Life Events

Shevaun D. Neupert & Margie E. Lachman

Life events contribute to the nature and course of development throughout the life span. They are determined by normative age-graded, normative history-graded, and nonnormative influences and are a function of both biological and social/environmental factors (Baltes, Lindenberger, & Staudinger, 1998). While normative age-graded life events are expected and experienced by most people at a common time or age, nonnormative events do not occur regularly, or occur at different times (Baltes et al., 1998). For example, graduating from high school and menarche or menopause are normative life events, but getting divorced or experiencing a chronic disease in early adulthood are nonnormative life events. Life events can also be due to normative history-graded influences; that is, an event can occur in a similar way for most people in a particular cohort or generation (Baltes et al., 1998). Examples of history-graded events that have had significant impact are the Great Depression and the ...

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