Negotiating values in a Complex social world: well-being implications for emerging adults

The project tackles the research question “How do we negotiate around values?” with three studies – one qualitative, exploring the meaning behind theoretically assumed values, and two quantitative, hypotheses testing focused on value congruence and value differentiation. The first study focuses on the construction of values by emerging adults. The second study tackles similarities of emerging adults’ values with their immediate social contexts (i.e. familial, scholastic, professional, romantic, and peer groups) and subjective well-being. The third study investigates emerging adults’ willingness to differentiate their value priorities across social roles they occupy and the impact of this differentiation on well-being. In these ways, the project will add to person-environment fit theory and extend it by including several social contexts and value differentiation construct. By doing so, it proposes a new model which offers a new perspective relying on reoccurring and more flexible identity formation, fragmentation, and change reflected in these two value related processes – achieving congruence with social groups and differentiating values across social roles.