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S3 Lec 3: ADULTHOOD (ppt) by Dra. Capitan

Life course/Life trajectory

ADULTHOOD
 Made up of a person’s pattern of changing life structures over
time
When do people become adults?
 18-25 yrs old Early Adult Two major tasks
o Considered a distinct life stage Transition: 17-22  Exploring possibilities for adult living
o Sometimes called thresholders
 Developing a stable life structure
o Not adults in every sense, but no longer adolescents.
***leave adolescence, leave preliminary
choices for adult life
Processes/Changes of Development during Adulthood
 Physical
Entering Adult -Relatively free exploration
 Cognitive World: 22-28 -make initial choices in love, occupation,
 Psychosocial friendship, values, lifestyle
Cognitive Development Age 30 Transition: -Alteration in the initial life structure
 Cognitive Aging 23-33 -Can be easy and gradual or traumatic
o Age and Intelligence -Create a basis for later years
 Age vs Intelligence???? -Changes occur in life structure either a
 Verbal vs Performance intelligence moderate change or, more often, a severe
o Attention and stressful crisis
o Learning and Memory
o Visuospatial abilities Settling Down -NICHE
o Reasoning and Cognitive flexibility 33-40 -Develop competence and become valued
o Speed and Cognitive aging -Attempts to progress
-Work toward advancement
Developmental Theorists -Establish a niche in society, progress on a
 Colarusso time table, in both family and career
 Gould accomplishments; e expected to think and
 Erikson behave like a parent so they are facing
 Levinson more demanding roles and expectations
 Butler
 Valliant Midlife Transition: -Resolution of 4 major conflicts in life:
 Neugarten 40-45 1. Young vs old
 Freud 2. Destructive vs constructive
3. Masculine vs feminine
Erik Erikson 4. Attached vs separated
 No formal training in Psychology but was trained by Freud as a
Psychoanalyst Entering Middle -Individuation
 8 stages Adulthood: 45-50 -Choices must be made, a new life
 Crisis structure formed, person must commit to
 Resolution of crisis new tasks
o Virtue
o Maladaptation/malignancy Age 50 Transition: -Continue to work on previous tasks
 Erikson’s theory 50-55
o Describes the basic issues that people confront as they go
through life Late Adulthood: -Awareness in the change in culture’s
o Criticisms: 60+ perception of you based on age
 Does not explain how or why individuals progress from one
stage to another
 Difficult to test empirically Roger Gould, M.D.
 American Writer
Daniel Levinson  Psychiatrist
 Alternative to Erikson’s model  Developed a model comprising stages of adulthood in which
 Levinson’s model outline 10 developmental stages individuals progressively abandon one childhood myth after another.
 Every seven years or so, most adults experience a major shift in Manage to confront reality to a greater degree than before, and
their so called life-structure eventually succeed in raising their levels of consciousness

Life Structure Robert Butler

 Center of his theory  Life Review
 The underlying pattern of an individual’s life at any particular time o Reminiscence
 Shaped by social and physical environment o The tendency of older people towards self-reflection
 Involve family and work, religion, race, and economic status o Realization of one’s approaching dissolution and death

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 o Dynamic process
 A purposive, reflective, retrospective process which dwell on
the past in order to come to peace with the past and present
 Some POSITIVE effect of Life Review
o Righting of old wrongs
o Making up with the enemies AGEISM
o Coming to acceptance of mortal life
o A sense of serenity, pride in accomplishment, and a feeling of
having done one’s best
o Gives people an opportunity to decide what to do with the time left
to them and work out emotional and material legacies
 The Gould-Butler model
o Divides the adult lifespan into 4 phases
o In each phase, an individual has some cultural myths to overcome
if s/he is going to chart a productive and meaningful course
throughout life
6. Adult Maturity:
 Leads to emergence of the capacity for wisdom
 Developed philosophy of life
 Understands and accepts person’s place in the order of human
existence
 Stereotyping older adults
 Prejudice against others because of their age, especially
prejudice against older adults
 Older adults may be perceived as incapable of thinking clearly,
learning new things, enjoying sex, contributing to the community,
and holding responsible jobs
 Many groups now exist to lobby and fight for issues related to the
rights of the elderly
Brought to you by: Luke Psych-walker (RPE-JG)

George Eman Vaillant, M.D.

 American Psychiatrist
 Has spent the last 30 years as Director of the Study of Adult
Development at the Harvard University Health Service
 Did a prospective study charting the lives of 824 men and women for
over 60 years
 Goal of the study:
o To identify predictors of healthy aging and provide insight in to
factors contributing to the good life

Bernice Neugarten
Activity theory
 Theory of aging, proposed by Neugarten and others, which holds
that in order to age successfully a person must remain as active
as possible

TASKS AND ISSUES IN ADULTHOOD

MIDDLE ADULTHOOD
1. Sexuality-enjoyable sexual activity may continue into old age, but
there may be a decline of sexual functioning

MEN
Fears and reality of impotence
Chronic impotence:
psychological>organic causes
WOMEN
Decline in sexual functioning:
psychological>physical causes
Sexual prime: mid 30s
Affects self-esteem as they
lose their youthful appearance

2. Midlife Crisis
 Middle age:
o Unlimited possibilities
o Sense of urgency
 Midlife crisis
o Emotional struggles resulting-serious maladaptive
behaviours
o Individuals prone to midlife crisis tend to come from
families characterized by:
 Parental discord
 Withdrawal by the same-sex parent
 Anxious parents
 Impulsive parents with a low sense of
responsibility
3. Empty-Nest Syndrome
 Depression which occurs among parents when their youngest
children is about to leave home
4. Divorce (not discussed)
5. Intercourse outside of marriage
Adultery-voluntary sexual intercourse between a married person
and someone other than his/her spouse

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 EARLY ADULTHOOD MIDDLE ADULTHOOD LATE ADULTHOOD
PHYSICAL Height reaches its greatest during young adulthood and is stable until old age.

Physical Strength in both sexes peaks in the late 20s and early 30s.

Visual Acuity remains stable through middle age; Hearing begins to decline in the late 20s.

Physiological Changes
1. Hormonal changes
2. Blood Pressure changes
3. Nutrition
4. Immune Function
5. Hyperglycemia and DM
6. CNS

Lifestyle Factors
 Smoking
 Drinking
 Diet/Nutrition
 Exercise

Social Factors
 Socioeconomic Status
 Education

Gender
 Women vs Men

COGNITIVE Little change in cognition Become more experts Declining intellectual abilities
 Rational decisions
 Logic and Abstractions
 Social Issues
 Personal relationships

PSYCHOSOCIAL Decide on: Mid-life transition Active and influential politically and socially
 Occupation/career
 Partner Re-appraise and modify lives and relationships Enjoy social interactions
 Parenthood
Happiness and health depends on: Find relationship more satisfying, supportive and
fulfilling compared to earlier life
o Job
o Finances
o Marriage
o Children
o Education
o Etc

DEVELOPMENTAL THEORISTS

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CALVIN COLARUSSO To develop:
1. Third individuation
2. Adult friendships
3. Intimacy->to become a spouse->parent
4. Relationship of mutuality and equality with parents
To establish:
Adult work identity
To integrate:
New attitudes toward time

ERIK ERIKSON  Stage 6: Intimacy vs Isolation
(PSYCHOSOCIAL o Young adults begin to select other people with
THEORY) whom they can form intimate, caring
relationships.
o They learn to relate on an emotionally deep
basis with members of the opposite sex and
commit to a lasting relationship
o Failure to resolve the dilemma of intimacy
results in feelings of isolation
 Developmental crisis
o Can i develop and commit to a sense of shared
identity that transcends my own individual
selfhood?
o ME->WE
 Extreme Resolutions:
1. Insufficient abandonment of selfhood;
o 2 people in the same house
->separate lives
2. Excessive abandonment of selfhood;
o Extension of the other person or of the
relationship, or am ‘swallowed up’ by it
 Stage 7: Generativity vs Stagnation  Stage 8: Ego integrity vs Despair
o Now that you know who you are and have an intimate relationship , o As they age, people strive to reach the
will you sink into complacency and selfishness, or will you ultimate goal-wisdom, spiritual
experience generativity (the pleasure of creativity and renewal) tranquillity, an acceptance of their lives
 4 types of Generativity o Just as the healthy child will not fear
o Biological life, said Erikson, the healthy adult will
 Conception and birth of infants not fear death
o Parental
 Provision of nurturance and guidance to children
o Work
 Development of skills that are passed down to others
o Cultural
 Creation, renovation or conservation of some aspect of the culture
that survives

DANIEL LEVINSON Careers and families Men deal with their particular individuality Reflect upon successes and failures
(LIFE STRUCTURE)
Age 30—men settle down; career advancement Work toward cultivating their skills and assets Enjoy the rest of life

Age 40, men realize some of their ambitions will not be

met

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 ROGER GOULD  Age 16-22: Leaving my parents’ world
o ‘I’ll always live with my parents’
 Age 22-28: I’m nobody’s baby, now
o ‘doing things my parents’ way, with willpower and perseverance, will bring results’
 Age28-34: Opening up to what’s inside
o ‘life is simple and controllable; i have no contradictory forces within me’
 Age 34-45: Midlife decade
o ‘there is no death, no evil’
 Age 45 and older: beyond mid-life
o No false assumptions to be answered
o Appreciate what you have;
o Focus on what you’ve accomplished

ROBERT BUTLER Young adulthood: 20-35
‘a time of achieving independence or launching a life’
 Myths:
o That one will never really be independent from
one’s family of origin
o That one has to do things the same way as
one’s parents, or that parents’ judgments are
final
 Successfully challenging these myths:
o ‘leaving the nest’ psychologically, physically,
and financially
 Failure to challenge them means remaining stuck in
childhood roles ( a protracted or extended ‘ adult-
olescence’)
Middle adulthood: 35-70 Late phase: 50-70
 Myths:
‘a time of utilizing independence or building and maintaining life’ o That the middle years will last forever
o That old age can be indefinitely
 Early phase: 35-50 postponed
 Myths: o That there is unlimited time in which to
o That significance derives from society and outward ‘success’ achieve one’s psychological legacy
o That there is a clearly charted path through the adult years (that life  Successfully challenging these myths
is simple, controllable, monolithic) o Means accepting, in a concrete way,
 Successfully challenging these myths: the reality of the biological clock
o Means accepting life as a ‘trek through the wilderness’ – breaking o Coming to terms with one’s own
new ground rather than following a preset route, and accepting the mortality, and moving increasingly
concomitant responsibility for one’s own choices toward a life of ego transcendence
 Failure to challenge them  Failure to challenge them
o Means a fruitless quest for merely external or conventional approval o Means a life increasingly bound by
denial

GEORGE EMAN Predictors of health aging

VALLIANT M.D.
BERNICE NEUGARTEN Activity theory
TASKS AND ISSUES
Characterized by: 1. Sexuality ISSUES
o Peaking biological development 2. Midlife crisis
o Assumption of major social roles 3. Empty-nest syndrome o Aging
o Evolution of an adult self and life structure 4. Divorce o Retirement
FAQ: 5. Intercourse outside marriage o Living arrangements
o Who am I?...Where am I going? 6. Adult maturity o Psych problems

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