Which major life events matter to young people? A recent study by the University of Zurich (UZH) shows that adolescents and young adults primarily cite positive, everyday developmental steps as formative events, for example school and apprenticeships, friendships, first relationships, travel and moving out of their parents’ home. UZH researchers evaluated open-ended written responses from 1,442 participants in a long-term study. Each participant was surveyed at the ages of 15, 17, 20 and 24.
Eight out of ten events mentioned are positive
The results paint a different picture than many classic studies on life events, which tend to focus on stressful experiences. Overall, 83% of the events mentioned were positive. The participants talked about school, training and apprenticeships particularly often, with these topics accounting for almost half of all mentions. Friendships and romantic relationships came in second place, at around 12%. Personal development and mental well-being accounted for about 8%, while travel and stays abroad stood at approximately 7%.
“Our results show that youth is not primarily composed of crises. Many young people primarily mention positive developmental steps such as education, relationships and personal achievements,” says David Bürgin, clinical developmental psychologist and first author of the study. Lilly Shanahan, co-leader of the study, adds: “Support services should therefore not only focus on how to cope with stress. Stable relationships, positive experiences and opportunities to experience self-efficacy are just as important.”
Nevertheless, the researchers found that psychological stress was still part of the equation. Adolescents and young adults with more severe symptoms of anxiety and depression mentioned stressful relationship experiences, conflicts, loss and personal failures significantly more often. Correspondingly, they referred to positive events such as travel, educational achievements and sports activities less frequently.
Changing priorities
The study also revealed that clear changes occur between adolescence and early adulthood. While school, friendships and leisure time were paramount in middle adolescence, education, work, relationships and independence grew in significance later on. Topics such as sport and going out were mentioned less frequently as the participants became older, while work, housing and having children became more important over time. The researchers also found differences based on gender, social background and experiences of migration. However, broadly speaking, the most important topics were very similar across social groups.
Modern language processing reveals patterns
The research team used automated language processing methods to evaluate thousands of open-ended written responses according to topic. “Our analyses show how freely formulated responses from large longitudinal studies can be processed in such a way that they provide a structured picture of young people’s experiences. This allows their perspectives remain visible in their own words,” says first author Christina Haag, who is now at the University of Cambridge. The study is one of the first large-scale, long-term studies in the world to use such methods to analyze open-ended responses from young people.
References
David Bürgin, Christina Haag, Lynn Alison Büeler, Laura Bechtiger, Clarissa Janousch, Elena Feldmann, Denis Ribeaud, Manuel Eisner, Viktor von Wyl, Lilly Shanahan. Personally meaningful life events from adolescence to young adulthood: A longitudinal natural language processing analysis. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. 22 June 2026. DOI: 10.1111/jcpp.70169
The study is a collaboration between the Jacobs Center for Productive Youth Development and the Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Prevention Institute at the University of Zurich. The project was supported by the UZH Population Research Center as part of its Seed Grants Program.
Contact
Prof. Dr. Lilly Shanahan
Department of Psychology / Clinical Developmental Psychology
Jacobs Center for Productive Youth Development
University of Zurich
+41 44 634 06 09
lilly.shanahan@psychologie.uzh.ch
Dr. David Bürgin
Department of Psychology / Clinical Developmental Psychology
Jacobs Center for Productive Youth Development
University of Zurich
david.buergin@jacobscenter.uzh.ch