The nature, prevalence and correlates of generativity among men in middle career

Journal of Vocational Behavior 73 (2008) 473–484

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Journal of Vocational Behavior

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The nature, prevalence and correlates of generativity among men inmiddle career

Mike Clark a,*, John Arnold b

a Bristol Business School, University of the West of England, Coldharbour Lane, Frenchay, Bristol BS16 1QY, UKb The Business School, Loughborough University, Loughborough LE11 3 TU, UK

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history:Received 6 February 2008Available online 13 September 2008

Keywords:GenerativityGenerativity domainsMiddle ageCareer successWork satisfactionProductivityNurturanceFatherhoodOlder workersMid/late career

0001-8791/$ - see front matter � 2008 Elsevier Incdoi:10.1016/j.jvb.2008.09.002

* Corresponding author. Fax: +44 117 328 2289.E-mail address: [email protected] (M. Cla

Multiple methods were used to explore the character, contexts, and correlates of generativ-ity among 41 men aged 45–55. Generativity in the role of worker was unrelated to gener-ativity in men’s roles as father, citizen and ‘leisurite’. Individuals who were generative intheir work reported greater job satisfaction and subjective career success. These associa-tions were stronger for generativity targeting societal well-being and fellow-workers’growth than for creative/productive generativity. As some theorists have argued, therefore,nurturant forms of generativity may be more adaptive in mid/late career than other vari-eties, and more indicative of psychosocial maturity. The status of creativity/productivitywithin the generativity construct seems problematic. Our findings offer qualified supportfor McAdams and de St Aubin’s (McAdams, D.P., & de St Aubin, E. (1992). A theory ofgenerativity and its assessment through self-report, behavioral acts, and narrative themesin autobiography. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 62 (6), 1003–1015) contentionthat generativity is expressed differentially in the domains of concern, commitment andaction, and that the different relationships of these generativity domains to third variablescan be interpreted in meaningful ways.

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‘I don’t believe in God and I have no children, so unless my work lasts, I expect nothing of me to survive when I die’. Inthese words the British comedian Ricky Gervais (2007) captured the personal significance of his award-winning televisionseries, The Office. Concern for posterity is also evident in ex US President Bill Clinton’s recent book about giving: ‘When I leftthe White House,. . .I didn’t know exactly what I would do, but I wanted to help save lives, solve important problems, andgive more young people the chance to live their dreams’ (Clinton, 2007, p.1). Whilst both men show concern for their legacy,if we take their statements at face value, the vehicle of their concern is strikingly different. For Gervais it is personal crea-tivity; whereas for Clinton it is altruistic concern for others’ well-being.

Despite their apparent differences, each man gives classic expression to an aspect of ‘generativity’, Erikson’s (1959, 1963)attempt to capture in a single idea the part adults play in evolutionary history. According to Erikson, adults procreate, raisetheir children, and build and maintain communities which foster the growth and well-being of the next generation. They dothis through their productive work, and through creating institutions—from the family to society at large—which protect andeducate the young. Generativity therefore encompasses productive and nurturant behaviors which, whilst ostensiblydisparate, are linked by their contribution to perpetuating the species. In Erikson’s (1963) theory of life-span development,generativity occupies the four or more decades between the point at which young people embark on adulthood and thethreshold of old age. Just as the developmental gains of childhood and early youth prepare the way for generativity, so

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474 M. Clark, J. Arnold / Journal of Vocational Behavior 73 (2008) 473–484

generativity in turn lays the foundation for the final years, when the challenge is to accept the life one has lived and can nolonger change. Although Erikson believed the generative drive is most clearly expressed in parenthood, he readily acceptedthat it often finds expression in diverse forms of contribution to the material, cultural and spiritual welfare of mankind.

The importance of generativity for the study of work and career has long been recognized (e.g. Hall & Mansfield, 1975;Levinson, Darrow, Klein, Levinson, & McKee, 1978; Vaillant, 1977), since it concerns individuals’ productive contributionto organizations and society and the transmission of skills, knowledge, and values between individuals and generations. Gen-erativity may be especially relevant to middle and late career (Kanfer & Ackerman, 2004). Erikson (1959) thought that gen-erativity peaks in middle age, as people become increasingly preoccupied with their legacy and aware of their need to beneeded. In this period of life, generativity is an antidote to mortality (Arnold, 1997). Some research supports this contention(e.g. Keyes & Ryff, 1998; McAdams & de St Aubin, 1992; Stewart & Vandewater, 1998). Mid-career has sometimes been de-scribed (e.g. Hall, 1986; Hall & Mirvis, 1995; Pemberton, Herriot, & Bates, 1994) as a time when the influence of formal careerstructures declines relative to personal motivations and the subjective meanings attached to career. The career plateau likelyplays a part in this (Levinson et al., 1978), as also may a paucity of provision for older workers’ career development (Simpson,Greller, & Stroh, 2002).

For all these reasons, generativity deserves a central place in the study of middle and late career. However, generativityhas seldom been studied in a career context despite substantial advances in the theory and measurement of the constructduring the past 20 years. Our study draws on these advances to explore, using multiple methods and measures, the incidenceand correlates of different manifestations of generativity in 41 men aged 45–55, and to assess its utility as a construct whichcan illuminate this period. We ask: what kinds of generativity, and how much of them, are evident, and in what contexts?How do they relate to each other? We also examine the relationship of generativity to men’s adjustment to work and careerin mid-life. Our intensive, multi-method approach to measuring generativity meant that a fairly small sample was inescap-able. In view of theory and research which suggest that the rhythms of women’s careers often differ from men’s (Dix & Savic-kas, 1995; Levinson, 1996; Tamir, 1989) and that men and women may mature in partly different ways (Barnett, 1997;Gilligan, 1982; Gutmann, 1987; Haan, 1989), we concluded that a mixed gender study was unlikely to produce worthwhileresults. Our choice of men rather than women was influenced by our access to an international engineering organizationwhere women in this age range were scarce.

1. Varieties of generativity

We investigate four main expressions, or varieties, of generativity. Productivity refers to generating products or ideasand maintaining them. Various authors regard concern for productivity as especially typical of the first half of career,where it is linked to career consolidation and pursuit of advancement (Howard & Bray, 1988; Levinson et al., 1978; Mac-Dermid, Franz, & de Reus, 1998; Peterson & Stewart, 1993; Vaillant & Milofsky, 1980). Contrasted with productivity aretwo nurturant varieties. The first concerns family, directed especially but not exclusively towards one’s children. The sec-ond comprises nurturance towards adults and towards social institutions outside the family circle (Kotre, 1984; McAdams& de St Aubin, 1992; Peterson & Stewart, 1996; Vaillant, 1977). This category, which we term interpersonal and societalcare, shows a widening radius of generative investment that Erikson (1959) considered the hallmark of generative matu-rity in middle age. It embraces a variety of citizenship behaviors, in both work and non-work contexts, including care forindividuals (in particular, their growth e.g. in the roles of coach or mentor), and also for institutions, including one’s em-ployer and society. A fourth variety, leadership (Snarey, 1993; Vaillant, 1977), is also often regarded as a mature form ofgenerative expression. We treat it as a separate category in line with a long tradition of organizational research (e.g. Fle-ishman & Harris, 1998) which views leadership as combining both productive (task, structure) and nurturant (people, pro-cess, consideration) tendencies. Our primary focus concerns the nature and correlates of generativity in the context ofwork and career. However, we also explore the relation between generativity in the family and work contexts, whichare sometimes seen as competing constituencies. Some research (Snarey, 1993; Vaillant, 1977) suggests that, for men, ac-tive participation in child rearing may not only promote generativity in more socially encompassing roles, but may also belinked to favorable career outcomes.

2. Measuring generativity

Our approach to assessing generativity draws upon the influential re-formulation of Erikson’s theory by McAdams and deSt Aubin (1992), who focused on the dynamic interplay of different domains of generativity within personality and the inter-action of these domains with the social environment. At the level of conscious personality, McAdams and de St Aubin pro-posed that generativity is differentially present in (i) a person’s wishes, values and self-perceptions (the domain of concern),(ii) their goals, plans and intentions (commitment), and (iii) their actual behavior (action). These conscious domains havemotivational roots in two independent sources: inner desire of which individuals may at best be partly aware (e.g. the needsidentified by Erikson (1959) for symbolic immortality and to be needed), and cultural demand. The latter incorporates age-graded societal expectations of adult roles (e.g. parent, worker, citizen) which impact upon conscious components ofgenerativity. Finally, the subjective meaning attached to these interactions finds expression in self-narration, in the formof a personal story through which individuals construct and communicate identity.

M. Clark, J. Arnold / Journal of Vocational Behavior 73 (2008) 473–484 475

The partial independence of different domains of generativity in the McAdams and de St Aubin model has significantimplications. For example, a person may ‘talk the talk’ (concern) without ‘walking the walk’ (action). Conversely, a personmay behave in ostensibly generative ways (action) for reasons which have more to do with role compliance (cultural demand)than personal values (concern). Similarly, even well laid plans (commitment) go oft awry (action). It follows that a full pictureof a person’s generativity can be obtained only through domain-specific measures. In this article we focus on concern, com-mitment and action. McAdams, de St Aubin, and Logan (1993) reported correlations between these domains of 0.2–0.5 which,whilst statistically significant in their study, are sufficiently low to support their view that overlap between the domains isonly partial. However, because they used different methods to assess domains, it is impossible to separate substantive frommethodological effects. We replicate some of their measures, but we also eliminate possible methodological confoundsthrough our development of a single measure to assess all three domains simultaneously.

A further corollary of the model is that different domains of generativity should relate to third variables in somewhatdifferent ways. Here, theory is scant and inconclusive. In McAdams and de St Aubin’s (1992) model, concern, commitmentand action represent degrees of engagement with the tasks of generativity. De St Aubin and McAdams (1995) contendedthat well-being is likely to correlate less strongly with generative action than concern because, unlike what may only be‘armchair’ concern, action requires confronting the often refractory and disillusioning reality of people and things. This isonly partly convincing, since the well-being of individuals who care about generativity may hinge upon consistency be-tween values, intentions and behavior. Indeed, McAdams and de St Aubin (1992) also argued that the psychological ben-efits of generativity are likely to be greatest where generative thought and plans find expression in actual behavior.Differences in the correlates of generativity may therefore concern alignment between domains, rather than domains con-sidered separately.

Empirical evidence either way is scarce. In a rare study of concern, commitment and action, McAdams et al. (1993) foundsignificant associations between well-being and both concern and action, but none with commitment. Well-being correlatedsomewhat more strongly with concern than with action. However, Sheldon and Kasser (2001) found well-being related sig-nificantly to a similar measure of generativity commitment to that employed by McAdams and his associates (they did notinvestigate concern or action). A central purpose of our study was to explore the interrelationships of these three domainsand their respective patterns of relations with other variables. In view of this uncertain picture, we refrained from venturinghypotheses concerning their differential associations with work and career outcomes.

� Research Question 1: What is the nature and prevalence of the generativity exhibited by these men in mid-late career?� Research Question 2: How do generative concern, commitment and action relate differentially to well-being in work and

career?

3. Generativity and work/career

Work satisfaction. According to theory, generativity describes a productive, pro-social orientation indicative of healthypsychosocial integration in middle age. It should therefore be linked to work satisfaction in occupations which offer substan-tial scope for creativity and other socially valuable forms of contribution, as in this study. The multi-faceted work roles of themen we studied should also permit individuals to find outlets for their preferred mode of generativity, so we expect the rela-tionship to apply, however their generativity is expressed.

Hypothesis 1. Work satisfaction associates with generativity, whether expressed as productivity, interpersonal and societalcare, or leadership.

Career success. Although generativity may be linked to subjective success in other periods of career, the link may be espe-cially strong in mid-life, since some research points to changes in personal values in middle age which should be reflected inthe standards by which career is judged. These include declining interest in extrinsic rewards (Howard & Bray, 1988; Tolbert& Moen, 1998) and rising interest in intrinsic ones (Tolbert & Moen, 1998); growth of affiliative concerns (Stumpf & Rabi-nowitz, 1981; Veroff & Smith, 1985); increased nurturance among men (Howard & Bray, 1988; Veroff & Smith, 1985); in-creased salience of humanitarian values (Heckhausen, 1997; Lowenthal, Thurner, & Chiriboga, 1975); growingidentification with one’s employer (Rabinowitz & Hall, 1981); and objectification of values evidenced in a growing needto deserve others’ respect and one’s own (Tamir, 1982; Timmer & Kahle, 1983; Veroff, Reuman, & Feld, 1984). Lorenceand Mortimer (1985) suggest that such changes may reflect the availability of rewards in the second half of career as wellas maturational and cohort factors. Whatever their cause, these trends are highly consistent with generative maturation. Wetherefore believe that more generative individuals are likely to rate themselves more successful in this period of career thanthose who are less generative.

This relationship may differ with the form generativity takes. Levinson et al. (1978) and Vaillant (1977) argued that it isadaptive for generativity to mature from productive and family varieties to more socially encompassing forms in middle age.Dalton, Thompson, and Price (1977) offered a complementary perspective in their well-known career stage model which,whilst not explicitly related to generativity, nevertheless describes a form of generative progression. We thereforeexpected success in this period of career to associate with interpersonal and societal care and leadership, but not withproductivity.

Fig. 1. Aspects of generativity investigated in the present study. Notes: (a) Generative concern, in our study, is measured via (i) the Loyola Generativity Scale(McAdams & de St Aubin, 1992), and (ii) themes of generative concern in men’s interview narratives. Generative commitment is measured via (i) men’swritten life goals, or ‘personal strivings’ (Emmons, 1986, 1989), and (ii) themes of generative commitment in men’s interview narratives. Generative actionis measured via themes of generative action in men’s interview narratives. (b)Varieties of generativity are assessed through content analysis of written lifegoals and interview narratives. (c) Life context refers to the context of generative themes in individuals’ written life goals and interview narratives.


Hypothesis 2. Subjective career success correlates with interpersonal and societal care and leadership, but not productivity.

Aspects of generativity examined in this study are summarized diagrammatically in Fig. 1. We assessed generativity asevidenced in (1) the three personality domains of concern, commitment and action, (2) four varieties of expression (produc-tivity, family, interpersonal and societal care, and leadership), and (3) two potentially competing life contexts (work andnon-work). Fig. 1 also shows the linkage we anticipated between generativity and adjustment to work and career (4).

4. Method

4.1. Participants

The participants in this study were 41 men distributed evenly between the ages 45–55; mean age was 50.17 years. Thesample included ten managers; six professional engineers in specialist roles; eight shop floor employees (including skilledtradesmen, technicians and supervisors); seven Roman Catholic priests; and ten secondary school teachers. All worked inor near the same, relatively affluent, medium-sized English city. All participated voluntarily.

The managers, specialists and shop floor employees—all but two with an engineering background—were nominated aspossible participants by the personnel department of the large, international aeronautical company for which they worked.The managers included six with responsibility for 100 or more professional staff. Most of the specialists were graded as hav-ing national or international standing. Nine managers, five specialists and one works employee held Bachelor’s degrees. Allother participants held craft/technician qualifications. The priests comprised all those in the relevant age range within a par-ticular diocese who were willing to participate (one declined). All were parish priests and had completed six and a half yearsseminary training. The teachers (including one head teacher and one deputy head), who were drawn from seven schools,volunteered to participate in response to a letter forwarded to staff in the requisite age range by their head teachers. All werequalified to Bachelor’s degree level or above. Twelve members of the sample held Master’s or Doctoral degrees. All partici-pants were white. Naturally, the priests were unmarried. Of the secular men, 31 were married, remarried, or had steady part-ners; all but five had one or more children.

4.2. Procedure

The study involved an interview and a lengthy survey. Participants were informed that it concerned ‘what employeeswant from work between 45 and 55’. Interviews were held at men’s place of work and lasted typically three hours. Partic-ipants were assured of confidentiality. Interviews included sections relating to (a) men’s present work role, (b) critical inci-dents concerning men’s lives as a whole, and (c) structured questionnaires assessing inter alia self-rated success in career.Questions concerning men’s present work role were intended to elicit typical everyday thought and behavior. They probedsources of challenge, satisfaction, and worry; social interaction; and perceived personal change in that role. Critical incidentsinvited participants to describe recent successes and disappointments; times of difficulty and change; and occasions of per-sonal growth. These were intended to tap incidents and issues of heightened significance across all contexts. Participants


were then given a package of measures to complete, including the measures of work satisfaction and generative life goalsdiscussed here. All returned the completed package within six weeks.

4.3. Measures

Generativity. Following McAdams and de St Aubin (1992), we used separate measures to tap the generativity domains ofconcern, commitment and action.

Generative concern. Two measures were employed. The Loyola Generativity Scale (LGS) (McAdams & de St Aubin, 1992) isdescribed by its authors as measuring the strength of a person’s generative concerns and is used widely in generativity re-search. Its twenty items seek participants’ agreement with self-descriptive statements (e.g. I have made and created thingswhich have had an impact on other people, and I have important skills that I try to teach others) along a 4-point scale fromStrongly disagree (0) to Strongly agree (3). The LGS has been shown to have a low association with social desirability, andacceptable levels of test-retest reliability over short periods (McAdams & de St Aubin, 1992). Coefficient alpha in this studywas .88. Our second measure of concern was based on the coding of interview narratives described below.

Generative commitment. Here too we used two measures, both open-ended. Generative commitment was measured, first,by Emmons’ (1986, 1989) idiographic ‘personal strivings’ methodology. Emmons argued that personal strivings offer a con-venient and valid unit of analysis in the assessment of conscious motivation. Participants were asked to write a minimum often life goals, or strivings, in response to the question: These days what are you typically trying to accomplish or attain in youreveryday life? Standard instructions were provided. Space was allowed for up to 19 goals, with two lines for each; partici-pants were instructed not to exclude goals just because they had already been mentioned at interview. Our second measuredrew on men’s interview narratives. Generative commitment both in written life goals and at interview was assessed by thecoding procedure described below.

Generative action. A single, open-ended measure comprised our coding of action statements in men’s interview narratives.Coding procedure for written life goals and interview narratives. Coded parts of the interview comprised on average one hour

of conversation. Coding of participants’ life goals and interview narratives followed established practice for thematic contentcoding of verbal material (Smith, 1992; Smith, Feld, & Franz, 1992; Stewart, Franz, & Layton, 1988). Drawing on the writingsof Erikson and other authorities (e.g. Kotre, 1984; Stewart, Franz, Paul, & Peterson, 1991; Vaillant, 1977), a detailed codingmanual was constructed (copy available from the first author). Both varieties of generativity and generativity domains wereassessed.

Varieties of generativity. Generative statements were allocated to one or more of four main categories: (1) family (care andnurturance of one’s children, partner or parents); (2) inter-personal and societal care (care and nurturance of people and insti-tutions outside family); (3) productivity; and (4) leadership. Family themes were divided into those dealing with a man’s ownchildren, and those with his partner, parents, siblings and extended family. Only generativity towards men’s children is re-ported here. Interpersonal and societal care was sub-divided into three categories, each of which was scored independently:interpersonal (care and help for individuals outside family), societal (care at a collective level for the well-being of society ingeneral or some part of it), and others’ growth and fulfillment (promoting others’ learning and development). Productivity re-ferred to making, creating, caring for, maintaining and repairing things, processes and ideas. To qualify, statements had torefer explicitly to productive outputs. Finally, leadership denoted statements concerning leadership and management whichimplied a joint focus on tasks and people, and in which productive concerns could not be disentangled from nurturant ones.

Generativity domains. By definition, written life goals belong to the generativity domain of commitment (McAdams & de StAubin, 1992). Each interview statement coded as generative was also assessed for the domain to which it related (De St Au-bin & McAdams, 1995; Emmons & King, 1992; McAdams et al., 1993). Statements of generative concern comprised a person’sopinions, self-perceptions, interests, beliefs and preferences (e.g. I’m not worried about myself any more, I focus on my boys – Iwant them to do well in their education). In line with Emmons (1986, 1989), commitment described intentional behavior (oftenintroduced by I try. . ., or I plan. . .) organized towards a goal which was explicit or could reasonably be inferred from a state-ment’s immediate context (e.g. I try to make it easier for my staff to work and enjoy it). Action denoted behaviors. For example,I recently devised a method of salvaging scrap which saved the company £62,000.

Following recommended procedure (e.g. McClelland, 1987; Smith et al., 1992), the two authors collaborated closely incoding initial samples of life goals (15%) and interviews (10%). Thereafter the first author coded the remaining life goalsand interviews alone. In order to ascertain inter-coder reliability, the second author subsequently coded independentlyapproximately fifteen percent of life goals and interview scripts, as recommended by Baker-Brown et al. (1992); theseencompassed all occupational groups. Inter-coder agreement (Smith et al., 1992) for generative outlets was high at 90.7%,and acceptable for generativity domains at 82.8%, compared with the figure of 85% suggested by Smith et al. as desirablefor research.

Life context. Where the wording allowed, statements were allocated to a work or non-work context; where not (this wasrare at interview but fairly common in written life goals), they were assigned to a third category, which was assumed toencompass both.

Scoring. Each generative theme in a written goal received one point for the variety concerned. The two interview sectionswere scored separately for the presence (1 point) or absence (0) of each variety of generativity in each generativity domainand each life context. The scoring system thus strikes a balance between assessing intensity of generativity (i.e. incidence of aparticular variety), depth (i.e. alignment of different generativity domains) and breadth (i.e. expression of many varieties,


rather than one, and in different contexts of life). Men’s scores for each variety of generativity were summed to produce anoverall score.

Work satisfaction. Eleven aspects of jobs of potential importance to individuals were identified from the literature, includ-ing personal esteem, autonomy, pay, promotion, job security, personal growth, good personal relations, comfort, and flexi-bility for shaping one’s job to suit one’s interests. Two aspects, organizational contribution and social contribution, werechosen for their relevance to generativity. Each constituted an individual item, its wording based upon scales used in pub-lished research (Alderfer, 1972; Bailyn, 1980; Fiske & Chiriboga, 1990; Scase & Goffee, 1989; Schneider & Alderfer, 1973) or,in the case of social contribution, upon the generativity literature. Participants answered the question, How satisfied are youwith this aspect of your present job? on a 7-point scale ranging from Not at all satisfied (1) to Extremely satisfied (7). Scores wereaggregated into a single total for work satisfaction, and are given as mean score per item. Coefficient alpha for this 11-itemscale was .83.

Subjective career success. This was assessed by a single item. Participants were asked, How would you rate your success atthis stage of your career? A four-point response scale ranged from Highly successful (3) to Not successful at all (0).

5. Results

Descriptive statistics for all variables are given in Table 1, which also shows inter-correlations between our different mea-sures of generativity, and their correlations with work/career adjustment. Convergence within and between generativity do-mains was substantial. LGS concern correlated quite highly with our interview-based measure of concern (r(41) = .56,p < .001). The relationship between generativity commitment in written life goals and in interview narratives was also highlysignificant (r(41) = .40, p < .01). When method was held constant (i.e. interview narratives only), the correlations betweengenerativity concern and commitment (r(41) = .63, p < .001), concern and action (.72, p < .001), and commitment and action(.70, p < .001) were consistently strong. Correlations between these domains differed with the variety of generativity(Table 2). Almost all were statistically significant, but they were higher and more consistent for inter-personal and societalcare than for other varieties.

Self-report (LGS) generativity related to different varieties of generativity in men’s interview narratives in strikingly dif-ferent ways. The LGS predicted leadership (r(41) = .32, p < .05) and interpersonal and societal care (r(41) = .67, p < .001), butnot productivity (r(41) = .01 ns) or care for one’s children (r(34) = .20 ns). The relationships between different varieties ofgenerativity in men’s interview narratives paralleled these findings. The ‘mature’ categories of leadership and interpersonaland societal care inter-correlated moderately (r(41) = .52, p < .001), but neither correlated with productivity or children, andthese two varieties were unrelated to each other. Among men in secular occupations, generativity in the context of work didnot relate to generativity towards their children (r(34) = .09 ns). However, the absence of a negative relationship suggeststhat work-related generativity was not at the expense of family, or vice versa. The relationship between nurturant themes(aggregated across all categories) and productive themes was weak and non-significant, whether in the context of work only

Table 1Descriptive statistics and inter-correlations for measures of generativity and work/career adjustment (N = 41)

Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Varieties of generativity (interview themes)a

1 Productivity 2.98 1.75 12 Leadership 2.24 1.70 �.02 13 Interpersonal and societal care 5.95 4.27 �.08 .52*** 14 Own children (1.79) (1.84) (.04) (�0.02) (.11) 15 ALL generative outlets in work

context (i.e. R(1–3) above)11.17 5.52 .25 .70*** .91*** (.09) 1

Generativity domainsb

Concern:6 (a) LGS 39.93 7.63 .01 .32* .67*** (.20) .56*** 17 (b) Interview themes 4.22 2.25 .20 .68*** .80*** (.09) .89*** .56*** 1

Commitment:8 (a) Written life goals 2.10c 3.15 �.08 .45** .53*** (�.07) .52*** .39* .48** 19 (b) Interview themes 2.66 2.02 .24 .56*** .80*** (.04) .87*** .52*** .63*** .40** 1

Action:10 Interview themes 4.32 1.96 .24 .60*** .83*** (.09) .90*** .58*** .72*** .49** .70*** 1Work/career adjustment11 Work satisfaction 4.90 .77 .28� .28� .33* (.30�) .43** .58*** .26 .11 .49** .41** 112 Career success 2.27 .81 �.04 �.01 .24 (.33�) .20 .49** .09 �.11 .17 .29� .55*** 1

Note: Figures in brackets are for men in secular occupations only (n = 34).�p < .10; *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.

a In this portion of the table, themes of (1) productivity, (2) interpersonal and societal care and (3) leadership refer to the work context only.b In this portion of the table, written life goals and interview themes refer to themes of productivity, interpersonal and societal care, and leadership in the

work context only.c Mean for men in secular occupations only 1.09, SD 1.26.

Table 2Correlations between generativity domains for different varieties of generativity (N = 41)

Variety of generativity Correlations between generativity domains:

Concern: Concern: Commitment:Commitment Action Action

Productivity .41** .31* .59***

Interpersonal and societal care .65*** .71*** .66***

Leadership .32* .42** .47**

Own children (n = 34) .33� .51** .49**

�p < .10; *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.Note: Correlations concern incidence of generativity themes in interview narratives. Correlations with generativity towards one’s own children excludepriests.


(r(41) = .22 ns), or across all life contexts (.18 ns). In men’s written life goals (details not shown), productivity, interpersonaland societal care, and care giving towards children were also unrelated (leadership goals were too few for a calculation to beperformed).

Generativity in a work context did not relate to generativity in the non-work arena, and this was true both of generativityin men’s written life goals (r(41) = .08 ns) and their interview narratives (r(41) = �.13 ns). The same applied at the level ofgenerative varieties. In short, generativity was highly variable- and context-specific.

5.1. Incidence and character of generativity

Here we give a picture of men’s generativity as conveyed by their written life goals and their interview narratives (Re-search Question 1). On average, men wrote a total of 10.51 life goals, SD 2.97, of which generative goals accounted for4.44, SD 3.41 (among men in secular occupations only, M 3.47, SD 2.29). Only two men failed to give any generative goals.All others gave at least one nurturant goal and nearly half (19 out of 41) more than three. In contrast, 20 men gave no pro-ductive goals and none scored over three. Only one individual gave more productive than nurturant goals. Across the entiresample, nurturant outweighed productive goals in the ratio 8:1 (priests and teachers 12:1, engineers 5:1). This ratio was 6:1for generative goals encompassing work. Family accounted for twice as many generative goals as work; half of these con-cerned men’s children. After family, the second most common variety was interpersonal and societal care, in which themesof inter-individual care outnumbered both societal concern and others’ growth and fulfillment, which were mentioned byfewer than one-quarter of the sample. Amongst secular men, thus, generative goals revolved primarily around family andother relationships in their immediate social vicinity. On average, only one of secular men’s generative goals (M 1.09, SD1.26) encompassed work. No individual mentioned mentoring. Priests’ goals were dominated by generativity (three-quartersof their goals), nearly all of which concerned their work role. Priests (M = 6.36) gave over seven times as many interpersonaland societal goals as secular men (M = .85).

No individual failed to report generativity at interview. As questions ranged across potentially generative contributions inall walks of life, men could (and many did) take the opportunity to refer to their roles as productive employee, leader, col-league, father, husband or partner, son, friend, citizen, and participant in social and productive leisure pursuits. Scores ran-ged widely between 6 and 32 in all contexts; mean score 15.90 mentions, SD 6.65. In the work domain, scores rangedbetween 2 and 23; mean score 11.17, SD 5.52. Interviews (which focused mainly on participants’ working lives) produceda different generative profile from written strivings. Among secular men, work-related generative themes (M = 9.47, SD4.64) outweighed family themes (M = 3.29, SD 2.71) in the ratio 3:1.Whereas work accounted for only one-quarter of gen-erative themes in written life goals, the proportion at interview was around 60%. The character of men’s generativity was alsodifferent. Inter-individual caring transactions in the context of work and family comprised four-fifths of secular men’s writ-ten generative goals, but under half of those coded from interview material.

In the secular sample, interpersonal and societal themes were what best differentiated the ten most generative men fromthe ten least generative, with the former reporting nearly five times as many as the latter. Productivity themes (ratio 1.5: 1)were the least differentiating. The ratio of nurturant to productive themes was much more evenly balanced at interview(2:1) than in participants’ life goals (8:1). Within the context of employment, nurturance and productivity were equally bal-anced among engineers, compared with a ratio of nearly 3:1 among teachers and priests. Ten out of 24 engineers scoredhigher for productivity than nurturance, whilst none of the priests/teachers did. As might be expected, therefore, engineersexpressed generativity in relatively more productive ways than priests/teachers. In men’s non-work lives, the ratio of nur-turance to productivity was 4:1, irrespective of occupation. Within the category of interpersonal and societal care, priests’score was twice that of secular men.

In summary, the picture of generativity conveyed by men’s goals for their lives as a whole was different from – but notincompatible with - that contained in interview narratives, which focused mainly upon work. Men’s generative life goalswere predominantly nurturant and, among secular men, mainly concerned caring – particularly family - relationships. Pro-ductive and nurturant themes were more evenly balanced at interview, but nurturance was relatively more prevalent thanproductivity in the narratives of more generative men.

Table 3Descriptive statistics for generative work outlets by generativity domain, and correlations between domains and measures of work and career adjustment

Generativity outlet/domain Mean SD Work satisfaction Career success

Interpersonal and societal careConcern 2.49 1.71 .18 .16Commitment 1.41 1.58 .31* .11Action 2.05 1.55 .40** .39*

LeadershipConcern .73 .71 .13 �.05Commitment .56 .67 .36* .08Action .95 .81 .18 �.06

ProductivityConcern 1.00 .67 .30� �.05Commitment .68 .82 .33* .13Action 1.29 .72 .03 �.01

�p < .10; *p < .05; **p < .01.Note: Scores and correlations shown are for generativity themes in interview narratives.


5.2. Generativity and work/career outcomes

Work satisfaction correlated quite strongly with LGS generativity (r(41) = .58, p < .001) and with aggregated work-relatedthemes at interview (r(41) = .43, p < .01). It did not relate to generative commitment in written life goals (r(41) = .11 ns) butcorrelated moderately with commitment in interview narratives (r(41) = .49, p = .001). At the level of varieties of generativ-ity, only interpersonal and societal care was linked significantly to work satisfaction (r(41) = .33, p < .05), but both leadership(r(41) = .28, p < .10) and productivity (r(41) = .28, p < .10) showed marginal associations. Hypothesis 1 therefore receivedmoderate support.

Subjective career success. Support for Hypothesis 2 was more mixed. Self-perceived success was predicted by LGS gener-ativity (r(41) = .49, p = .001), but not by aggregate work-related generative themes in interview narratives (r(41) = .20 ns). Atthe level of varieties of generativity, as hypothesized, success related to interpersonal and societal generativity but in thedomain of action only (r(41) = .39, p = .01) (Table 3). Again as hypothesized, productivity did not relate to perceived success,but nor – contrary to expectation – did leadership. Individuals’ ratings of their success in career very likely incorporate com-parison with others, in particular with peers within the same occupation. As there was clear evidence of occupational pat-terns in men’s generative outlets, we took the precaution of converting men’s raw scores for each variety into a standardizedscore relative to their occupational group (eg priest, manager) to control for occupational effects. When we did so, the cor-relation of success with interpersonal and societal care aggregated across all domains rose from r(41) = 24 ns to r(41) = .39 ns,p = .01, whilst the correlations with productivity (r(41) = �.02 ns) and leadership (r(41) = .06 ns) remained non-significant;the correlation with generative themes aggregated across varieties and domains rose from r(41) = .20 ns to r(41) = .32,p < .05. When aggregate scores for all varieties were standardized by occupation, success was linked both to commitment(r(41) = .42, p < .01) and action (r(41) = .55, p < .001). There is thus modest evidence that more generative men perceivethemselves as more successful in their career, and that this relationship applies particularly to active generativity, especiallyin the form of interpersonal and societal care.

Generativity domains. In relation to Research Question 2, no consistent pattern of associations was found between thirdvariables and generativity domains across all measures. Although LGS concern correlated quite strongly with both work sat-isfaction (r(41) = .58, p < .001) and career success (r(41) = .49, p = .001), our interview-based measure of concern did not(r(41) = .26 ns and .09 ns, respectively). Generative commitment in written life goals did not relate to either variable(r(41) = .11 ns and �.11 ns, respectively); but, although generative commitment at interview was also unrelated to careersuccess (r(41) = .17 ns), its correlation with work satisfaction (r(41) = .49, p = .001) was highly significant.

Table 3 shows results at the more refined level of varieties of generativity, when method was held constant (interviews).Across all varieties, work satisfaction was most consistently related to generativity commitment, as opposed to concern oraction. However, interpersonal and societal care action was moderately linked to work satisfaction and also career success.

6. Discussion

Generativity was a significant focus for many men. It was present on average in 3–4 out of 10 of men’s written goals. Itssalience in the context of work varied with the measure employed. In men’s written goals for their lives as a whole, work-related generativity ranked behind generativity in a family context. We cannot say if this was true also of earlier periods oflife, but it is consistent with the findings of investigators (e.g. Howard & Bray, 1988; Wigfield & Braskamp, 1985) who re-ported declining centrality of work and career accomplishments relative to family and other relationships in mid/late career.Nonetheless, men’s interviews—which mainly concerned work—confirm employment as an important and distinctive arenafor generative expression. Societal concern was especially prevalent, but leadership and productivity, which were largely ab-sent from men’s written goals, were also much in evidence. This contrast presumably reflects the opportunities and


requirements of men’s work roles and coincides with the highly differentiated and contextualized picture of generativity re-vealed by our study. Generativity in the role of worker did not relate to generativity in non-work roles. Within employment,the role of productive worker was not linked to that of organizational citizen. As others have found in relation to women(MacDermid et al., 1998), therefore, the generative person is not generative in all contexts and all ways.

Generativity in the context of work was linked to well-being in mid/late career. By most measures, generative menshowed greater work satisfaction. There was also evidence of an association between generativity and self-rated successin career. The link between generativity and positive outcomes was stronger and more consistent for one variety of gener-ativity—interpersonal and societal care—than for others (productivity, leadership). Men were more likely to find their workrewarding and to judge their careers as successful when they promoted others’ growth and the common good than whenthey sought fulfillment and success through productivity or leadership alone. This was true both amongst secular menand in the sample as a whole. In a correlational study, we cannot of course specify the direction of this relationship.

Our study sheds light on the relation between generativity in a family context and men’s working lives. Although manymen talked at interview about the tension between work and their family roles, there was no sign in the secular sample thatwork-related generativity was at the expense of care giving towards children. Contrary to some previous research (Snarey,1993), we found no link between parental generativity and more encompassing forms.

6.1. Generativity as a multi-dimensional construct

McAdams and de St Aubin (1992) argued for generative concern, commitment and action as conceptually and empiricallydistinct, although overlapping, domains of generativity, which can be expected to relate differently to other variables. Todate, evidence for the partial independence of these domains is confined to studies which, because they employ differentmethods to assess different domains, may not escape methodological confounds. We believe our study is unique in usinga common method (interview) to measure generativity across all three domains. When this measure was employed, wefound correlations between generativity domains which, whilst greater than those of .20–.53 reported by McAdams et al.(1993), still fell short of total convergence. As befits the contextualized nature of generativity, overlap between domains var-ied with life context. Across all contexts, convergence between domains (which ranged between .43 and .57) was less than inthe context of work alone (.63–.72).

Our results suggest that investigation of generativity domains needs to be sensitive to varieties of generative expres-sion. Overlap between domains was greater for interpersonal and societal care than for other varieties. This finding hintsat complex patterns in men’s adjustment to their various social roles. Productivity is a requirement of all work roles, andleadership of some; in a similar way, powerful societal expectations attach to fatherhood. To a large extent, therefore,these varieties of generativity are socially mandated. At interview it was clear that some men’s feelings towards theseroles were ambivalent or conflicted. In contrast, interpersonal and societal care denotes behaviors which often exceedformal role requirements (Brief & Motowidlo, 1986; Lodi-Smith & Roberts, 2007). Inasmuch as they are discretionary, theymay attract less ambivalence, and alignment between domains should therefore be greater. We think it likely that thesepatterns in part reflect adjustment to the challenges of mid/late career. Interviews suggested that productivity and lead-ership had declined in importance for some individuals in line with their dwindling pursuit of advancement. Increasingly,rewards were sought less in individual achievement or formal recognition and more in forms of contribution to thecollective good. These trends probably reflect the opportunity structure of mid/late career. They may also reflect normativedevelopment in middle age.

In short, interpersonal and societal care was the form of generativity for which there was greatest harmony between thecontribution men actually succeeded in making through their work and the contribution they wished and strove to make. Itwas also more strongly and consistently related to well-being than other forms of generativity. It was, furthermore, the cat-egory which best differentiated more from less generative men. Taken together, we interpret these findings as offering rarequantitative support for theorists such as Levinson et al. (1978) and Vaillant (1977), who argued for ‘wide radius’ generativ-ity as more adaptive in mid/late career than other forms, and as most characteristic of generative maturity in middle age.

Perhaps our most striking results concern the different patterns of correlation with third variables shown by differentmeasures of the same domain. Our open-ended measure of concern at interview was unrelated to either work satisfactionor career success; in contrast, our self-report measure of concern, the LGS, predicted both quite strongly. Again, whilst com-mitment in the context of interview narratives correlated with work satisfaction, and did so consistently across generativeoutlets, commitment expressed in written life goals did not. We believe this says as much about the measures as the do-mains—a point we now develop.

Although de St Aubin and McAdams (1995) described the LGS as a measure of generative ‘concern’, twelve of its twentyitems assess self-perceived generative accomplishment. We would argue therefore that the LGS measures not only a dispo-sition towards generativity, but also generative efficacy and success. This emphasis may account in large part for its associ-ation with positive outcomes. In contrast, our more neutrally toned interview measure assesses concern for generativity, notcapacity. Its associations were also more neutral.

What may explain the different patterns of correlation for our two measures of commitment (sentence completion andinterview)? Writing a considered list of one’s goals in life is a different task from talking spontaneously at interview aboutexperience associated with challenge, satisfaction and heightened meaning. Men’s ambivalence in conversation towards cer-tain roles and aversion for others (e.g. home improver, gardener) which nevertheless featured in their written goals invite the


speculation that these goals may sometimes have been inspired more by duty than appetite. Certainly, men whose inter-views suggested they saw themselves as deficient in generative roles were as likely to list written goals relating to thoseroles as those whose self-appraisal was more favorable. In sum, our multi-method approach throws into sharper reliefthe distinctive properties of different measures of generativity.

What, if any, conclusions can then be drawn about the differential correlates of generativity domains? In view of the fairlysmall number of participants and the unavoidably approximate nature of our measures, we tread warily. We believe that ourinterview measure offers the most reliable comparisons. Across all varieties of generativity, and for the discretionary varietyof interpersonal and societal care in particular, the evidence of our study is that merely wishing to be generative (concern)does not bring satisfaction. Rather, satisfaction depends on active engagement with generative tasks expressed in plans(commitment) and accomplishments (action). The same is true for the link between success and interpersonal and societalcare. In contrast, where generativity takes more routine and possibly compliant forms (e.g. productivity), actual behaviormay bring less certain rewards than the fact of caring about what one does (concern). We conclude that our study providesmodest support for this aspect of McAdams’ and de St Aubin’s theory of generativity. In general, it seems that overlap be-tween domains may be greater than their empirical evidence suggests; consequently, differences in their correlates shouldbe smaller. Nevertheless, they may still be worthy of investigation. Further research is required, employing additional vari-ables and larger samples.

6.2. Issues concerning the generativity construct

Our study questions the role of productivity within the generativity construct. Unlike the ‘mature’ categories of lead-ership and interpersonal and societal care, productivity did not relate to a measure—the LGS—which is widely regarded asa benchmark in generativity research. Why did productivity not bring the feelings of generative success indicated by theLGS?

The productivity of men in this study may often have lacked pro-social intent. For some individuals, the significance ofproductive work likely had to do with pursuit of mastery, personal growth, advancement and material reward. Is suchbehavior generative? Kotre (1984) contrasted agentic generativity, which is primarily self-interested, with communal gen-erativity where the focus is on care for what is generated. The absence of a link between productivity and generativeaccomplishment may reflect the difference between an agentic style of generativity and the generative construct incorpo-rated in the LGS. A further possibility is suggested by the paucity of productive themes in men’s written life goals: produc-tivity may have contributed little to feelings of generative accomplishment on account of its low valence for many men. Inoccupations such as engineering where activities are usually team-based and rapidly obsolescent, it may also be hard forindividuals to claim creative authorship of a magnitude sufficient to achieve widespread social impact or permanence. Adistinguished engineer with an international reputation for his contributions to his field said, ‘I’ve made a contributionto some of our products, but I don’t kid myself that within next to no time I’ll [not] be forgotten. I certainly would liketo have done something that would have a more lasting impression, and I have thought about writing a book, because thatwould last a bit longer, if only because it’s tangible and it’s on a shelf.’ Accomplishments on an enduring scale are amplyvisible in the output of a Beethoven, Balzac or van Gogh, all of whom spoke of their works as their ‘children’. But for moreordinary talents, nurturant interpersonal behavior may well beat creative contribution as a route to a lasting place inpeople’s memories.

A more fundamental question still is prompted by the absence of correlations between productivity and nurturance inmen’s interview narratives, and between generativity towards men’s children and other forms of generativity. All in all,evidence for generativity as a unitary construct with interrelated productive and nurturant forms was decidedly weak.Our results parallel those of Van de Water and McAdams (1989), who failed to find a link between creative endeavor andnurturance, and those of Bailey (1992), who found self-report generativity linked to social involvement, but not paternalcare. These findings raise the possibility that generativity is best understood as a generic term for a diverse family of behav-iors which are largely or wholly independent of each other at the conscious level. Rather, their link may reside in their sharedcontribution to human well-being (i.e. factors external to the person), or in shared roots in needs which are ‘implicit’ (Hofer,Busch, Chasiotis, Kärtner, & Campos, 2008; McClelland, 1985) i.e. not consciously attended to. If so, the implications for gen-erativity are far-reaching. We might expect to find that particular varieties have differing trajectories and correlates acrossthe life span, as well as different antecedents within personality. Different forms of generativity would therefore requireindependent study, employing variety-specific measures. Purportedly generic measures such as the LGS could be seen asmore relevant to some expressions of generativity than others.

6.3. Limitations and directions for future research

Our study has limitations. The most obvious are the number of participants, and its exclusion of women, both conse-quences of its intensive, multi-method approach. A further important limitation is that, whilst the picture our study paintsis consistent with generativity as a variable of some importance in this period of career, we are unable to compare it withearlier or later periods. Studies of productive aspects of generativity remain very scarce in any period of career. More re-search is needed, preferably of a longitudinal kind and with larger samples.


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The nature, prevalence and correlates of generativity among men in middle career

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