A Systematic Review of the Relationship Between Perceived Life Script Event Age and Valence Across the Life Span

Drawing on life script theory, we examined the relationship between the perceived age and valence of life script events across the life span. A review of the life script literature was conducted based on 14 studies, comprising 28 samples from 12 countries, and encompassing 4,012 participants. A total of 135 life script events between birth and death were identified-roughly four times the number of such events reported in any single sample. As predicted, the relationship between mean perceived life script age and valence for positive life script events during the bump period (i.e., between the ages of 10 and 30 years) was positive in direction within 15 of 18 relevant samples; however, this association was not statistically significant based on the aggregated life script event information. In contrast, consistent with predictions, the age-valence relationship for all life script events across the entire life span was negative in direction in each of the relevant samples and based on the aggregated life script event information. It appears that the life script contains at least 2 developmental stories concerning beliefs about experiences of key events and transitions: Life events get increasingly positive during younger adulthood, but decreasingly positive across the entire life span.