A psychological stage almost everyone enters, whether they notice it or not
The Stage of Life Psychologists Say Is Built Around Not Being Forgotten
In the 1950s, psychologist Erik Erikson named the pull adults feel to make sure something of them continues after they are gone. Decades of research since say the people who act on it live measurably better in the years that follow.
Erik Erikson spent his career mapping the stages people move through over a lifetime. The seventh one, arriving somewhere in midlife, is the one he called **generativity versus stagnation**: a pull to contribute something to the people who come after you, set against the risk of turning inward and stalling out instead.
For decades that idea lived mostly in psychology textbooks, a feeling with a name but no yardstick. Then in 1992, researchers Dan McAdams and Ed de St. Aubin built the **Loyola Generativity Scale**, a real instrument for measuring how strongly someone feels that pull, and how often they act on it.
What they and the researchers who followed found is the part worth knowing: **this is not just a feeling to notice and move past.** People who score high on it tend to hold onto their independence longer, carry less anxiety and depression, and report a stronger sense of purpose, years later.
1. The pull has been measured, not just described
Erikson framed generativity broadly: raising children, mentoring, creating, teaching, or simply caring about the world you will not get to see. The Loyola Generativity Scale gave psychologists a way to actually score it, asking people how much they agree with statements like wanting to leave something of themselves for future generations.
A later nationally representative twin study went further, asking where the drive itself comes from. It found genuine variation in how strongly people feel pulled toward generativity, not just in how they choose to express it. **The concern for what happens after you is not universal in strength. It is a real, measurable trait, and some people simply feel it harder than others.**
Wanting to be remembered is not vague sentimentality. Psychologists can name it, measure it, and track what it predicts.
2. Acting on it changes the years that follow
A longitudinal study of older adults in Japan found that higher generativity scores predicted a slower decline in day-to-day functional independence over the following two years, an effect that was strongest in men. Separate research tied to the COVID-19 pandemic found generativity linked to lower anxiety and depression in older adults, even during an unusually hard stretch.
At least two longitudinal studies have shown generativity predicting **positive outcomes measured a full ten years later.** That is a strange thing for a feeling to do. It suggests the pull to matter to the next generation is not just emotionally satisfying in the moment. It appears to be doing something protective, over years, to the person who acts on it.
The drive to leave something behind is not only about the people who inherit it. The research says it also changes how well you age.
3. Most people wait for a special occasion. The pull does not.
Here is what generativity was never built to require: a memoir, a milestone birthday, a deathbed conversation. Erikson described it as something that shows up in ordinary acts of care, repeated over years, not one grand gesture.
That is the gap LifeScribe sits in. **You do not need an occasion to act on the pull to be remembered. You need an ordinary phone call and someone asking the right question at the right moment.** With LifeScribe, Ari asks those questions on a call you already have planned, so the stories that make up your generativity do not stay a feeling. They become something your family can actually keep.
Generativity does not wait for a special occasion, and neither does the call where you can act on it.
I read about this and realized I had been feeling it for years without a word for it, this itch to make sure my grandkids knew who I actually was, not just who I am to them now. We started recording it on our Sunday calls with Ari instead of waiting for someone to ask at a funeral.Diane, 58, recording her life story with her son on their weekly call
What you get with LifeScribe
- No special occasion required: it works on a call you already have planned.
- Ari asks the questions that turn the pull to be remembered into something real and keepable.
- Grounded in decades of research on generativity, not just a nice idea about legacy.
- The stories become a keepsake in your own words, in your own voice.
Start free, with nothing to lose
Try it on your very next call this week, free. Nothing to install, nothing to learn. If it does not feel like it gave that pull to be remembered somewhere real to go, you have lost nothing but a few minutes.
**Erikson identified this pull more than 70 years ago, and the research keeps confirming the same thing: acting on it protects you, not just the people who inherit it.** The pull does not wait for a milestone birthday or a diagnosis. It is already there, and the next ordinary phone call is where you can actually do something with it.
Turn the pull to be remembered into something your family can keep.
Pick a call you already have planned this week. Let Ari help you ask the questions that make it count.
Questions grandparents ask us
What is generativity, in plain terms?
It is the psychological term Erik Erikson used for the pull adults feel, usually starting in midlife, to contribute something to the people who come after them: raising, mentoring, creating, or simply caring about a future they will not get to see.
Is generativity a real, measurable thing, or just a theory?
Both. Erikson proposed it as a stage of psychosocial development in the 1950s. In 1992, psychologists Dan McAdams and Ed de St. Aubin built the Loyola Generativity Scale to actually measure how strongly someone feels it, and researchers have used it in studies since.
Does acting on generativity actually change anything, or is it just a nice feeling?
Research links higher generativity to slower decline in day-to-day independence in older adults, lower anxiety and depression, and positive outcomes measured a full ten years later in longitudinal studies.
Do you need to write a memoir or wait for a big moment to act on it?
No. Erikson described generativity as something expressed through ordinary, repeated acts of care, not one grand gesture. An honest conversation on a call you already have planned counts.
How does LifeScribe fit into this?
Ari asks the questions that pull real stories out of an ordinary phone call, so the pull to be remembered becomes an actual keepsake your family can read and share, instead of staying a feeling nobody acted on.
https://getlifescribeapp.com/blog/the-stage-of-life-built-around-not-being-forgotten