His research explores how people use ideas of growth to shape their life stories and how these "growth stories" facilitate eudaimonic well-being. He studies these ideas in the context of growth motivation and transcending self-interest across adulthood. He is an associate editor of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Research in Personality. He is the co-editor of Transcending Self-Interest: Psychological Explorations of the Quiet Ego (2008, American Psychological Association Books). Before entering psychology he worked as a newspaper editor in northern Michigan.