Self-regulation in the context of emerging adulthood

Objectives: Self-regulation is an important part of human adaptive functioning throughout life. People use three fundamental self-regulatory strategies as life-management strategies in this context: selection, optimization and compensation. Most previous researches have studied them more in middle age and old age. We focused on the period of emerging adulthood, when self-regulation processes importantly affect the future direction of development. Methods: We obtained data from 190 students (44 men) aged 19-28 years (mean age 21.5 years). We used Selection, optimization and compensation questionnaire (SOC). Results: We found that self-regulatory characteristics are reflected in emerging adulthood in a different way compared to the results in older people. The use of self-regulatory strategies is below average to average, as dealing with characteristics of the examined period. We did not find significant gender differences; there has been no connection with age either. However, using factor analysis confirmed the presence of the expected four factors (elected selection, loss based selection, optimization and compensation), which manifest in older age. Conclusion: These results suggest an interesting dynamics of self-regulation in a lifelong context.