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What could middle-class German supermarket shoppers buying eggs and impoverished coffee farmers in Guatemala possibly have in common? Both groups use the market in pursuit of the \"good life.\" But what exactly is the good life? How do we define wellbeing beyond material standards of living? While we all may want to live the good life, we differ widely on just what that entails. In The Good Life, Edward Fischer examines wellbeing in very different cultural contexts to uncover shared notions of the good life and how best to achieve it. With fascinating on-the-ground narratives of Germans' choices regarding the purchase of eggs and cars, and Guatemalans' trade in coffee and cocaine, Fischer presents a richly layered understanding of how aspiration, opportunity, dignity, and purpose comprise the good life.

Introduction Several studies evaluating the tolerance of transrectal ultrasound (TRUS)-guided needle biopsies showed that moderate-to-severe pain was associated with the procedure. Additionally, prebiopsy anxiety or rebiopsy as a result of a prior biopsy procedure is mentioned as factors predisposing to higher pain intensity. Thus, in this study, we investigated the effects of hypnotherapy during transrectal ultrasound-guided prostate needle biopsy for pain and anxiety. Materials and methods Sixty-four patients presenting for TRUS-guided prostate needle biopsy were randomly assigned to receive either 10-min presurgery hypnosis session ( n  = 32, mean age 63.5 ± 6.1, p  = 0.289) or a presurgery control session ( n  = 32, mean age 61.8 ± 6.8, p  = 0.289). The hypnosis session involved suggestions for increased relaxation and decreased anxiety. Presurgery pain and anxiety were measured using visual analog scales (VAS), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), and Hamilton Anxiety Scale (HAS), respectively. In our statistics, p  < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results Postintervention, and before surgery, patients in the hypnosis group had significantly lower mean values for presurgery VAS [mean 1 (0–8); p  = 0.011], BAI (6.0 vs 2.0; p  < 0.001), and HAS (11.0 vs 6.0; p  < 0.001). Conclusion The study results indicate that a brief presurgery hypnosis intervention can be an effective means of controlling presurgical anxiety, and therefore pain, in patients awaiting diagnostic prostate cancer surgery.

Despite the large contingent of students living in rural areas, existing research on the processes that precede the college enrollment of rural adolescents is limited. With a particular focus on gender, this study investigated rural adolescents’ perceptions of family and place and how these perceptions related to their educational aspirations and subsequent college enrollment using a nationwide sample of rural adolescents (N = 3456; 52.5% female). Female adolescents reported higher academic achievement, educational aspirations, parental expectations, and family responsibility and enrolled in two-year and four-year institutions at greater rates compared to male adolescents, who reported significantly higher rural identity and perceptions of job opportunities in the rural community. Utilizing a multiple group moderated mediation approach, the results provided evidence that adolescents’ increased perceptions of their parents’ educational expectations were associated with increased educational aspirations and college enrollment and that adolescents’ increased perceptions of job opportunities in their rural community were associated with decreased educational aspirations. In addition, the results showed that gender moderated the relation between perceptions of job opportunities in the rural community and postsecondary enrollment. These findings highlight how the developmental resources of family and place relate to adolescents’ educational aspirations and subsequent postsecondary enrollment.

This study examined parental aspirations for their children’s educational attainment in relation to ethnicity (African American, Asian, Caucasian, Hispanic), parental education, children’s academic performance, and parental perceptions of the quality and climate of their children’s school with a sample of 13,577 middle and high school parents. All parents had relatively high educational aspirations for their children, and within each ethnic subgroup, parental education and children’s academic performance were significantly and positively related to parental aspirations. However, moderating effects were found such that Caucasian parents with lower levels of education had significantly lower educational aspirations for their children than did parents of other ethnicities with similar low levels of education. Although the strength of the relationship between parental perceptions of school-related factors and parental aspirations for their children’s educational attainment was not strong, it was most predictive of non-Caucasian parental aspirations for their children.

Gender inequality at home continues to constrain gender equality at work. How do the gender disparities in domestic labor that children observe between their parents predict those children's visions for their future roles? The present research examined how parents' behaviors and implicit associations concerning domestic roles, over and above their explicit beliefs, predict their children's future aspirations. Data from 326 children aged 7 to 13 years revealed that mothers' explicit beliefs about domestic gender roles predicted the beliefs held by their children. In addition, when fathers enacted or espoused a more egalitarian distribution of household labor, their daughters in particular expressed a greater interest in working outside the home and having a less stereotypical occupation. Fathers' implicit gender-role associations also uniquely predicted daughters' (but not sons') occupational preferences. These findings suggest that a more balanced division of household labor between parents might promote greater workforce equality in future generations.

Work fulfills personal values, perhaps differently for males and females. Explored here was the role values play in shaping occupational interests. Study 1 examined children's, adolescents', and adults' (N = 313) occupational values (regarding money, power, family, altruism), occupational interests, and perceptions of values afforded by traditionally masculine and feminine occupations. Results revealed sex differences in occupational values and interests. Furthermore, participants' values predicted their own interests in culturally masculine and feminine occupations. Study 2 used novel jobs and experimentally manipulated prototypical sex of worker and value affordances to disentangle their effects on occupational interests. At all ages, participants' (N = 240) occupational interests were affected by the depicted sex of the workers and by the stated value affordances of the jobs.

Although prior research finds a robust link between delinquent behavior and expectations, or an adolescent’s perceived likelihood of obtaining one’s future goals, fewer studies have evaluated aspirations, or the perceived importance of achieving one’s goals. In addition, few studies consider how individual traits such as impulsivity affect the degree to which expectations and aspirations motivate or deter delinquent behavior. We contribute to this body of research by evaluating the independent effects of expectations and aspirations, and the aspiration-expectation gap (i.e., strain) on delinquent behavior during the year following an adolescent’s first arrest using a large ( N  = 1117), racially/ethnically diverse sample of male adolescents (46.55% Latino, 35.81% Black, 14.95% White, and 2.69% Other race). In addition, we considered how impulse control interacts with expectations, aspirations, and strain to motivate behavior. Our results indicated that both aspirations, expectations and strain uniquely influence criminal behavior. Importantly, aspirations interacted with impulse control, such that aspirations affected delinquency only among youth with higher impulse control. Our findings suggest that aspirations may only influence behavior if youth also have the psychosocial capabilities to consider their future aspirations when behaving in the present.

This prospective study tested with 272 children a structural model of the network of sociocognitive influences that shape children's career aspirations and trajectories. Familial socioeconomic status is linked to children's career trajectories only indirectly through its effects on parents' perceived efficacy and academic aspirations. The impact of parental self-efficacy and aspirations on their children's perceived career efficacy and choice is, in turn, entirely mediated through the children's perceived efficacy and academic aspirations. Children's perceived academic, social, and self-regulatory efficacy influence the types of occupational activities for which they judge themselves to be efficacious both directly and through their impact on academic aspirations. Perceived occupational self-efficacy gives direction to the kinds of career pursuits children seriously consider for their life's work and those they disfavor. Children's perceived efficacy rather than their actual academic achievement is the key determinant of their perceived occupational self-efficacy and preferred choice of worklife. Analyses of gender differences reveal that perceived occupational self-efficacy predicts traditionality of career choice.

Poorer outcomes for youth labeled with learning disabilities (LDs) are often attributed to the student's own deficiencies or cumulative disadvantage; but the more troubling possibility is that special education placement limits rather than expands these students' opportunities. Labeling theory partially attributes the poorer outcomes of labeled persons to stigma related to labels. This study uses data on approximately 11,740 adolescents and their schools from the Education Longitudinal Survey of 2002 to determine if stigma influences teachers' and parents' educational expectations for students labeled with LDs and labeled adolescents' expectations for themselves. Supporting the predictions of labeling theory, teachers and parents are more likely to perceive disabilities in, and hold lower educational expectations for labeled adolescents than for similarly achieving and behaving adolescents not labeled with disabilities. The negative effect of being labeled with LDs on adolescents' educational expectations is partially mechanized through parents' and particularly teachers' lower expectations.

Geography remains a critical factor that shapes the development of aspirations, attainment, and choice in young people. We focus on the role of geography on university entry and aspirations due to the increasing requirement in society for a higher education qualification for access to prestigious positions in society. Using a large representative longitudinal database ( N  = 11,999; 50 % male; 27 % provincial or rural; 2 % Indigenous) of Australia youth we explore the association between distance to a university campus and the critical attainment outcomes of university entry and enrolment in an elite university as well as critical predictors of these outcomes in access to information resources (i.e., university outreach programs) and university aspirations. In doing so, we provide new insight into distance effects, and the extent that these are due to selection, cost, and community influence. Our findings suggest that distance is significantly associated with both university expectations and entrance, with an especially large impact upon young people from low socioeconomic backgrounds. However, we also find little evidence that distance is related to attending a university led information session. Our conclusion is that distance effects cannot be fully explained by selection in terms of academic achievement and socioeconomic status, and that anticipatory decisions and costs are the most likely drivers of the distance effect.