The conclusion of this chapter returns to problems and promises in the multidisciplinary study of lives and to developments in theory and method for linking personality and the life course to the changing world in which people develop.