A Longitudinal, Mixed Methods Study Exploring the Impact of Civic Engagement on Psychosocial Outcomes Across Early to Mid Adulthood

Civic engagement during emerging adulthood plays a pivotal role in fostering a sense of community responsibility, providing a sense of societal purpose, and contributes to improved psychological adjustment. In this mixed-method longitudinal study, we further explored how civic engagement and psychological adjustment codevelop across emerging adulthood. Participants were drawn from The Future's Study, a Canadian longitudinal study capturing the transition to adulthood in Southwestern Ontario. The sample was predominantly White (81%), female identifying (71%), and largely affluent with 5.8% reporting lower than average family income. At ages 23, 26, and 32, participants completed measures of civic engagement, depression, and optimism; at age 26, participants had the opportunity to also complete a life story interview where they were asked to recount a key community scene from their lives and reflect on its impact. Random intercept cross-lagged panel models illustrated that civic engagement across ages 23-32 reduced loneliness concurrently and longitudinally. No cross-lagged associations were found for depression or optimism. Four themes illuminated the role of civic engagement in buffering against loneliness during emerging adulthood and into midlife: community unites people through a shared vision, fosters meaningful and long-lasting connections, solidifies the importance of leaving a legacy for future generations, and contributes to personal growth via insight into others' lives, which illuminated an awareness of one's own social advantages and privilege. These results illustrate that the pathway between increased civic engagement and reduced loneliness may be due, in part, to intrinsic and collective motives that tie together personal growth, identity, and generativity.