Young adults typically believe that life gets increasingly satisfying over time. We examined the cultural life script as a source of these beliefs. In Study 1 (N = 1244), tabulation of previously published studies indicated that life script events are perceived as becoming increasingly positive over time between the ages of 10 and 30. Further, a specific series of 16 key life script events during this life stage was identified. These results were replicated in Study 2 (N = 100, M age = 21.14, 51% female) based on young adults' perceptions concerning life script events in their personal life stories. Further, the perception that life script events in one's personal life story were becoming increasingly positive over time was linked with more steeply inclining subjective life satisfaction trajectories (i.e. recollected past < current < anticipated future life satisfaction). In Study 3 (N = 261, M age = 18.5, 93.7% female), manipulating life script event information (number and positivity of events over time) within a personal life story had an additive impact on young adults' subjective life satisfaction trajectories. These findings reveal a robust connection between information contained with the cultural life script and the belief that life gets more and more satisfying over time.

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.