Optimisation by Selection and Compensation: Balancing Primary and Secondary Control in Life Span Development

Abstract

Individuals as producers of their own life span development are discussed with regard to the major challenges, opportunities, and constraints encountered over the life course. Major challenges of life span development and human behaviour include the need to be selective in choosing life course paths, and the failure proneness of human behaviour. Management mechanisms directed at these challenges can be identified on the societal and the individual level. Socio-structural regulations of life course selectivity and failure are viewed as constraining but also supporting individual life course management. Individual life course management is conceptualised in terms of the model of optimisation by selection and compensation, which is elaborated by applying the life span model of primary and secondary control developed by Heckhausen and Schulz. The integrated model conceptualises optimisation as a higher-order process regulating selection and compensation, so that the long-term potential for primary control is promoted. Primary and secondary control strategies are identified for both selection and compensation, thus yielding four types of life-management strategies. Finally, it is argued that selection and compensation are not adaptive in and of themselves and may become dysfunctional when impairing the long-term potential for primary control.