emerging adulthood Flashcards
emerging adulthood
Late teens to at least mid 20s
Rise in ages of entering marriage and parenthood from 4 reasons of 1960s and 70s:
Technology revolution: countries shifted from a manufacturing economy to service economy requiring information and technology skills, tertiary education usually completed before thinking about settling
Sexual revolution after 1964: sparked by birth control pill, premarital sex more acceptable
Women’s movement of 1960s and 70s: education and career opportunities increased for women
Youth movement: see adulthood differently, not ready for it yet and to end their independent and spontaneity
Five characteristics that distinguish emerging adulthood:
Age of identity explorations Age of instability Self focused age Age of feeling in between Age of possibilities
Osgood borrows from a sociological theory that explains all deviance on the basis of propensity and opportunity
People behave deviantly when they have a combination of sufficient propensity (motivation for behaving deviantly) along with sufficient opportunity
Emerging adults have high opportunity as result of spending a high proportion of their time in unstructured socialising
Relationship between unstructured socialising and deviance holds not only for substance use but also other risky behaviour, for both genders and across cultures and developed and developing countries
postformal thinking
Once formal operations is fully attained, by 20 at latest, cognitive maturation is complete
But after Piaget, research found ti continues during emerging adulthood and is names post formal thinking
Two important aspects are pragmatism and reflective judgement
pragmatism
Adapting logical thinking to the practical constraints of real life situations
Labouvie-Vief:
Cognitive development in emerging adulthood distinguished from adolescence by a greater recognition and incorporation of practical limitation to logical thinking
Adolescents exaggerate the extent to which logical thinking will be effective in real life
Whereas emerging adulthood brings a growing awareness of how social influences and factors specific to a situation must be taken into account in approaching most of life’s problems
In study on man getting drunk against wife’s wished, adolescents more strict and adults considered more dimensions
Basseches
cognitive development in emerging adulthood as involving a recognition that formal logic can rarely be applied to the problems most people face in their daily lives Dialectical thought develops in this period, a growing awareness that problems often have no clear solution and two opposing strategies or points of view may each have some merit Some cultures (chinese) promote dialectical thought more than others, by advocating an approach to knowledge that strives to reconcile contradictions and combine opposing perspectives by seeking middleground
Reflective judgement
Capacity to evaluate the accuracy and logical coherence of evidence and arguments
Perry- reflective judgement
adolescents and first year college students tend to engage in dualistic thinking, which means they see situations and issues in polarised terms with no in between whereas reflective judgement begins around 20YO
First multiple thinking begins, where young people come to believe that there are two or more legitimate view of every issue, and that it can be difficult to justify one position as the only true or accurate one
In this stage, value all points of view equally, even to the extent of asserting that it is impossible to make any judgements about whether one point of view is more valid than another
Relativism then develops, able to recognise the legitimacy of a competing point of view, and rather than denying that one view is more persuasive than others, evaluate the merits of competing views
By end of college, most reach commitment, where they commit themselves to worldview they believe to be most valid, while being open to reevaluating their views if new evidence is presented
Levy and Murnan’s 6 basic skill necessary for job
Reading at year 9 level or up Math at year 9 level or up Solving semistructured problems Communicating orally and in writing Using a computer for word processing and other tasks Collaborating in diverse groups
Erikson;s theory
Adolescence was identity vs identity confusion
Key areas are love, work and ideology
3 elements essential to developing an identity
Adolescents asses their own abilities and interests
Reflect on the identification they have accumulated in childhood
Identify with parent as they grow up (modelling)
Access the opportunities available to them in their society (restricted based on discrimination)
Identity crisis
process through which young people construct their identity, exploration more preferred term by Marcia
4 identity statuses
Diffusion: no exploration or commitment
Moratorium: exploration but no commitment
Foreclosure: no exploration but commitment, often from strong parent influence, seen as unhealthy
Achievement: exploration and commitment
