Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1992, Vol.62, No. 3, 506-521 Copyright 1992 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 0022-3514/92/S3.00 Developing Independence in a Life Transition: Investing the Self in the Concerns of the Day Sabrina Zirkel University of Michigan Developing independence involves mastering the tasks of each life transition. Those more anxious about developing independence will become more invested in the normative tasks of each transi- tion, and this anxiety will spread to the domain represented by these tasks. In Study 1, Honors College students expressed their anxiety about developing independence in academic performance at the beginning of college when this was the normative task and in social relationships after college when this was the normative task. This anxiety could be distinguished from other (e.g., academic) anxiety. In Study 2, sorority women expressed anxiety about developing independence in family and sorority relationships. Data demonstrate the social construction of anxiety and the dynamics of personality change. The tendency to experience anxiety and negative affect has important implications for overall health and well-being. Higher levels of anxiety and negative affectivity have been shown to be associated with increased numbers of health symp- toms and lower levels of life satisfaction (Pennebaker & Skel- ton, 1978; Peterson, 1982; Scheier & Carver, 1987; Watson, 1988). Understanding the functioning and sources of such anxi- ety could help in understanding how it might be reduced (see also Carver & Scheier, 1990), which in turn might lead to im- provements in individuals' overall health, well-being, and life satisfaction. Anxiety can take many forms, the content of which impli- cates the situations an individual will perceive as anxiety pro- voking and the potential strategies available to cope with that anxiety. Some people perceive performance situations as anxi- ety provoking (e.g., Jones & Berglas, 1978; Norem & Cantor, 1986a, 1986b), whereas others are more anxious in social situa- tions (e.g. Cheek & Melchior, 1989; Langston & Cantor, 1989; Melchior & Cheek, 1990). Still othersfinddeveloping indepen- This article was supported by National Science Foundation Grants BNS 84-11778 to Nancy Cantor and Hal Korn and BNS 87-18467 to Nancy Cantor and Julie K. Norem and by a Horace H. Rackham Grad- uate School Predoctoral Fellowship to Sabrina Zirkel. The research reported formed the major portion of Sabrina Zirkel's doctoral disser- tation, submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the doctoral degree in the Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies at the University of Michigan. Special thanks go to Nancy Cantor for her advice and assistance at all stages of this research and to four anonymous reviewers for their assistance in improving this article. I would also like to thank Michele Acker, William Fleeson, Robert Harlow, Susan Jenkins, Christopher Langston, and Julie K. Norem for their comments on an earlier draft, Julie Bram for her assistance in conducting the second study, and Liz Easton and George Tyndall for their devoted coding of the material in both studies. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Sa- brina Zirkel, who is now at the Department of Psychology, College of the Holy Cross, Box 38A, 1 College Street, Worcester, Massachusetts 01610. dence to be particularly anxiety provoking (Zirkel & Cantor, 1990). Characteristics such as anxiety and negative affectivity fre- quently demonstrate considerable continuity over the life course (e.g., Watson & Clark, 1984; Zevon & Tellegen, 1982). For example, ill-tempered children tend to experience difficulties with adult responsibilities (Caspi, 1987, 1989; Caspi, Bern, & Elder, 1989), children's ability to delay gratification predicts Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores many years later (Mis- chel, Shoda, & Rodriguez, 1989), and early patterns of attach- ment have implications for adolescent behavior and later rela- tionships (Hazen & Shaver, 1987; Sroufe, 1979,1989; Thorne, 1989). Nevertheless, the social and developmental context does much to give concrete meaning to the more general characteris- tics that persist (Markus & Kunda, 1986; Markus & Wurf, 1987; McGuire & Padawer-Singer, 1976; Stewart & Healy, 1989; Ver- off, 1983). The poor attachment that compels an infant to cling to his or her caretaker is not the same as the poor attachment that causes a teenager to be aloof and distant. Both may (but do not necessarily) have their origins in early infant-caregiver in- teractions, and indeed the one may, over time, develop into the other. However, the behaviors themselves and the phenomeno- logical experience they represent are quite different. Similarly, groups differ in the goals they find important and motivating in any given situation, and these goals are important sources of anxiety. Goals have an expressive function, and one's identification with a particular social group does much to de- fine which goals should be important and self-defining and which should not. For African-American students, for example, cultural stereotypes may make the academic domain feel threat- ening. Consequently, the adoption of academic goals frequently has meaning beyond that which it typically has for White stu- dents (Fordham & Ogbu, 1986; Ogbu, 1988; Steele, 1990, in press), making the academic domain potentially more anxiety provoking for minority students. It is sometimes appropriate to disregard the specific situa- tions people find anxiety provoking when, for example, one wishes to examine the relationship between their overall level 506 This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.