title: Reconceptualizing Agency within the Life Course: The Power of Looking Ahead.
abstract: Empirical treatments of agency have not caught up with theoretical explication; empirical projects almost always focus on concurrent beliefs about one's ability to act successfully without sufficiently attending to temporality. The authors suggest that understanding the modern life course necessitates a multidimensional understanding of subjective agency involving (a) perceived capacities and (b) perceived life chances, or expectations about what life holds in store. The authors also suggest that a proper understanding of agency's potential power within a life course necessitates moving beyond the domain-specific expectations more typical of past sociological work. Using the Youth Development Study, the authors employ a scale of general life expectations in adolescence to explore the potential influence of a general sense of optimistic life expectations in addition to the traditional approach on a range of important outcomes.
authors.forename: Steven
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hitlin
authors.forename: Monica Kirkpatrick
authors.initials: MK
authors.lastname: Johnson
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000293:Adolescent; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D008910:Minnesota; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires