Associations of Age and Cancer With Individual Goal Commitment

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
This article investigated how age and cancer are associated with goal commitment in recently diagnosed cancer patients and healthy controls. One hundred and thirty-two cancer patients and 132 healthy control group members generated a list of present goals and assessed perceived difficulty of goals, effort for goal attainment, influence of health on goal attainment, and anticipated time of goal attainment. In regression analyses, main effects of cancer status on life goals were found, indicating among cancer patients a lower total number of goals; a focus on social, transcendental, and health-related rather than achievement-related goals; higher perceived difficulty of goals; lower effort to attain one's goals; stronger perceived negative health effects on goal attainment; and a stronger focus on short-term rather than long-term goals. In addition, main effects of age indicated an age-associated reduction in the number of goals and a shift away from achievement-related goals toward easier and short-term go...