Early Adulthood Flashcards
What is adulthood?
●Theorists provide no clear answer or boundaries
●Arnett (2000) calls ages 18 to 25 “emerging adulthood”- greater exploration of work, love, worldviews
DEVELOPMENTAL PERSPECTIVES:
Generations
Gen Xers: born between 1964 and 1981
●GI generation: born between 1900 and 1925
(now over age 87)
#Silent generation: born between 1925 and 1945
(now between 67 and 87)
#Baby Boomers: born between 1946 and 1964
#Millennials: born between 1982 and early 2000’s
(now young children-30 years)
GI generation:
born between 1900 and 1925
(now over age 87)
- Experienced (maybe WWI) and WWII
-Prohibition
-19th Amendment Women’s Right to Vote
-Great depressionSilent generation:
born between 1925 and 1945
(now between 67 and 87)
- Great depression, fought in WWII
- After WWII future was bright, moved to suburbs,
gave birth to Baby Boomers
Baby Boomers:
born between 1946 and 1964
- huge population!
- presidential assassination, civil rights movement, Vietnam, sexual revolution
- women entered workforce, dual income families- gave birth to Gen Xers
Gen Xers:
born between 1964 and 1981
- “slackers”
- less parental supervision, 40% grew up in single parent homes,
- hit hard by parents’ divorce
- Creating and working in web and computer industries
- Hopping from job to job
- Criticized in mass media: dumb, irresponsible
Millennials:
born between 1982 and early 2000’s
(now young children-30 years)
- they were delayed, planned pregnancies
- children were nurtured and sheltered, raised in wholesome environment
- optimistic, conservative, ambitious; told how
smart and wonderful they are!
- advocates for global, social, environmental concerns
- pressured to achieve, trust their parents, little “teenage angst”
More than half of young adults are
remaining at home with parents while going to college or establishing a career.
●Marrying later. College educated young adults are delaying the birth of children.
Conceptions of Age Periods
●We view age groups differently as we age (ex: many of the elderly think retirement years were their best, not youth)
●Young people perceive themselves as older (more mature), older adults perceive themselves as younger
●The thirties have “eternal appeal”!
Adulthood is commonly associated with
aging- both biological aging and social
aging.
Social norms-
especially age norms-
define what is appropriate for people to be
and do at various ages.
Transition points:
“relinquishment of
familiar roles and the assumption of new
ones”
Age Grading:
The arranging of people in social layers that are based on periods in the life cycle”
Social Clock:
“Internalized concepts that regulate our progression through the adult years.”
Life Events
●Normative or nonnormative
●Become reference points or time markers
●Examples: 9/11, the day you left for college, the day of a heart attack
●Causes one to ask questions about self or society
●Questions: Will it happen to me? If so, when will it happen? Will others experience it too?
●Consider the Just World Theory
Physical Performance
●Physical Changes only minimally affect daily lives
●18 to 30 tend to be the peak for speed and agility
●Between 30-45 we lose power and elasticity in eye lens
●Nearsightedness increases
●Farsightedness increases
Lack of Health Insurance
●Alarming percentage of adults
●Most likely to be 18-24, minority, part-time worker, unemployed, immigrants
●Medicaid- for poor; those who live just above can’t receive
●Use ER for healthcare
●Full time work is no guarantee
●Medical bills often the reason for bankruptcy
Effect of Lifestyle
●Adolescents are resilient
●Poor diet, lack of exercise begins to show in adulthood
●Metabolism slows, being overweight take toll on body
●Hypertension, high cholesterol, gallstones, diabetes, stroke, heart disease
Health Disparities
Poverty, low education have….
Poverty, low education have higher death rates ●Poor nutrition ●Poor housing ●Lack of prenatal care ●Lack of health insurance ●Less health knowledge ●Habits such as smoking, drinking, etc.
Mental Illness
●20% of adults have diagnosable mental disorder
●Two aspects:
●Ability to carry out social requirements of daily life
●Subjective sense of wellbeing
●Common disorders: ●Depression ●Alcoholism/substance addiction ●Phobias ●Anxiety
●Need to develop functional coping strategies
Stress
iEffect of lack of sleep
iWomen admit to feeling more stress than men.
iGender-role perspective for women: roles of nurturers and caretakers more stress in contrast to male roles.
iOR women may dwell more on their stress (Rumination Theory) while men try to distract themselves with activity.
Social support also buffers against many
of the adverse consequences of stress.
●Stress makes life interesting!
●Stress resides in perception of any event.
●Hardiness:
●openness to change
●feeling of involvement in what one is doing
●sense of control over events
●immerse themselves in meaningful activity
Chronic stress linked to
heart disease, hypertension, ulcers, asthma, migraines.
Hardiness:
●openness to change
●feeling of involvement in what one is doing
●sense of control over events
●immerse themselves in meaningful activity
Stages of Stress:
- Alarm reaction (system pumps up- fight/flight)
- Stage of resistance (system tries to settle)
- Stage of exhaustion (body breaks
down)
Cognitive development: post formal operations
Three major characteristics of this hypothesized
stage:
Knowledge is not absolute but relativistic
Accept the contradictions in life and the existence of mutually incompatible systems of knowledge
Must find some encompassing whole by which to organize their experience (the BIG picture!)
Early adulthood
Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages
Intimacy versus isolation
- task is to reach out and make
connections with other people.
Isolation: inability to take chances with own identity; to really connect with others
Loneliness in Adulthood
Loneliness caused by: personal inadequacies, lack of social contacts, relocation, etc.
Cultural dislocation: feeling of homelessness and alienation from a traditional way of life: Immigrants.
Consider North American values: independence, competition, autonomy
Theories of Social-Emotional Development
Levinson:
Phases in Adult Male Development
- Daniel Levinson has attempted to identify
developmental stages in adulthood.- Six stages in adult male development up to
the late forties.
- Six stages in adult male development up to
According to Erickson, what constitutes a meaningful life for young adults? What are some factors associated with social isolation or loneliness that interfere with the development of identity?
.
Phases in Adult Male Development
Levinson
- Leaving the Family
- Getting into the Adult World
- Settling Down
- Becoming One’s Own Man
Levinson’s Stages in a Woman’s Life
●Adult female development remains
largely unexplored.
●Women: find a reversal in Erikson’s stages- tend to experience intimacy THEN formation of identity in midlife
●Entry into adulthood similar for men and women
Women’s stages
●Around 30, many women experience a transition when they reprioritize their goals.
●May put career on hold to start a family.
●Men see themselves tied to a future in terms of their job.
●Women find ways to combine work and family.
●Many women have to sacrifice one or the other in struggle to maintain both.
How do the stages of life differ for women and men, according to social scientists?
●Where are you in this development?
.
New Social Definitions for Women
●Until recently, a woman’s life was viewed in terms of reproductive roles:
●Bearing and rearing children, empty nest, menopause.
●Today a woman’s employment outside the home plays an important role in self-esteem and identity.
Gilligan
Adult experience is different for women
Girls are socialized toward cooperation, mutuality and consensus rather than competition.
Women tend to recover in adulthood the confidence, assertiveness, and positive sense of self that Western society pressured them to compromise during their adolescence.
Role Issues
Role conflict occurs when one experiences
pressures within one role that are incompatible
with the pressures that arise within another role.
Role overload occurs when there are too many
role demands and too little time to fulfill them.
Role conflict
occurs when one experiences
pressures within one role that are incompatible
with the pressures that arise within another role.
Role overload
occurs when there are too many
role demands and too little time to fulfill them.
Friendships
●Provide much-needed social support when
life gets us down; major source of socializing.
●Women tend to develop friendships with other
women who have children the same age.
●Men tend to develop friendships within the
spheres of work and recreation.
Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love
- Passion: Physical and sexual
attraction- Intimacy: Having a close, warm, and
caring relationship - Commitment: Intent and ability to maintain
the relationship over extended period of
time and under adverse conditions
- Intimacy: Having a close, warm, and
If you have all three you have ##### love
Incomplete Types of Love
●Infatuation ●Fatuous Love ●Companionate Love ●Romantic Love ●Liking someone ●Empty Love ●Nonlove
Infatuation
.
Fatuous Love
.
Companionate Love
.
Romantic Love
.
Liking someone
.
Empty Love
.
●Nonlove
.
Diversity of Lifestyle Options
Leaving Home
●Leaving home is a major step in the transition to
adulthood.
●Over the past two to three decades, the process of
leaving the parental home has become
increasingly complex, with many young people
experiencing numerous living arrangements in the
course of assuming adult status.
Living at Home
iEconomic factors
iNegative: lack of privacy
iBest scenario: ample space and open, trusting communication
iIncreasing scenario
iMay increase overprotectiveness of parents, lack of self-confidence in their children
Staying Single
iOne fourth of U.S. households: single
iMany kinds of singles: never married, divorced, widowed
iLess social stigma than in past
iPostponing marriage; may be pursuing careers
iMany are co-habiting
iSome look at divorce rate, choose monogamous relationships instead
Living as a Lesbian or Gay Couple
●Increasingly accepted by society
●Conflicts over same issues: finances, affection, sex, overly critical, household tasks
●National debate on same sex marriage
●Affects economic, medical, inheritance and legal benefits, hospital visitation
Family Transitions
Family Life Cycle:
the sequential changes and realignments that occur in the structure and relationships of family life between the time of marriage and the death of one or both spouses.
Stages of the family life cycle
Family Life Cycle
- Establishment
- New Parents
- Preschool Family
- School-age Family
- Family With Adolescents
- Family with Young adult
- Family as Launching Center
- Postparental family
- Aging family
The first pregnancy
Pregnancy
The first pregnancy is an event of unparalleled importance.
It signals that a couple is entering the family cycle,
bringing about new role requirements.
As such, the first pregnancy functions as a major
marker or transition and confronts a couple with
new developmental tasks.
Developmental Tasks for the Pregnant Woman
Accept her pregnancy
Differentiate from fetus
Reevaluate relationship with mother
Come to terms with dependency
New Parents
Shift from two-person to three-person system
Decline in overall quality of couple’s life (less intimacy, leisure time)
Couples with most problems: most unrealistic expectations of parenthood; problems with division of labor
Fathers often “step up” with birth of 2nd child
Increased sense of partnership; stabilize marriage?
Working Moms
Still bear brunt of primary parent and housekeeper
77% of mothers with children under 6 years of age are working
Do children miss out in terms of supervision, love and cognitive enrichment?
Reasons for work:
Self-interest: not just wealth Provide life satisfaction Structures time Context for relationships Escape from boredom Sense of identity and self-worth
Summary
●Experience of adulthood changes through history, with each generation
●Main goals: to establish intimacy and continue to establish identity through relationships, friendships, marriage, parenthood and working
●Today many adults are living alternative lifestyles
