Paper Requirement

Chapter 16: Socioemotional Development in Middle Adulthood

Learning Goals Learning Goal 1: Describe personality theories and socioemotional development in middle adulthood. A. Describe the stages of adulthood. B. Explain the life-events approach to development. C. Discuss stress and the role of personal control in midlife. D. Describe the contexts of midlife development. Learning Goal 2: Discuss stability and change in development during middle adulthood, as

reflected in longitudinal studies. A. Describe the longitudinal studies that examined stability and change in middle adulthood. B. Discuss the conclusions about stability and change in midlife. Learning Goal 3: Identify some important aspects of close relationships in middle

adulthood. A. Discuss love and marriage in midlife. B. Describe the empty nest and it’s refilling. C. Discuss the importance of sibling relationships and friendships in middle adulthood. D. Explain the roles and styles of grandparenting and current trends. E. Summarize the importance of intergenerational relationships. STAGES OF ADULTHOOD

 Erikson’s Generativity vs. Stagnation:  Generativity: adults’ desire to leave legacies of themselves to the next generation

 Biological generativist

 Parental generativist  Work generativist  Cultural generativist

 Stagnation: develops when individuals sense that they have done nothing for the next generation

 Research supports Erikson’s theory Generative adults commit themselves to the continuation and improvement of society as a whole thus their connection to the next generation. They develop a positive legacy of the self and then offer it as a gift to the next generation.

 Who was one of your middle-aged “heroes” who has or is something particularly inspiring during this stage of their life.

 What they have done that represents their generativity?  What have you learned from these individuals?  Do they motivate you to do more with your life, particularly as you get older?

 Levinson’s Seasons of a Man’s Life:  20’s are a novice phase of adult development

 Exploring the possibilities for adult living; developing a stable life structure

 30’s are a time for focusing on family and career development  Becoming One’s Own Man (BOOM)

 By the 40’s, man has a stable career and now must look forward to the kind of life he will lead as a middle-aged adult

 Transition to middle adulthood lasts about 5 years (ages 40 to 45) and requires that men come to grips with conflicts existing since adolescence:  Being young vs. being old  Being destructive vs. being constructive  Being masculine vs. being feminine  Being attached to others vs. being separated from them

 According to Levinson, 70%–80% of men find the midlife transition tumultuous and psychologically painful

 A successful transition rests on reducing the polarities and accepting each as an integral part of one’s being

LEVINSON’S PERIODS OF ADULT DEVELOPMENT

How does the media portray middle-aged adults?

 What types of advertisements are marketed toward this population?  How are men and women portrayed differently?  Are these depictions realistic?  What purpose do the stereotypes serve for the advertiser? For the target audience?

 What are some of the myths about the “midlife crisis”?

 How pervasive are midlife crises?  Vaillant’s “Grant Study”:

 The 40’s are a decade of reassessing and recording the truth about the

adolescent and adult years

 Only a minority of adults experience a midlife crisis  Reports of general well-being and life satisfaction tend to be high during

mid-life

 Another study found that 26% of adults experienced a midlife crisis  Most attributed this to negative life events rather than aging

 Adults often experience a peak of personal control and power during middle age  Adults’ ability to master their environment, autonomy, and personal relations improve

during middle age

 Adult developmental experts generally agree that midlife crises have been exaggerated  In general, stage theories place too much emphasis on crises in development  There is often considerable individual variation in the way people experience the

stages

 Individual Variations:  Stage theories do not adequately address individual variations in adult development  Some individuals may experience a midlife crisis in some contexts of their lives but

not others

 In 1/3 of cases where individuals report experiencing a midlife crisis, the crisis was triggered by life events such as job loss, financial problems, or illness

THE LIFE-EVENTS APPROACH

 The life-events approach is another major way to conceptualize adult personality development

 Contemporary Life-Events Approach: how life events influence the individual’s development depends on:

 The life event itself  Mediating factors  The individual’s adaptation to the life event  Life-stage context  Sociohistorical context

For example: coping with divorce may be easier today than in 1950’s because divorce has become more commonplace and accepted in today’s society.

 Drawbacks:  Life-events approach places too much emphasis on change, not adequately

recognizing stability

 It may not be life’s major events that are the primary sources of stress, but our daily experiences

 Focus on daily hassles and uplifts rather than major events

STRESS AND PERSONAL CONTROL

 Overall, stress is highest in young and middle-aged adults; declines in older adults  Middle-aged adults experience more “overload” stressors that involve juggling too

many activities at once

 Middle-aged adults are more reactive to interpersonal stressors (but less reactive to work stressors) than younger adults

 On average, a sense of personal control decreases as adults become older  Some aspects increase while others decrease

The Most Frequent Daily Hassles and Uplifts of Middle-Aged Adults over a Nine-Month Period

CONTEXTS OF MIDLIFE DEVELOPMENT

 Historical Contexts (cohort effects):  Changing historical times and different social expectations influence how cohorts

move through the life span

 Social clock: the timetable according to which individuals are expected to accomplish life’s tasks. It is the timetable according to which people are expected to accomplish life’s tasks such as getting married, having kids, establishing themselves in a career. Social clocks provide guides for our lives.

 Gender Contexts:  Most stage theories are accused of male bias  Women’s concerns and stressors are different from those of men  Cultural and social attitudes affect women’s roles Women’s family roles are complex and have higher salience in their lives than in men’s lives. The role demands that women experience in balancing career and family are usually not experienced as intensify by men. The types of stressors may differ. Mid age women have more interpersonal stressors and males have more self-focused stressors.

 Early fifties brought a new prime of life for many women  More empty nests  Better health  Higher income  More concern for parents

 Stereotype that midlife is a negative age period for women is largely false

 Cultural Contexts:  In many nonindustrialized societies, the concept of middle age is unclear or absent  Midlife often brings about great change for women in nonindustrialized societies:

 Often freed from restrictions placed on younger women  Right to exercise authority over specified younger kin  Eligibility for special status and the possibility of recognition beyond the

household

Individuals’ Conceptions of the Right Age for Major Life Events and Achievements: Late 1950s and Late 1970s

Questions to Consider

 Think about a middle-age adult that you know.  On what issues do you agree?  Where do you disagree?  What things do you wish they could or would try to understand?  What would make your relationships better and closer? STABILITY AND CHANGE

 The Baltimore Study used the big five factors of personality to study 1,000 college-educated persons aged 20 to 96 starting from the 1950s and continuing today:

 Considerable stability in the five personality factors  Agreeableness and conscientiousness increased in early and middle adulthood  Neuroticism decreased in early adulthood  Openness to experience increased in adolescence/early adulthood and then

decreased in late adulthood

Links Between Characteristics at Age 50 and Health and Happiness at Age 75 to 80

 Conclusions:  Evidence does not support the view that personality traits become completely fixed

at a certain age

 Change is typically small and limited; stability peaks in the 50’s and 60’s  Cumulative personality model: with time and age, people become more adept at

interacting with their environment in ways that promote the stability of personality

 Some change still characterizes personality in middle age and late adulthood

LOVE AND MARRIAGE

 Romantic love is typically strong in early adulthood  Affectionate love increases during middle adulthood  Most married individuals are satisfied with their marriages during midlife  Divorce in midlife can be less intense due to increased resources and lessened

child-rearing responsibilities. They may see divorce as a way to make positive changes.

 However, emotional and time commitment to a long-lasting marriage is typically not given up easily

 Staying married because of the children is a common reason for waiting to get a divorce

 The primary reason middle and older aged men wanted a divorce is because they fell out of love.

THE EMPTY NEST

 Empty Nest Syndrome: a decline in marital satisfaction after the children leave the home  For most parents, marital satisfaction actually increases during the years after child rearing  Refilling of empty nest is becoming a common occurrence

 Adult children are returning to live at home for financial reasons, and sometimes, they never left at all

 Loss of privacy is a common complaint for both parents and adult children SIBLING RELATIONSHIPS AND FRIENDSHIPS

 Sibling relationships continue over the entire life span  The majority of sibling relationships in adulthood are close

 Friendships continue to be important in middle adulthood  Friendships that have endured over the adult years tend to be deeper than those

that have just been formed in middle adulthood

GRANDPARENTING

 Many adults become grandparents during middle age  Grandmothers have more contact with grandchildren than grandfathers

 Three prominent meanings:  Source of biological reward and continuity  Source of emotional self-fulfillment  Remote role

 The grandparent role and its functions vary among families, ethnic groups, and cultures Questions

 Were your grandparents part of your life?  What roles did they play?  In what ways did culture and gender influence the roles they played?

 Three Grandparenting Styles:  Fun-seeking style: informal and playful. Grandkids as a source of leisure activity.

Mutual satisfaction was emphasized.

 Distant-figure style: Benevolent but interaction was infrequent.  Formal style: grandparent performed what was considered to be a proper and

prescribed role.

 An increasing number of U.S. grandchildren live with their grandparents  2.3 million in 1980; 6.1 million in 2005  Most common reasons are divorce, adolescent pregnancies, and parental drug use

 Tends to be more stressful for younger grandparents, when grandchildren have physical and psychological problems, and when there is low family cohesion

 Grandparents who take in grandchildren are in better health, are better educated, are more likely to be working outside the home, and are younger than grandparents who move in with their children

 Concern over grandparent visitation of children has become more common INTERGENERATIONAL RELATIONSHIPS

 Middle-aged and older adults typically express a strong feeling of responsibility between generations in their family

 They share their experiences and transmit values to the younger generation

 Family members typically maintain considerable contact across generations  When conflicts arise, parents most often cite habits and lifestyle choices, while adult

children cite communication and interaction styles

 Differences in gender:  Mothers and daughters have closer relationships during their adult years than

mothers and sons, fathers and daughters, and fathers and sons

 Married men are more involved with their wives’ families than with their own  Maternal aunts and grandmothers are cited as the most important or loved relative

twice as often as their paternal counterparts

Questions

 What are/were your biggest concerns about reaching middle age?  What do you/did you most look forward to about reaching this stage? Here are some good links pertaining to this Chapter http://ag.arizona.edu/pubs/general/resrpt1997/stress_in_midlife.html Empty Nest Syndrome Quiz http://quiz.ivillage.com/parentsoup/tests/nest.htm Midlife Crisis: Recent Research http://www.rps.psu.edu/probing/midlifecrisis.html Research Network on Successful Midlife Development

http://midmac.med.harvard.edu/ Sandwich Generation: The Cluttered Nest Syndrome http://marriage.about.com/cs/sandwich/a/sandwichgen.htm The Grandparent Foundation http://www.grandparenting.org/