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How well emerging adults adapt to transitions, like entering or graduating from post-secondary education, may depend on individual differences. Emotional wellbeing within post-secondary education contexts has been studied, but little research has examined patterns of change after graduation. A diverse sample of emerging adults in their final year of university (N = 159; Mage = 23.22) were surveyed at four time points starting prior to and then across the year after graduation. Most participants (58%) showed stable, low depressive symptoms, a small percentage (9%) decreased in depressive symptoms, and a sizeable group (32%) increased in depressive symptoms. Low or decreasing depressive symptoms were associated with higher baseline optimism and grit and lower neuroticism and with qualitative accounts of willingness to learn from setbacks, self-efficacy, and gratitude for the university experience. Mixed-methods results highlight the challenges and role of self-regulatory strengths for adjustment at this juncture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present study, we investigated the ways in which the ideographic goal descriptions and goal appraisals of European American high school seniors reflect potentials for intentional self-development during emerging adulthood (EA), a lifespan phase characterized by increasing levels of freedom and decreasing age-graded, socially sanctioned developmental norms. Additionally, we investigated whether variation in participants' goal appraisals and the motivational qualities emergent in their goal descriptions would predict variation in dimensions of identity development, both concurrently at age 18 and prospectively at age 23. Results of an exploratory, mixed method analysis of participants' (N = 129, 56.6% male, Mage = 18.24, SD = 0.37) goal data revealed diversity in education and work goals, strong potentials for intentional self-development reflected across goal appraisals, and more nuanced reflections of intentional self-development across the motivational qualities emergent in goal descriptions. Results partially supported the hypothesis that goal appraisals and motivational qualities that reflect potentials for intentional self-development would predict kindred processes of identity development across the first five years of EA. These findings contribute to a nascent empirical literature focused on the interrelationship of goal and identity constructs during EA and suggest new avenues for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]