Looking Back and Looking Ahead: Adult Age Differences in Consistency of Diachronous Ratings of Subjective Well-Being Ursula M. Staudinger Dresden University Susan Bluck University of Florida P. Yorck Herzberg Dresden University The goal of this study is to investigate the consistency of diachronous ratings of subjective well-being (SWB). A heterogeneous sample (25–74-year-olds; N = 3,596) provided ratings of their present SWB, reconstructed their SWB of 10 years ago, and anticipated their SWB 10 years from now. Developmental tasks and self-evaluative principles were used to predict age differences in diachronous consistency. As predicted, in young adulthood, past SWB was rated lower and future SWB higher than present SWB. In contrast, in later adulthood, the past was rated higher and the future lower than present SWB. Analyses of rank-order consistency demonstrated that in later adulthood both future and past SWB were more strongly related to present SWB than in young adulthood. Results show how models of self-evaluation play out at different points in the life span. Diachronicity of Self-Evaluations Though rooted in the present, human beings have the capacity to extend the self (Neisser, 1988) through memory of their past and contemplation of their future. Lewin (1926) argued that human functioning could be understood in terms of a person’s “life space,” encompassing both a physical and a temporal dimension. This notion that human life is constituted by synchronous (i.e., coexistent) as well as diachronous (i.e., spread across time) pro- cesses also has a long tradition in philosophy (e.g., Heidegger, 1927/1979; Jaspers, 1932). Exploring the objective and subjective facets of the diachronous nature of life is central to lifespan theory (e.g., Baltes, Reese, & Lipsitt, 1980; Bu ¨ hler, 1933; Ryff & Baltes, 1976; Ryff & Heincke, 1983; Staudinger, 1999). In this article, we are less interested in objective or chronological time, as examined in longitudinal work. Rather, we focus on subjective or psychological time: evaluations of subjective well-being (SWB) in the past and the future and how consistent those diachronous ratings (past, future) are with evalu- ations of present SWB. This notion of psychological time has been studied also by social psychologists in investigations concerning, for instance, self-evaluative (e.g., Schwarz & Strack, 1999; Taylor, Neter, & Wayment, 1995) and comparison processes (e.g., Albert, 1977; Suls & Mullen, 1982; Wilson & Ross, 2001), or possible selves (e.g., Markus & Nurius, 1986). This research suggests that we construct our selves with regard to the past, and the present, as well as the future (e.g., Hooker, 1992), and that we use diachro- nous referents as often as social referents in our comparison processes (e.g., Wilson & Ross, 2000). In this article, we build on and interrelate results from these different areas of the study of diachronicity. We conclude from our reading of the literature that research on diachronous self- evaluations, to date, is characterized by three emphases. First, most studies have been conducted in the field of self and personality characteristics (e.g., Fleeson & Baltes, 1998; Fleeson & Heck- hausen, 1997; Ryff, 1991; Ryff & Heincke, 1983; Wilson & Ross, 2001). 1 Second, there are fewer studies that combine all three types of diachronous rating, that is, past, present, and future evaluations (for exception, see, e.g., Ross & Buehler, 2001; Ryff, 1991). Mostly, there is emphasis on comparing either past or future evaluations with present self-evaluations (e.g., Conway & Ross, 1984; Cross & Markus, 1991; Ross, 1989; Wilson & Ross, 2001; Woodruff & Birren, 1972). And third, with a few exceptions (e.g., Fleeson & Baltes, 1998), consistency among diachronous evalua- 1 We acknowledge that Carol Ryff (e.g., 1991) investigates psycholog- ical well-being. To not confuse hedonic and growth-oriented well-being (e.g., Ryan & Deci, 2001), however, we have chosen for simplicity reasons to categorize her study under self- and personality characteristics rather than subjective well-being. Ursula M. Staudinger and P. Yorck Herzberg, Department of Psychol- ogy, Area of Lifespan Development, Dresden University; Susan Bluck, Department of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Florida. This research was supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Successful Midlife Development (MIDMAC) and the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Center for Lifespan Development. The data are from the Midlife in the United States Survey. We thank our colleagues in the MacArthur Research Net- work on Successful Midlife Development and at the Max Planck Institute for their cooperation and many valuable suggestions. We also thank Mon- isha Pasupathi for her helpful comments on a draft of the article. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Ursula M. Staudinger, Department of Psychology, Dresden University, 01062 Dresden, Germany. E-mail: staudinger@psychologie.tu-dresden.de Psychology and Aging Copyright 2003 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 2003, Vol. 18, No. 1, 13–24 0882-7974/03/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/0882-7974.18.1.13 13