Individual endings

Developmental deadlines and death as a life-time related deadline trigger individuals’ engagement in developmental regulatory strategies. The present thesis investigated a general developmental regulatory strategy, the extension of deadlines, which describes the non-acknowledgement of a gap between resources and situational demands in the approach of a deadline. Two cross-sectional studies examined the extension of mobility and the extension of the personal future as examples for the extension of a developmental deadline and of a life-time related deadline, respectively. Study 1 measured the extension of mobility with a newly developed scale and investigated the extent to which 190 older adults with various levels of mobility reported to engage in walking behavior in spite of mobility limitations. Study 2 investigated the extension of the personal future in 435 adults between 18 and 93 years. In Study 2, four facets of the extension of the personal future were measured with a newly developed scale and related to well-being and indicators of behavior directed at achieving an extended personal future. Results show that, while the extension of mobility was unrelated to well-being, it was positively related to an investment in maintaining the ability to walk. The extension of the personal future was positively related to well-being and to behavior directed at achieving an extended personal future. Participants who were closer to the respective deadlines benefited more from the extension of the deadline with regard to well-being and invested stronger in behavior directed at extending the deadline than participants to whom the deadline was more distant. These findings support the theoretical propositions made by the present thesis and highlight the role of the extension of mobility and the extension of the personal future for individuals’ well-being and behavior.