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Journal of Environmental Psychology (1999) 19, 131^143 # 1999 Academic Press Article No. jevp.1998.0118, available online at http://www.idealibrary.com on

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PERSONAL PROJECTS IN EVERYDAY PLACES: PERCEIVED SUPPORTIVENESS OF THE ENVIRONMENT AND PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING MARJUT WALLENIUS Department of Psychology, University of Tampere, Finland Abstract The study examined whether perceived supportiveness of the environment in connection with personal projects is related to psychological well-being (satisfaction with life and depression) and which characteristics of personal projects and everyday places are associated with the level of perceived supportiveness of the environment. The results are based on 167 interviews with adults approximately 30 years old. The interview contained the Little's Personal Project Inventory and questions about everyday places and well-being.The subjects connected 36% of all of their personal projects to a speci¢able place. Most frequently mentioned project places were home, workplace and sports facilities. The results showed that perceived supportiveness of the environment in connection with personal projects predicted life satisfaction but was not indicative of depression. High supportiveness of the environment was associated with accomplishable, socially supported and practically incompatible projects. Frequently depressed persons were characterized by abstract, stressing and self-related projects. Each aspect of the environment was perceived to have supportive function. Informal action was perceived to support personal projects more often than the o¤cial program in a setting. # 1999 Academic Press

Introduction According to Caplan (1983, p. 35) person±environment ¢t theory deals with how characteristics of the person and the environment a¡ect well-being.Taken in such a general sense the studies emphasizing person±environment ¢t constitute an extensive and heterogeneous collection. Many of them are related to studies on stress, dealing with environmental stress, learned helplessness or stressing life events (for reviews see Stokols, 1979; Caplan, 1983; Evans & Cohen, 1987; Caplan & Van Harrison, 1993). The reviews show that the notion of ¢t has on the one hand been widely adopted, but on the other there is room for both critique and for development. As Caplan (1983, p. 35) states: `The predictive power of the theory, although encouraging, has not been impressive'. Stokols (1979) noted the emphasis on immediate, isolated factors and demands consideration for the socio-physical context. Stokols also considered the operationalization of the concept of ¢t to be de¢cient. Caplan (1983) criticized the concentration of studies conducted on the basis of the ¢t theories to

be mere present time and advocated the incorporation of a time perspective to the past and the future. Kaplan (1983) concurs with Stokols in that earlier studies focused too narrowly on the relations of individual needs and situational factors, and recommends a shift to a more general level of investigation. Studies of environmental congruence have usually focused on either the ¢t of the needs of the person with the environmental resources and opportunities or the ¢t between the demands of the environment and the abilities of the person (see Caplan, 1983, p. 36; Kaplan, 1983, p. 313±314). Barker (1968, p. 6, 187; 1987, p. 1415±1416) has also stressed that there are two di¡erent kinds of environments, the ecological environment, which is independent of a person's psychological system and the psychological environment, which is a part of a person's psychological system. However, what is important is that both of these environments a¡ect behavior. A person engages simultaneously in extraindividual action required by situational demands and in individual, purposive action.

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As a synthesis of these two points of view person± environment ¢t has later been understood as opportunities for an individual to strive toward important goals in a certain ecological context (cf. Stokols, 1979; Caplan, 1983; Kaplan, 1983; Canter, 1991). In this process the prominent factors are information patterns or a person's image of the world, which is the basis for all human action in the world (Miller et al., 1960; Kaplan, 1983; Canter, 1991). A person's plans and purposes must meet the possibilities and the requirements of the world. Cognitive ecology (Canter, 1991, p. 199) or ecological cognition (GÌrling et al., 1991, p. 342) is the prerequisite for an individual's adjustment to his or her everyday environment. Cantor and Kihlstrom's (1987, p. 60, 78) concept of social intelligence comes very close to these ideas. Social intelligence contains declarative, conceptual knowledge about the social world, people and places, the self and events, and procedural knowledge about the rules that enable us to modify our interactions with the world. When we are interested in well-being it is the subjective ¢t which is essential (Stokols, 1979, p. 32; Caplan, 1983, p. 38). Stokols (1979, p. 36±37) de¢nes the concept of congruence operationally as a joint function of the ratio between actual and ideal levels of need facilitation and the motivational signi¢cance of those needs that are facilitated by the environment. He assumes that people's subjective appraisals of their environments provide a reasonably straightforward index of the quality of their experiences in those settings. Subjective ¢t is here called perceived supportiveness of the environment in connection with personal goals. No goals or environmental settings are isolated units in a person's life. The psychological signi¢cance of situations and settings depends on their relationships to the individual's overall life situation and plans. Campbell (1983, p. 370±371) emphasized a person's whole life situation as the context of adaptation. With expression counterbalancing reappraisal, he states that harmful environmental conditions in one life domain can be tolerated if at the same time there are counterbalancing gains in another life domain. That is why it is necessary to extend the concept of ¢t to determine the overall level of ¢t as a function of the levels of congruence existing within multiple life domains (see Stokols, 1982, p. 173±174; Stokols et al., 1983). The overall level of subjective ¢t is thus determined within the context of subjective life stage, a spatially and temporally bounded phase of a person's life that is associated with particular goals and plans. The structure of ecological environment has been described in terms of behavior settings, which have a

temporally and spatially bounded standing pattern of behavior or a program (Barker, 1968). In other accounts a program has been referred to by rules of place (Canter, 1991). It is the program of the setting which de¢nes actions that are possible in a place. Because of their socio-cultural nature, behavior settings are commonly perceived community units, such as shops, restaurants, meetings, sports matches etc. (Barker, 1968, p. 35; Bechtel, 1987, p. 193). Barker (1968, p. 108) states: `A town's molar environment consists of the behavior settings that are available for its inhabitants to enter for the pursuit of their own personal goals'. Later researchers have noted that behavior settings often serve not only the main program but also informal or ino¤cial action, so-called side programs, that are secondary to, but compatible with, the main program (Silbereisen et al., 1986, p. 94, 102; Wicker 1987, p. 631; Wallenius, 1990). On the basis of the foregoing a life stage of a person is thought spatially to consist of the behavior settings salient for that period in a person's life. What would be a commensurate goal unit with a behavior setting in the context of a life stage? In personality psychology self-articulated personal goals have become increasingly popular units of analysis (for reviews see Pervin, 1989; Cantor & Zirkel, 1990). From among these so-called middle-level units we selected personal project as the most appropriate goal unit for measuring person±environment ¢t in a certain life stage. Personal projects are interrelated sequences of actions intended to achieve some personal goals (Palys & Little, 1983, p. 1222).They may range from trivial pursuits (such as cleaning one's room) to lofty and far-reaching aims (such as ¢nding a purpose for one's life). Personal projects may widely represent both life tasks (Cantor & Kihlstrom, 1987; Cantor, 1990) and personal strivings (Emmons, 1986, 1989) as well as the more idiosyncratic goals (Little, 1996). Personal projects that are enjoyable, only moderately di¤cult, e¡ective and shared with other persons are related to life satisfaction (Palys & Little, 1983; Little, 1988, 1989). Psychological problems (e.g. depression) are associated with di¤cult and self-related projects with low outcome expectancy (Salmela-Aro, 1992; Little, 1993; Lecci et al., 1994). Personal projects are characterized by a high degree of ecological contingency. Their course depends not only upon the internal strivings but also upon the environmental a¡ordances or contextual constraints (Little, 1993, p. 162). In a pilot study (Little et al., 1986) 92 per cent of the projects of university students were linked to the speci¢able locations in which they were undertaken.We assumed that di¡erences in appraisals of personal projects re£ect abilities to ¢nd

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ways to accomplish goals in the environment. Emmons' (1991) ¢nding that individuals do appear to experience a¡ect in their lives in relation to events that impinge upon their personal strivings is also of interest. Conversely traditional personality trait measures predicted choice of everyday situations and affects of individuals in these situations only weakly (Diener et al., 1984). The subjective ¢t or, in other words, perceived supportiveness of the environment was thus de¢ned as perceived opportunities of realizing personal projects in the behavior settings of everyday life emphasizing the projects according to motivational salience. Frameworks dealing with person±environment ¢t (Stokols, 1979; Caplan, 1983; Kaplan, 1983; Canter, 1991) imply that the chances of attaining goals are related to well-being. In this study we have selected two dimensions of well-being: satisfaction with life and depression.They can be measured either as a trait or as a state (Diener, 1984, p. 550; Watson et al., 1988, p. 347).We have approached them from the latter point of view. Life satisfaction refers to global, cognitive assessment of a person's own life, which must be distinguished from judgement of quality of life or speci¢c life domains. Judgements of satisfaction are dependent on comparison of one's circumstances with a standard which each individual sets for him or herself (see Palys & Little, 1983, p. 1224; Diener et al., 1985, p. 71). Depression has been conceptualized in terms of a¡ective, cognitive, physiological, and behavioral manifestations (see e.g. Lecci et al., 1994, p. 404). In this study, we were primarily interested in examining dysphoric mood rather than clinical depression. The present study aimed to investigate (1) whether the level of person±environment ¢t expressed by perceived supportiveness of the environment is related to psychological well-being (satisfaction with life and depression), (2) which characteristics of personal projects are associated with the level of perceived supportiveness of the environment, and (3) which characteristics of everyday behavior settings are related to the level of perceived supportiveness of the environment. To complement these aims, approximately 30 -yearold inhabitants of a Finnish town were interviewed using the Personal Project Analysis Inventory (Little, 1983) and questions about the everyday places of respondents. The number, type and supportive elements of everyday places as well as content and appraisal dimensions of personal projects were analysed. Scores measuring perceived supportiveness of the environment, life satisfaction and depression were also used.

Method Overview Data for the study were collected by interview. Participants were selected from among approximately 30 year-old citizens of Tampere, the second largest city in Finland. The intention was to focus on one phase of life (cf. Stokols, 1982) in order to stabilize the e¡ect of normative life tasks possibly connected with various phases of life and of di¡erent experiential backgrounds. The age around 30 (28±33 years) has been described as the turning point between two phases of life (Levinson et al., 1978, p. 84±89). At this time the ambitions of youth generally end and there is a transition to the tasks of adulthood (Nurmi, 1989). For the purposes of the study a sample of residents was requested from the population register of the Tampere District Court. The requirement was that the sample should contain in equal parts representatives of both sexes and various levels of education. The 330 participants selected were sent a letter in which the study was introduced. The recipients were then contacted in order to arrange times and places for the interviews.This was most frequently done by telephone, and where no telephone was available by means of personal visits to the address. Some of those included in the sample had moved elsewhere, were travelling or, for reasons unknown, did not answer their telephones. Of those to whom the letters were sent, 279 (845%) were met personally. Of these 167 (60%) agreed to be interviewed. The reasons for declining to participate in an interview were mostly lack of time or interest or then some situational factors such as illness. The interviews were conducted by seven psychology students. First, the interviewers were familiarized in a group situation with the ongoing research and the content of the questionnaire. After a few practice interviews the researcher met each interviewer separately. At this point the completed questionnaires were examined and each interviewer was given some individual guidance. Throughout the period when the interviews were being conducted there was constant contact between the researcher and the interviewers. The number of interviews per interviewer varied from ten to 44. The interviews were conducted in approximately equal proportions in the participants' homes or in the researcher's o¤ce at the University of Tampere. They were usually conducted outside working hours, the average duration being 15 hours, the respective lengths varying between 1 and 2 hours. The data were compiled from interviews with 167 people (94 women and 73 men). The average age of the

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interviewees was 298 years (S.D.=117). As to education, 30 per cent were blue-collar workers, 383 percent had middle level education and 317 percent were university educated. Of the participants, 682 percent were married or cohabiting and 317 percent were single. Measures Places in the daily life. The descriptions of the everyday environment are based on the subjective images of the respondents. Given the purpose of the study the use of subjective image requires justi¢cation: it is widely assumed that the basis for goal-oriented activity is the representaiton of everyday life (e.g. Miller et al., 1960; Canter, 1991) or life space in the sense of Lewin (1951).The term `everyday place' was used to correspond to the ecological psychology concept of behavior setting (Barker, 1968) in colloquial language. Respondents were given an instruction as follows: `Everyday life is composed of places and situations in which you spend periods of varying length.Would you describe your normal routine day by enumerating those places in which you are every day or almost every day'. After this the respondent was urged to consider the current period of time, April to June, and also to enumerate `those places in which you are less frequently than daily (e.g. only on certain days of the week, weekends or only one day a month)'. Personal project analysis. The Personal Project Analysis Inventory is a revised version of Little's (1983) method. The ¢rst task of the subjects was to describe eight of their current personal projects in response to the following instruction: `All of us have a number of personal projects at any given time that we think about, plan for and sometimes (though not always) complete. Think about what kind of projects you have in your life at the moment'. Examples such as `invite friends to my home', `buy a car' and `overcome fear of meeting new people' were given. The number eight was based on earlier studies on life tasks (Cantor et al., 1986) and personal projects (Salmela-Aro, 1992). Fewer than eight projects were allowed to avoid arti¢cial projects. In the second part of the inventory, the subjects were asked to rate each of the eight projects according to 18 dimensions using an 11-point scale ranging from `very uncharacteristic' (0) to `very characteristic' (10). Projects were rated one at a time using rating cards. Each card contained a question about one dimension and the corresponding rating scale. The 18 dimensions were as follows: importance (`how important it is to you at the present time'); enjoyment (`how much

you enjoy working on it'); di¤culty (`how di¤cult do you ¢nd it'); visibility (`how aware are the relevant people who are close to you that you are engaged in it'); control (`how much you feel you are in control of it'); initiation (`how much you feel responsible for having initiated it'); stress (`how stressful it is for you to carry it out'); time adequacy (`how much you feel that the amount of time you spend working on it is adequate'); outcome (`what you anticipate the outcome of it to be'); self-prototypicality (`how typical of you is it'); other's view (`how important it is seen to be by relevant people who are close to you'); value congruency (`to what extent it is consistent with the values which guide your life'); progress (`how successful have you been in it so far'); challenge (`to what extent it is demanding and challenging to you'); and absorption (`to what extent have you become deeply involved in it'). Three dimensions were added to Little's (1983) original ones. The dimension shared (`to what extent do you work on it alone or with others') compensates the question `with whom'. The dimension accomplishment (`is it more like a goal you will accomplish, or is it more like a dream which you believe will not come true') has appeared in earlier studies (Nurmi, 1989; Salmela-Aro, 1992). The dimension, typical for age (`how typical it is for other people of the same age as you'), describes the connection of projects with normative life tasks (see e.g. Cantor & Kihlstrom, 1987; Nurmi, 1991). The ecological context of a project (cf. Little, 1987c, p. 231, 242) was represented by the place in which the project is undertaken. The respondents were asked: `where do you usually work on or are going to work on your project?' The respondents were also asked to rate to what extent the place facilitates or thwarts the project using an 11-point scale ranging from`not at all' (0) to `entirely' (10). Moreover, we wanted to know `which component of the place facilitates or thwarts your project most: (1) physical milieu and the things there; (2) other people/social environment; or (3) action and services?' (cf. Canter, 1983, p. 666), and `which is more important in the place for your project: (1) the o¤cial program; or (2) informal action?' In the last task of the personal project inventory, subjects were asked to complete a project crossimpact matrix (e.g. Little, 1983, p. 295±296; 1989, p. 22). The matrix is an 8 -row68 -column sheet on which the name of each of the personal projects is written. The instruction was as follows: `your projects may be mutually supportive or mutually detrimental. Your task is to assess one project at a time, how it a¡ects each of your seven other projects'. Plus and minus signs were to be used in the assessment (++ very positive, + positive, 7 negative,

Environmental Support

^ very negative and 0 neutral impact). The comparisons were continued until the entire matrix had been ¢lled. Satisfaction with life and depression. Palys and Little (1983, p. 1224, see also Little, 1988, p. 93) found one question to be a reliable and valid measure of satisfaction with life. Diener (1984, p. 544) also concluded on the basis of his review that the validity and reliability of single-item scales suggest that they are adequate as brief measures of global well-being. Life satisfaction was measured by asking the respondents `how satis¢ed do you feel with your life as a whole, right now?' using an 11-point scale from `not at all satis¢ed' (0) to `fully satis¢ed' (10). Depression was measured by asking `to what extent do you feel depressed?' using 11point scale from `almost never' (0) to `almost always' (10). Scoring and reliability Contents. The places in everyday life and the personal projects mentioned by the subjects were classi¢ed independently by two assessors. The places were classi¢ed into 19 categories which were general names of places (e.g. home, work place, shop). The same categories were used when classifying the places in which the projects were worked on. Reliability of the classi¢cation, measured by the percentage rate of agreement between the two raters, was 097 for the former and 096 for the latter. The personal projects were classi¢ed into 17 categories on the basis of their content. A preanalysis of the data was carried out. Most of the categories chosen were similar to those used frequently in earlier studies (Little, 1988, p. 40; Nurmi, 1992, p. 493; SalmelaAro, 1992, p. 332). The categories were (examples of each content are given in brackets): pair relationship, family (`to ¢nd a spouse', `to make the family happy'), other social relationships (`to maintain and to take care of good human relationships'), children (`to have heirs', `to bring children up to be good people'), work and profession (`to create a permanent work relationship', `to enjoy and to succeed in a career'), hobbies (`to start a new exercise hobby', `to improve one's guitar playing'), acquisitions (`to get a summer place', `to buy roof panels'), self (`to achieve balance', `to try to be more sociable, also in the company of strangers'), studies (`to learn a new language', `to take further education'), health (`to improve level of ¢tness'), use of time (`to achieve a balance between work and leisure', `to spend more time with my children'), money (`to get enough money to meet expenses', `to win in the lottery'), experience new things (`to have new ex-

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periences', `to go and see places not seen before'), routines and un¢nished tasks (`to give the house a good cleaning', `to get un¢nished handicrafts completed'), quality of home and home environment (`to redecorate my home completely', `to move to the country'), quality of life (`to be happy', `to make life pleasant with nice things'), society (`to in£uence other people's opinions', `to help nature, to make people understand') and others. Content analysis reliability, measured by the percentage rate of agreement between the two independent raters, was 084. For further analysis, new relative frequency scores were calculated separately for each person, related to each place/content category by dividing the number of places/contents related to each place/content category by the total number of places/projects mentioned by the person. Similar scores were also calculated for places in which the projects were undertaken. These scores were calculated to make sure that the total number of the places and the project mentioned by the subjects did not in£uence the results (cf. e.g. Nurmi et al., 1995, p. 363). Personal project dimensions. First, the mean column scores for each project appraisal dimension were calculated, without considering di¡erences in content. In addition to this two new dimensions were formed on the basis of a project cross-impact matrix. Positive and negative impact scores were formed by separately summing up the plus and the minus signs received by each project. The scores, which could range from zero to 14, were transformed into an 11-point scale. The mean column scores for these two dimensions were then calculated. Level of abstraction. The personal projects were coded for the level at which they were phrased by subjects. High-level projects were described as being abstract and re£ective, as involving self-scrutiny and internal states (moods, motives, and thoughts); (such as `to achieve a state of balance',`to be a better mother', `to help nature, to get people to understand'). Low-level projects were described as being more concrete and speci¢c and more behavioral (such as `to go abroad by car during the summer holiday', `make my home more comfortable', `surprise my child with some small thing') (see Little, 1988, p. 44; 1989, p. 25; Emmons, 1992, p. 294; Wallenius, in press). In a preliminary study, where the classi¢cation of the project phrasing level was not reported, interrater reliability was only 68 per cent (Little, 1988, p. 45). Thus we coded the phrasing level in the same way as Emmons (1992, p. 294). Rather than coding each project separately the subject received a single rating on a 5 -point scale (1 = almost all projects concrete, no

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more than one abstract project; 2 = most of the projects concrete, two to three abstract projects; 3 = as many concrete as abstract projects; 4 = most of the projects abstract, two to three concrete projects; 5 = almost all projects abstract, not more than one concrete project). Reliability, measured by the percentage rate of agreement between the two independent judges, was 0.85. Supportiveness of the environment. The measure of person±environment ¢t used was the perceived supportiveness of daily environment in realizing personal projects. The scoring follows Stokols' (1979, p. 36±40) formula. According to this, congruence is viewed as a joint function of the controllability and the motivational signi¢cance (salience) of those projects that are facilitated by the environment. The controllability is the ratio between actual and ideal levels of project facilitation. The term actual facilitation (AF) or thwarting (AT) refers to existing levels of perceived project ful¢lment, whereas ideal facilitation (IF) refers to optimal or preferred levels of project ful¢lment. Let nf and nt denote each project among N projects that is perceived to be facilitated or thwarted by the everyday places. The subjects were asked to rate to what extent the place in which the project is undertaken facilitates or thwarts the accomplishment of the project using a scale from 710 (thwarts entirely) to +10 (facilitates entirely). Stokols (1979, p. 39±40) assumes that motivational salience (i.e. subjective importance rating assigned by an individual to the need) a¡ects overall levels of environmental congruence through its adjustment of actual and ideal levels of need facilitation. Thus, the facilitation (AF, IF) and thwarting (AT) scores associated with various projects are multiplied by the respective importance rating (PI) of these projects, and the sum of these products is utilized to derive an index of environmental supportiveness (S), as follows: P P …ATnt  Plnt† f …AFnf  Plnf† ÿ Pt Sˆ P f …IFnf  Plnf† ‡ t …IFnt  Plnt† The score representing supportiveness of the environment can range from +1 to 71. To illustrate this, suppose that the actual facilitation score associated with a personal project of an individual is +6.The importance rating of this project is 5. Supportiveness of the environment in connection with the project is thus …6  5† ˆ06 …10  5† The score representing supportiveness of the environment was counted for each project. If there was no

place in which to undertake the project, the value of the score was zero. Finally, the mean score for supportiveness of the environment was computed. New relative frequency scores were calculated separately for each subject, related to each component of a place and to o¤cial or informal program in a place by dividing the number of places related to each category by the total number of places in which a person worked on his/her projects. Results Number and categories of everyday places As the ecological context of goal-directed action is the everyday environment, which is here thought to be composed of behavior settings called places in the interview. The respondents mentioned, on average, seven places (S.D. = 221, range 2±12). The number of places correlated with life satisfaction (r = 019, p 5 001) but did not correlate with depression (r = 7001, n.s.). Thus the larger the number of everyday places the higher the level of life satisfaction. The percentages of subjects who mentioned di¡erent categories of the everyday places are presented in Table 1 for all subjects. The home as belonging to all, the workplace, places to go visiting (homes of friends, parents and grandparents), sporting hobbies, shops and restaurant-like places were the most usual places. Each of these was mentioned by at least half of the respondents.The remaining places divided mostly among various leisure centres, culture and hobbies. The Pearson product±moment correlations among relative frequencies of the place categories and the wellbeing measures (Table 1) showed that the higher the life satisfaction the fewer restaurant-like places the subjects mentioned and the weaker the relative status of the home and the work place was.There were no correlations between the place categories and depression. Contents of the personal projects The percentages of subjects who mentioned personal projects related to di¡erent content categories are presented in Table 2 for all subjects. Personal projects appeared to gain content mostly from immediate daily life. The major content area had to do with various social relationships: the pair relationship and family, children and other social relationships.The next largest groups were projects connected to work and profession, hobbies and acquisitions. Several subjects also had projects on self and studies.

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TABLE 1 Percentage of subjects (n = 167) who mentioned di¡erent categories of everyday places and correlations between life satisfaction and depression and relative{ frequencies of place categories

Content Home Workplace Homes of friends Shops Homes of (grand)parents Sports facilities Restaurants/pubs Outdoors Cinema, theatre Library Holiday residence Organizations, clubs Educational establishment On the town Concert Child/maternity clinic Sports stand Dance hall Other

% Subjects{

Correlations with life satisfaction (r)

Correlation with depression (r)

1000 874 677 557 532 521 485 341 275 204 150 108 96 90 72 54 48 48 102

7022** 7015* 7003 7004 011 008 7020** 007 001 008 006 010 7003 006 006 014 002 010 004

009 009 7007 003 7003 7004 007 7004 010 7001 7005 7012 006 7001 7014 7013 7003 7003 001

{

Number of places related to each content category divided by the total number of places. Because multiple responses were possible, the column does not add up to 100%. *p 5 005; **p 5 001. {

TABLE 2 Percentage of subjects (n = 167) who mentioned personal projects related to di¡erent content categories and correlations between life satisfaction and depression and relative{ frequencies of content categories

Content Pair relationships Other social relations Children Work/profession Hobbies Acquisitions Self Studies Health Use of time Money New experience Routines Quality of home Quality of life Society Others {

% Subjects{

Correlation with life satisfaction (r)

Correlation with depression (r)

395 473 317 761 593 503 437 413 377 347 311 299 282 136 84 54 144

7007 002 019** 007 011 010 7020** 004 7000 010 7024** 000 009 7007 7011 7000 7022**

011 7008 7028*** 7007 7009 7018* 035*** 004 7006 006 015* 7001 7005 010 008 7011 7001

Number of projects related to each content category divided by the total number of projects. Because multiple responses were possible, the column does not add up to 100%. *p 5 005; **p 5 001; ***p 5 0001. {

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The Pearson product±moment correlations among relative frequencies of the project contents and the well-being measures (Table 2) showed that the higher the life satisfaction the more frequently the subjects mentioned personal projects related to their own children and the fewer projects related to self and money. These relations were vice versa as far as depression was concerned. The more often the subjects were depressed the fewer children-related and acquisitionrelated personal projects they had and the more projects concerning to self and money they mentioned. Personal project appraisal dimensions The mean scores of each of the 18 project appraisal dimensions and the mean scores of positive and negative impact were subjected to principal component analysis with varimax rotation. This procedure revealed ¢ve factors with eigenvalues greater than 10 (457, 240, 181, 137, and 118). The ¢ve factors accounted for 567 percent of the variance. The rotated loadings are presented in Table 3. Factor I is bipolar in structure and was interpreted as accomplishment versus stress, Factor II as social support, Factor III as meaning, Factor IVas control, and Factor Vas compatibility. The factors extracted in the present study bear much resemblance to those reported in earlier

studies (e.g. Little, 1987b). Based on this analysis, factor scores were calculated for later analysis using the regression method. Perceived supportiveness of the environment, personal project dimensions and psychological well-being Stepwise multiple regression analyses were performed to examine the relations among the well-being measures and perceived supportiveness of the environment, personal project factor scores and level of abstraction. Inspection of the beta coe¤cients in Table 4 reveals that in predicting life satisfaction perceived supportiveness of the environment, project accomplishment and social support accounted for 15% of the variance. Speci¢cally, high life satisfaction was associated with accomplishable and socially and environmentally supported personal projects. Project stress and level of abstraction accounted for 12% of the variance in depression.Thus, the more stressing and abstract personal projects subjects had, the more often they were depressed. Personal projects in everyday places Next we investigated more closely to what extent personal projects are related to everyday places

TABLE 3 Varimax-rotated principal components of project dimensions Factors

Outcome Accomplishment Progress Stress Di¤culty Age-typicality Other's view V|sibility Importance Self-prototypicality Absorption Positive impact Challenge Value congruency Initiation Control Shared objectives Time adequacy Negative impact Enjoyment Percentage of variance

Accomplishment vs stress

Social support

Meaning

Control

Incompatibility

073 064 060 7067 7064 7013 024 011 004 017 015 7018 7019 034 017 036 033 018 7006 035 229

023 032 034 031 011 071 069 068 062 060 018 7002 036 008 014 7003 027 008 7005 017 120

002 014 040 009 014 7006 019 023 050 012 068 067 059 055 001 025 7010 7010 7025 036 90

016 011 7009 011 7006 004 7021 7008 008 022 017 7006 010 010 082 059 7064 7007 7012 7014 69

013 012 006 7023 005 006 7007 7018 015 031 001 7005 004 022 000 7039 7026 074 7054 032 59

Note. Numbers in boldface indicate the highest loadings for each dimension.

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Environmental Support TABLE 4 Regression of life satisfaction and depression on perceived supportiveness of the environment, personal project appraisal dimensions and project level of abstraction Outcome variable

Beta

Dependent variable: life satisfaction Supportiveness of the environment 017* Accomplishment vs stress 020** Social support 022** R2 015*** Dependent variable: depression Accomplishment vs stress 7026*** Level of abstraction 019** R2 012*** *p 5 005; **p 5 001; ***p 5 0001.

and which characteristics of personal projects and everyday places were associated with perceived supportiveness of the environment. The subjects were able to connect 36 percent of all of the personal projects they had mentioned (n=1275) to some of the places in everyday life. The number of places in which the subjects undertook their personal projects ranged from none to eight (M = 275, S.D. = 221), and the higher the life satisfaction, the greater was the number of these places (r = 021, p5001).There was no correlation between depression and the number of places which the subjects mentioned in connection with their personal projects (r = 001, n.s.). The subjects most frequently connected places with personal projects concerning routines, their own children, work, hobbies and pair relationships and most seldom to projects concerning quality of life, new experiences, self and society (Table 5). The Pearson product±moment correlations between perceived supportiveness of the environment and project factor scores and project level of abstraction were calculated.The more the subjects expected to accomplish their projects (r = 024, p 5 0001), the higher the level of social support (r = 019, p 5 001) and the less they had compatible projects (r = 7023, p 5 001), the higher was the perceived supportiveness of the environment. There was no correlation between perceived supportiveness of the environment and project meaning, control and level of abstraction. The places in which the subjects most frequently undertook their projects were home (64%), workplace (50%), sports facilities (20%), educational establishment (7%) and holiday residence (6%).The proportion of the rest of the everyday places ranged from 1 to 4 percent.

TABLE 5 Percentage of personal projects connected with the places in everyday life in di¡erent content categories Content Pair relationships Other social relations Children Work/profession Hobbies Acquisitions Self Studies Health Use of time Money New experience Routines Quality of home Quality of life Society Others Overall

%

n

406 320 619 560 429 212 150 398 224 286 207 140 737 383 71 167 214 360

69 97 63 159 133 113 120 83 67 77 59 57 77 47 14 12 28 1275

When asked which component of the place was perceived as most supportive for the project worked on, the subjects most frequently mentioned social environment (54%), after that came action in the place (45%) and physical environment (40%). The informal action was perceived as supportive more often (63%) than the o¤cial program (48%) in the place. The components and the type of the program in a place related to each other w2(6, n = 460) = 2025, p 5 001). When social environment was perceived as supportive for the project, informal action was usually seen as more crucial than the o¤cial program. The Pearson product±moment correlations among perceived supportiveness of the environment and the components and the type of the program in a place showed that the higher the level of perceived supportiveness of the environment, the higher the relative frequency of informal action was (r = 019, p 5 005). The other correlations were not statistically signi¢cant. Discussion The research reported here started out from the question of what is the signi¢cance of the perceived ¢t of person and environment for psychological well-being. Supportiveness of the environment indicating ¢t was de¢ned across the current life stage as perceived opportunities of realizing personal projects in everyday places and emphasizing the projects according to motivational salience. The results of this study indicated

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that perceived supportiveness of the environment was associated with life satisfaction and with those dimensions of personal projects which are also essential for life satisfaction: attainability and social support. Perceived supportiveness of the environment was not indicative of depression. The proportion of personal projects linked to speci¢able settings in which they were undertaken, about one-third, was notably smaller in the present study compared with the earlier study (Little et al., 1986), according to which almost all the personal projects had a speci¢able location. It is easy to see that some of the projects were in such an early stage of planning that the subjects were not yet able to locate them anywhere. Another set of projects was too wide or immaterial in content to have any precise location (e.g. self-projects). Perhaps the best explanation for the marked di¡erence between the results of the two studies can be found through comparing the level at which the personal projects were formulated by subjects in each study. Little et al., (1986, p. 16) noted that the personal projects of young students formulated at a higher level of molarity were relatively few in number. Among the personal projects of the young adults in the present study there were, without doubt, higher level projects, too. As Little (ibid.) has noted, high level projects are less likely to be carried out in any speci¢c setting. These observations raise the question whether the level of thinking (Pennebaker, 1989) changes during the development. Personal projects were centered mostly in a few places: home, workplace and sports facilities. The same kind of result was also found with the student sample where the most common project places were home, school and the gymnasium (Little et al., 1986). These few most usual everyday places in which we spend most of our time form the heart of our lives and this includes the aspects of purposive behavior. What is the function of the places in everyday life which do not serve the implementation of any personal goals? Some of the everyday places serve as necessities for life (e.g. shops). The list of place categories reveals, however, that many of the settings in everyday life have recreational functions (e.g. cinemas, sports stands, on the town) and restorative functions (e.g. outdoors, holiday residence, cf. Kaplan, 1995). Each of the components of the environment were perceived to support personal projects; social environment was, however, mentioned most frequently. The observation is in line with Canter's (1983, p. 694) notion that the importance of the di¡erent aspects of the environment varies in relation to the purposes of an individual in any given place.

Traditionally, ecological psychology (Barker, 1968) has stressed the centrality of the o¤cial program in behavior settings. Several researchers have however pointed out that we need another concept, informal action, besides the o¤cial program (Silbereisen et al., 1986, p. 94, 102; Wicker, 1987, p. 631; Wallenius, 1990). An important ¢nding here was that the informal action proved to support personal projects more often than the o¤cial program. The subjects, too, were easily able to di¡erentiate between the two kinds of action in a place. We were also interested in what kind of project characteristics relate most strongly to supportiveness of the environment. The results showed that personal projects which tended to be practical in content and which were rated as attainable, socially supported and incompatible with each other received strongest support from the environment. The same variables were intertwined with life satisfaction. Persons satis¢ed with their lives also had a wider variety of everyday places, were more oriented to the normative task in their life stage of bringing up children and had fewer problems with self and money than persons less satis¢ed with their lives. Depression was not associated with supportiveness of the environment or any of the other environmental variables. Instead, depression was prone to be described with projects with certain characteristics: self-related, stressing and abstract.The results thus revealed two di¡erent groups of project characteristics which each related to di¡erent well-being dimensions. Little (1987a, p. 233±234) has highlighted the new approach useful in many ¢elds of research: it is the prototypic transaction with the environment which should be our starting point. These prototypic transactions can be identi¢ed through natural acts, such as personal projects. On the basis of our results we are able to describe two di¡erent transactional styles. On the one hand openness to social and environmental support, on the other hand independence from chances for external support. The former is indicative of life satisfaction and the latter of depression. Transactions with the environment have received a central role in personality psychology. Mischel and Shoda (1995; Mischel, 1990, p. 129±131) have proposed that di¡erent personality types are characterized by distinctive patterns of transactions with the environment: stable if . . .then. . . condition±behavior relations. Furthermore, they hypothesize that personality di¡erences are rooted in the cognitive±a¡ective system which is represented by mediating units, such as personal projects. This is very near Little's (1987a, p. 233) idea referred to above and also very near to

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what was earlier referred to as di¡erences in social intelligence (Cantor & Kihlstrom, 1987) or ecological cognition (Canter, 1991; GÌrling et al., 1991). What would be the personality types re£ected by our results? We now turn to Watson et al. (1994). They have o¡ered an integrative hierarchical model of personality. At the highest level are the Big Four traits, each of which can be described with speci¢c traits and these further with still narrower constructs. When these structural relations are known it is possible to predict a higher order trait from speci¢c traits. This possibility has been used here. Two of the Big Four traits have been described as follows. Positive a¡ectivity or extraversion involves willingness to engage and confront the environment, including the social environment. Other typical features are energy and enthusiasm. Negative a¡ectivity or neuroticism re£ects individual di¡erences in the extent to which a person perceives and experiences the world as threatening, problematic and distressing. High scorers on this dimension experience various negative emotions (e.g. depression), they are prone to negativistic appraisals of their environment and they feel easily stressed (Watson et al., 1994, p. 25±26; see also Clark et al., 1994). Negative a¡ectivity has also been related to willingness for self-re£ection (Watson & Clark, 1984, p. 481) and high-level thinking (Pennebaker, 1989, p. 343). Little et al. (1992) have found similar relationships between personality traits and personal project dimensions: neuroticism was positively correlated with project stress and negatively correlated with project e¤cacy; extraversion was positively correlated with project e¤cacy and visibility. We suggest now that our results re£ect the two general traits outlined above. High level of social and environmental support together with satisfaction with life is interpreted to re£ect the positive disposition to the environment typical for positive a¡ectivity. The result which showed independence of depression from external support is in line with earlier results which have described negative a¡ectivity as stable and inborn. It has been suggested that given the trait-like character of depressed a¡ect, it seems reasonable to propose that many currently depressed individuals have experienced elevated levels of depression in the past (Watson et al., 1994, p. 29). In all, our way of de¢ning the concept of ¢t as perceived supportiveness of the everyday places in realizing personal projects proved to be e¤cient. The results were interpretable and theoretically valid. However, linking of personal projects to everyday places on the basis of the present study is not so direct as might have been expected on the basis of the

preliminary study (Little et al., 1986). Instead, the transaction of person and environment mediated by personal projects seems to be multifaceted and complex. Our concept of ¢t covers only part of the human±environment relation. There are also other ways to operationalize the concept of ¢t. The results gave support to the frameworks concerning person± environment ¢t by emphasizing the importance of cognitive processes. We have good reason to agree with Little (1987a, p. 234) that natural acts such as personal projects can serve as common units of analysis in many ¢elds of research. Additional studies will be needed to establish whether the relation between personal projects and the environment remains the same in di¡erent life stages when the content of the projects changes. Does a child or an old person need more environmental support to attain his/her personal projects than a healthy adult? Longitudinal studies are also needed to show how stable the di¡erences characterized by the two personality traits are. The question to what extent people are able or willing to modify their personal projects or their strategies (cf. Cantor & Kihlstrom, 1987) to strive towards their goals to meet the resources of their own and their everyday environment better is of practical importance. In this respect Little (1996) is optimistic using the term `free traits': these consistent individual di¡erences may show considerable plasticity. All in all we can o¡er no simple answer to Kaplan's (1983, p. 328) question as to what kind of properties of the physical environment are associated with higher or lower levels of perceived supportiveness. It is a matter of negotiation between the person and the environment. Acknowledgements This study was supported by grants from the Academy of Finland and the Scienti¢c Foundation of the City of Tampere. I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. Notes Reprints requests and correspondence should be addressed to M. Wallenius, Department of Psychology, University of Tampere, P.O. Box 607, Fin-33101 Tampere, Finland.

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