2: Emotional and personality changes across adulthood Flashcards
Familiarity and similarity
Familiarity may breed contempt, as the old saying goes, but social psychologists have found that familiarity is a necessary condition for a close relationship to develop. For the most part, friends and lovers are people who have been around each other for a long time; they may have grown up together, gone to high school or college together, worked together, or gone to the same social events. Another old saying, “Birds of a feather fl ock together,” also helps to explain attraction. Overall, our friends and lovers are much more like us than unlike us (Guerrero, Andersen, & Afi fi , 2011; Qian, 2009). Friends and lovers tend to have similar attitudes, values, lifestyles, and physical attractiveness. For some characteristics, though, opposites may attract. An introvert may wish to be with an extravert, or someone with little money may wish to associate with someone who is wealthy, for example.
Consensual validation
Why are people attracted to others who have similar attitudes, values, and lifestyles? Consensual validation is one reason. Our own attitudes and values are supported when someone else’s attitudes and values are similar to ours—their attitudes and values validate ours. Another reason that similarity matters is that people tend to shy away from the unknown. We often prefer to be around people whose attitudes and values we can predict. And similarity implies that we will enjoy doing things with another person who likes the same things and has similar attitudes.
Matching hypothesis
The force of similarity also operates at a physical level. We usually seek out someone at our own level of attractiveness in physical characteristics as well as social attributes we addressed previously. Research validates the matching hypothesis, which states that, although we may prefer a more attractive person in the abstract, in the real world we end up choosing someone who is close to our own level of attractiveness.
Erikson’s stage: intimacy vs. isolation
In early adulthood, according to Erikson, after individuals are well on their way to establishing stable and successful identities, they enter the sixth developmental stage, which is intimacy versus isolation. Erikson describes intimacy as fi nding oneself while losing oneself in another person, and it requires a commitment to another person. If a person fails to develop an intimate relationship in early adulthood, according to Erikson, isolation results. An inability to develop meaningful relationships with others can harm an individual’s personality. It may lead individuals to repudiate, ignore, or attack those who frustrate them. Such circumstances account for the shallow, almost pathetic attempts of youth to merge themselves with a leader. Many youth want to be apprentices or disciples of leaders and adults who will shelter them from the harm of the “outgroup” world. If this fails—and Erikson points out that it must—sooner or later the individuals recoil into a self-search to discover where they went wrong. This introspection sometimes leads to painful depression and isolation. It also may contribute to a mistrust of others.
Intimacy and independence
Development in early adulthood often involves balancing intimacy and commitment on the one hand, and independence and freedom on the other. At the same time as individuals are trying to establish an identity, they face the challenges of increasing their independence from their parents, developing an intimate relationship with another individual, and continuing their friendship commitments. They also face the task of making decisions for themselves without always relying on what others say or do.
The extent to which young adults develop autonomy has important implications for them. For example, young adults who have not suffi ciently moved away from parental ties may have diffi culty in both interpersonal relationships and a career.
Gender differences in friendships
As in the childhood and adolescent years, there are gender differences in adult friendship. Compared with men, women have more close friends and their friendships involve more self-disclosure and exchange of mutual support (Dow & Wood, 2006). Women are more likely to listen at length to what a friend has to say and be sympathetic, and women have been labeled as “talking companions” because talk is so central to their relationship (Gouldner & Strong, 1987). Women’s friendships tend to be characterized not only by depth but also by breadth: Women share many aspects of their experiences, thoughts, and feelings (Wood, 2001). When female friends get together, they like to talk, but male friends are more likely to engage in activities, especially outdoors. Thus, the adult male pattern of friendship often involves keeping one’s distance while sharing useful information. Men are less likely than women to talk about their weaknesses with their friends, and men want practical solutions to their problems rather than sympathy (Tannen, 1990). Also, adult male friendships are more competitive than those of women (Wood, 2001).
Romantic love
Some friendships evolve into romantic love, which is also called passionate love, or eros. Romantic love has strong components of sexuality and infatuation, and it often predominates in the early part of a love relationship (Berscheid, 2010; Regan, 2008). A complex intermingling of different emotions goes into romantic love—including such emotions as passion fear, anger, sexual desire, joy, and jealousy (Regan, 2008). Well-known love researcher Ellen Berscheid (1988) says that sexual desire is the most important ingredient of romantic love. Obviously, some of these emotions are a source of anguish, which can lead to other issues such as depression.
Affectionate love
Love is more than just passion (Berscheid, 2010). Affectionate love, also called companionate love, is the type of love that occurs when someone desires to have the other person near and has a deep, caring affection for the person. The early stages of love have more romantic love ingredients—but as love matures, passion tends to give way to affection.
Consummate love
Sternberg proposed a triarchic theory of love in which love can be thought of as a triangle with three main dimensions— passion, intimacy, and commitment. Passion, as described earlier in the romantic love section, is physical and sexual attraction to another. Intimacy relates to the emotional feelings of warmth, closeness, and sharing in a relationship. Commitment is the cognitive appraisal of the relationship and the intent to maintain the relationship even in the face of problems. In Sternberg’s theory, the strongest, fullest form of love is consummate love, which involves all three dimensions (see Figure 14.2). If passion is the only ingredient in a relationship (with intimacy and commitment low or absent), we are merely infatuated. An affair or a f l ing in which there is little intimacy and even less commitment is an example. A relationship marked by intimacy and commitment but low or lacking in passion is called affectionate love, a pattern often found among couples who have been married for many years. If passion and commitment are present but intimacy is not, Sternberg calls the relationship fatuous love, as when one person worships another from a distance. But if couples share all three dimensions—passion, intimacy, and commitment—they experience consummate love (Sternberg & Sternberg, 2010).
Single adults
Over a 30-year period, a dramatic rise in the percentage of single adults has occurred.
Advantages of being single include having time to make decisions about one’s life course, time to develop personal resources to meet goals, freedom to make autonomous decisions and pursue one’s own schedule and interests, opportunities to explore new places and try out new things, and privacy.
Common problems of single adults may include forming intimate relationships with other adults, confronting loneliness, and fi nding a niche in a society that is marriage-oriented.
Once adults reach the age of 30, there can be increasing pressure to settle down and get married. This is when many single adults make a conscious decision to marry or to remain single.
Cohabiting adults
Cohabitation refers to living together in a sexual relationship without being married. Cohabiting rates are even higher in some countries—in Sweden, cohabitation before marriage is virtually universal (Stokes & Raley, 2009).
Couples who cohabit face certain problems (Popenoe, 2008; Rhoades, Stanley, & Markman, 2009). Disapproval by parents and other family members can place emotional strain on the cohabiting couple. Some cohabiting couples have diffi culty owning property jointly. Legal rights on the dissolution of the relationship are less certain than in a divorce.
Marital trends
Recently, there has been a decline in marriage rates.
Is there a best age to get married? Marriages in adolescence are more likely to end in divorce than marriages in adulthood (Waite, 2009). However, researchers have not been able to pin down a specifi c age or age span for getting married in adulthood that is most likely to result in a successful marriage (Furstenberg, 2007).
How happy are people who do marry? The average duration of a marriage in the United States is currently just over nine years. As indicated in Figure 14.5, the percentage of married individuals in the United States who said their marriages were “very happy” declined from the 1970s through the early 1990s, but recently has begun to increase (Popenoe, 2009). Notice in Figure 14.5 that men consistently report being happier in their marriage than women.
The benefits of a good marriage
Individuals who are happily married live longer, healthier lives than either divorced individuals or those who are unhappily married.
What are the reasons for these benefi ts of a happy marriage? People in happy marriages likely feel less physically and emotionally stressed, which puts less wear and tear on a person’s body. Such wear and tear can lead to numerous physical ailments, such as high blood pressure and heart disease, as well as psychological problems such as anxiety, depression, and substance abuse.
Outlook on midlife
Should midlife and the years beyond be feared by women as bringing the loss of youth and opportunity, a time of decline? Or is it a new prime of life, a time for renewal, for shedding preoccupations with a youthful appearance and body, and for seeking new challenges, valuing maturity, and enjoying change?
In one study, the early fi fties were indeed a new prime of life for many women (Mitchell & Helson, 1990). In the sample of 700 women aged 26 to 80, women in their early fi fties most often described their lives as “fi rstrate.” Conditions that distinguished the lives of women in their early fi fties from those of women in other age periods included more “empty nests,” better health, higher income, and more concern for parents. Women in their early fi fties showed confi dence, involvement, security, and breadth of personality.
In sum, the view that midlife is a negative age period for women is stereotypical, as so many perceptions of age periods are. Midlife is a diversifi ed, heterogeneous period for women, just as it is for men.
Big five factors of personality: the theory
A major study of adult personality development continues to be conducted by Paul Costa and Robert McCrae (1998; McCrae & Costa, 2003, 2006). They focus on what are called the Big Five factors of personality, which are openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism (emotional stability); OCEAN.
Costa and McCrae concluded that considerable stability occurs in the fi ve personality factors—emotional stability, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. However, one study found that conscientiousness continued to develop in late adulthood (Roberts, Walton, & Bogg, 2005), and another study revealed that older adults were more conscientious and agreeable than middle-aged and younger adults (Allemand, Zimprich, & Hendriks, 2008).
The big five: Openness
- Imaginative or practical
- Interested in variety or routine
- Independent or conforming
The big five: Conscientiousness
- Organized or disorganized
- Careful or careless
- Disciplined or impulsive
The big five: Extraversion
- Sociable or retiring
- Fun-loving or somber
- Affectionate or reserved
The big five: Agreeableness
- Softhearted or ruthless
- Trusting or suspicious
- Helpful or uncooperative
The big five: Neuroticism (emotional stability)
- Calm or anxious
- Secure or insecure
- Self-satisfied or self-pitying
The big five: stability and change of personality
Results for extraversion were complex until it was subdivided into social dominance (assertiveness, dominance) and social vitality (talkativeness, sociability). Social dominance increased from adolescence through middle adulthood, whereas social vitality increased in adolescence and then decreased in early and late adulthood.
- Agreeableness and conscientiousness increased in early and middle adulthood.
- Neuroticism decreased in early adulthood.
- Openness to experience increased in adolescence and early adulthood and then decreased in late adulthood.
In general, personality traits changed most during early adulthood.
Sibling relationships and friendships
Sibling relationships persist over the entire life span for most adults (Dunn, 2007). Eighty-fi ve percent of today’s adults have at least one living sibling. Sibling rela-tionships in adulthood may be extremely close, apathetic, or highly rivalrous.
The majority of sibling relationships in adulthood are close (Cicirelli, 2009). Those siblings who are psychologically close to each other in adulthood tended to be that way in childhood. It is rare for sibling closeness to develop for the fi rst time in adulthood (Dunn, 1984). A recent study revealed that adult siblings often provide practical and emotional support to each other.
Friendships continue to be important in middle adulthood just as they were in early adulthood (Antonucci, 1989). It takes time to develop intimate friendships, so friendships that have endured over the adult years are often deeper than those that have just been formed in middle adulthood.
Grandparent roles and styles
Three prominent meanings are attached to being a grandparent (Neugarten & Weinstein, 1964). For some older adults, being a grandparent is a source of biological reward and continuity. For others, being a grandparent is a source of emotional self-fulfi llment, generating feelings of companionship and satisfaction that may have been missing in earlier adult-child relationships. And for yet others, being a grandparent is a remote role. A recent study revealed that grandparenting can provide a sense of purpose and a feeling of being valued during middle and late adulthood when generative needs are strong (Thiele & Whelan, 2008).
The diversity of grandparenting also was apparent in an early investigation of how grandparents interacted with their grandchildren (Neugarten & Weinstein, 1964). Three styles were dominant—formal, fun-seeking, and distant. In the formal style, the grandparent performed what was considered to be a proper and prescribed role. These grandparents showed a strong interest in their grandchildren, but were careful not to give child-rearing advice.
In the fun-seeking style, the grandparent was informal and playful. Grandchildren were a source of leisure activity; mutual satisfaction was emphasized.
A substantial portion of grandparents were distant fi gures. In the distant-fi gure style, the grandparent was benevolent but interaction was infrequent. Grandparents who were over the age of 65 were more likely to display a formal style of interaction; those under 65 were more likely to display a funseeking style.
Language development
In late adulthood, however, some decrements in language may appear (Obler, 2009). Among the most common language-related complaints reported by older adults are diffi culty in retrieving words to use in conversation and understanding spoken language in certain contexts (Clark-Cotton & Goral, 2007). This often involves the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon , in which individuals are confi dent that they can remember something but just can’t quite seem to retrieve it from memory.
Language does change among individuals with Alzheimer disease, which we will discuss later in the chapter (Obler, 2009). Word-fi nding/generating diffi culties are one of the earliest symptoms of Alzheimer disease, but most individuals with the disease retain much of their ability to produce well-formed sentences until the late stages of the disease. Nonetheless, they do make more grammatical errors than older adults without the disease.
