To let go for now or for good? Goal shelving and goal disengagement across adulthood.

Abstract

People shape their development through selecting, maintaining, and ending personal goal pursuits. To manage multiple goals in a reality of limited resources, people may opt to temporarily shelve some goals with the intention to reengage (goal shelving) or to permanently give up on some goals for good (goal disengagement). Do preferences for goal shelving and disengagement change across adulthood? This cross-sectional study provides first evidence on age-related similarities and differences in the prevalence and antecedents of goal shelving and disengagement, and in characteristics of shelved and abandoned goals. The sample (N = 973) comprised 317 young (18-25 years), 327 middle-aged (36-64), and 329 older (65+) adults and was stratified by gender (50% women). Contrary to our expectation, there was no evidence for age-related differences in the number of shelved and abandoned goals, and little evidence for age-related differences in antecedents of shelving and disengagement or characteristics of shelved and abandoned goals. Young, middle-aged, and older adults most often shelved and abandoned leisure goals oriented toward gains, and most often shelved and abandoned goals to prioritize different goals and to manage resource-related restrictions, with health-related restrictions growing more relevant with age. Across all age groups, shelved goals had greater motivational value and salience than abandoned goals. Goal value, goal salience, and expected future goal-related opportunities predicted how sure people felt about readopting shelved goals and how sure they felt about not readopting abandoned goals, respectively. Implications are discussed in light of lifespan developmental theory. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).