American lives

by John A. Clausen

To what degree is the course of human life prefigured by the childhood and adolescent years? John A. Clausen, long associated with the now famous Berkeley Longitudinal Studies, draws on sixty years of research from this, the largest long-term inquiry into human lives ever conducted, to answer this question. He demonstrates that "adolescent planful competence," a combination of self-confidence, dependability, and an investment in intellectual matters, has a significant and continuing influence on many aspects of our adult lives, even into old age. Over three hundred men and women born in the 1920s in California's Bay Area were studied intensively through their school years and periodically followed up since then by the Berkeley researchers. The study members lived through the Great Depression, several wars, and a sexual revolution.^ Although many developments in their lives could not have been foreseen, classifications made from data available for their adolescent years enabled Clausen