Reference no: EM133318736
Question 1. Write what was most memorable about and what you learned after reading the below passage.
Question 2. Give at least one example of how you have seen aspects discussed below played out in practice and/or real life. What is consistent with your experience and what is not?
Case Study: Analyze the merits of four theoretical approaches to adulthood (Jung's, Erikson's, Levinson's, and Arnett's).
Religious, philosophical, and literary texts suggest that humans have long contemplated questions about their personal biographies and the adult life course. But early psychological theorizing, influenced by Freud, paid little attention to life after adolescence, and young and middle adulthood have received less scholarly attention than other [Page 520]periods of life, including late adulthood. It was not until the 1960s that adulthood became the subject of scholarly inquiry. Since that time, theorizing about the adult life course has grown steadily in the behavioral sciences. This chapter does not attempt a thorough discussion of recent theorizing about adulthood but summarizes the central ideas from the theories of Carl Jung, Erik Erikson, and Daniel Levinson. It also presents recent theorizing about the transition to adulthood, Jeffrey Jensen Arnett's theory of emerging adulthood.
Jung's Analytic Psychology
The work of Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung is considered here because he played an important role in stimulating interest in adult development among behavioral scientists and has been referred to as "the father of the modern study of adult development" (cited in Austrian, 2008). Unlike his mentor, Sigmund Freud, who thought that no significant personality development happened after adolescence, Jung came to think that personality development had barely begun by the end of adolescence (Jung, 1933a, 1933b).
Although Jung may be best known for his typology of introvert and extrovert personality types and his use of the concept of collective unconscious, the concepts of differentiation and individuation are central to his theory and most pertinent to discussion of adulthood (Jung, 1939). He proposed that differentiation is the process by which humans develop unique patterns and traits. Individuation is the full development of all aspects of the self into a unique and harmonious whole that gives expression to repressed attributes and desires. In the individuation process, gender roles come into better balance as do introversion and extroversion. Jung believed that individuation does not happen before age 40. He thought that the adult years before age 40, by necessity, are focused on breaking away from parents and meeting responsibilities to family, work, and community. Once those tasks have been accomplished, the individual can work on greater understanding and acceptance of the self. He saw middle adulthood as a time when we discover and reclaim parts of the self that were repressed in the search for conformity in the first half of life.
Jung emphasized the importance of gender identity in middle adulthood. Adults are thought to begin to move from the stereotyped gender role behavior of young adulthood to a more androgynous behavioral repertoire at this age. There is some evidence to support this idea. One research team found that although there was great variation within gender groups in measures of masculinity and femininity at every age, the average man became significantly higher in femininity over time, and the average woman became significantly lower in femininity over time (Jones et al., 2011). A great deal of research demonstrates that androgyny (having both female and male characteristics) is associated with high self-esteem and life satisfaction in middle adulthood (Matud et al., 2014). It is important to remember that existing longitudinal research (following the same people over a number of years) was started decades ago and may not adequately reflect the more expansive gender expectations that now exist in many places.
Jung also suggested that extroversion, or orientation to the external world, and introversion, or orientation to the internal world, come into greater balance in middle adulthood. He suggested that the challenges of establishing family and work roles demand extroversion in young adulthood, but in middle adulthood, individuals tend to turn inward and explore their own subjective experience. Given her struggles with gender identity, Caroline Sanders has needed to engage in more exploration of her own subjective experiences than many young adults, but with greater clarity on that issue, she seems poised for a more extroverted engagement with the external world. Mark Raslin is beginning to show a more reflective side and to makes sense of the trauma and abandonment he experienced with his parents. Maha Ahmed is exploring her inner life of depression and its connection to both earlier life experiences and current disappointments about her family life.
Erikson's Psychosocial Life Span Theory
Erikson's psychosocial theoretical framework is probably one of the most universally known approaches to understanding life course development (1950, 1959, 1982). As reported earlier, Erikson describes a sequence of eight psychosocial stages across the life span that result from the interaction between internal instincts and drives and external social and cultural demands. Elements of this theory have been discussed in earlier chapters and summarized in Exhibit 4.10.
A major focus of Erikson's theory is the development of identity, a concept that he never explicitly defines but that appears to include a sense of self that distinguishes "who I am" from other people and that is enduring over time. Identity develops as the person encounters physiological changes and the changing demands of society, demands that produce a psychosocial crisis-a struggle or turning point that defines a particular stage in Erikson's developmental model. A well-resolved psychosocial crisis [Page 521]leads to strength; a poorly resolved psychosocial crisis sets the stage for psychopathology. The last three stages of Erikson's theory are adult stages, generally referred to as the stages of young adulthood, middle adulthood, and later adulthood.
According to Erikson, the psychosocial struggle in young adulthood is intimacy versus isolation. Intimacy can be defined as a sense of warmth or closeness and involves three components: interdependence, self-disclosure, and affection (Perlman & Fehr, 1987) According to Erikson, young adulthood is the time when individuals move from the identity fragmentation, confusion, and exploration of adolescence into more intimate engagement with significant others (Erikson, 1968, 1978). Individuals who successfully resolve the crisis of intimacy versus isolation are able to achieve the virtue of love. An unsuccessful effort at this stage may lead the young adult to feel alienated, disconnected, and alone.
We see Caroline struggling with relationship development from early in her middle childhood years, where bullying and distant family relationships were part of her interpersonal history. We might wonder how that pattern of relational disengagement and social isolation might affect her ability for and interest in forming new adulthood partnerships. A fear at the core of this crisis is that giving of oneself through a significant, committed relationship will result in a loss of self and diminution of one's constructed identity. To pass through this stage successfully, young adults must try out new relationships and attempt to find a way to connect with others in new ways while preserving their individuality (Erikson, 1978; Fowler, 1981).
According to Erikson, the psychosocial struggle of middle adulthood is generativity versus stagnation. Generativity is the ability to transcend personal interests to provide care and have concern for younger and older generations; it encompasses "procreation, productivity, and creativity, and thus the generation of new beings, as well as of new products and new ideas, including a kind of self-generation concerned with further identity development" (Erikson, 1982, p. 67). Generative adults provide "care, guidance, inspiration, instruction, and leadership" for future generations (McAdams, 2001, p. 395). Failure to find a way to contribute to future generations or to make a contribution to the general well-being results in self- absorption and a sense of stagnation. Erikson saw generativity as an instinct that works to perpetuate society. As he enters middle adulthood, Mark Raslin strives to become generative. He would like to reconnect with his daughter and see if he can reestablish a relationship with his elderly parents. Throughout middle adulthood, Maha Ahmed provided care and support to her children and her husband and long-distance emotional care to her mother. Now, as she approaches late adulthood, she has a strong desire to be an active part of her adult children's lives and is not sure how to create purpose and meaning without an active caregiving role. As a social worker, you will most likely encounter people like Maha who struggle with a sense of stagnation in middle adulthood.
Dan McAdams and Ed de St. Aubin (de St. Aubin et al., 2004; McAdams, 2006; McAdams & de St. Aubin, 1992, 1998) have presented a model of generativity that includes these seven components:
Inner desire for immortality and to be needed
Cultural demand for productivity
Concern for the next generation
Belief in the species
Commitment
Action: creating, maintaining, or offering
Development of a generative life story
McAdams and de St. Aubin (1992, 1998) see generativity coming from both the person (personal desire) and the social and cultural environment (social roles and cultural demand).
Even though Erikson outlined middle-adult generativity in 1950, generativity was not a subject of empirical investigation until the 1980s (Peterson & Duncan, 2007). There is limited longitudinal research to answer the question of whether midlife adults are more generative than people in other life course phases. Most of the cross-sectional research on generativity reports greater generativity during middle adulthood than in young adulthood or late adulthood (An & Cooney, 2006; McAdams, 2001; Zucker et al., 2002), but other researchers have found that generativity continues to grow past middle adulthood, and there is growing interest in generativity in older adults (Bates & Goodsell, 2013; Ehlman & Ligon, 2012). Researchers have also found some evidence of generative concern and motivation in late adolescence and young adulthood while also finding that middle-aged adults have a greater sense of capacity for generativity than these younger groups (Hastings et al., 2015; Matsuba et al., 2012).
Research also finds that generativity is associated with gender, class, and race. Several researchers (Marks et al., 2004; McAdams & de St. Aubin, 1992; McKeering & Pakenham, 2000) have found that men who had never been fathers scored particularly low on measures of [Page 522]generativity, but not being a mother did not have the same effect for women. However, An and Cooney (2006) did not find parenting to be more associated with generativity for men than women but did find that midlife women are more involved in both private and public caring than midlife men. Another research project found that as generativity increases for adults from ages 35 to 74, so does psychological well-being, and this association between generativity and well-being is equally strong for childless adults as for parents (Rothrauff & Cooney, 2008). Generativity has been found to increase with educational (Keyes & Ryff, 1998) and income levels (Jones & McAdams, 2013). Consistent with other research that found Black adults to score higher on some measures of generativity than white adults, Jones and McAdams (2013) found that African American late midlife adults reported higher levels of generativity, political and civic engagement, public service motivation, and religious engagement than white late midlife adults.
Researchers have investigated how generativity is developed and found that individuals who score high on measures of generativity in midlife report positive earlier relationships with parents, teachers, and mentors (Jones & McAdams, 2013). One research team (Hastings et al., 2015) found that serving in the mentor role increases generative concern, generative action, and generative commitment among college students. Another research team found that participating in intergenerational activities increased generativity among adults aged 60 and over (Gruenewald et al., 2016). There has been little attempt to study how high levels of generativity during midlife are related to development during late adulthood, but one study found that adults with high levels of generativity in midlife, even when controlling for adolescent intelligence and level of education, had stronger cognitive performance and less depression three to four decades later (Malone et al., 2016).
There are many ways to express generativity, from active parenting to political activism. Researchers have recently made a distinction between individual, agentic, or familial generativity that is oriented only to those with biological kinship versus social or communal generativity that is oriented to the community and wider world (Morselli & Passini, 2015; Rubinstein et al., 2015). The latter type of generativity is based on social inclusion and extension of social care to those groups that have been oppressed and marginalized by society (Morselli & Passini, 2015). Some researchers have been particularly interested in the links between midlife generativity and pro-environment behaviors (Wells et al., 2016). Maha Ahmed engaged in high levels of family generativity throughout middle adulthood. Perhaps expanding her generative activities beyond the family could reenergize her in late midlife.
Levinson's Theory of Seasons of Adulthood
Although Erikson's psychosocial theory has had the most influence on stage theories of adulthood, Daniel Levinson's theory of seasons of adulthood is one of the best known and most often quoted stage theories (Levinson, 1978, 1980, 1986, 1990; Levinson & Levinson, 1996). Levinson (1978; Levinson & Levinson, 1996) conceptualizes the life course as a sequence of eras (see Exhibit 15.1), each with its own biopsychosocial character, with major changes from one era to the next and smaller changes within eras. The eras are partially overlapping, with cross-era transitions, in which characteristics of both the old era and the new are evident, lasting about five years. Adult life is, therefore, composed of alternating periods of relative stability and periods of transition. Every era begins and ends at a clearly defined average age, with a range of approximately two years above and below this average.
Levinson (Levinson & Levinson, 1996) postulated that the eras and the cross-transition periods are universal, found in all human lives, but they accommodate innumerable "variations related to gender, class, race, culture, historical epoch, specific circumstances, and genetics" (p. 5). Just consider the variations at about age 23 among the three people whose stories you read at the beginning of the chapter. Caroline Sanders has just completed gender confirmation surgery and begun living openly as a woman; Mark Raslin had survived a traumatic upbringing, attempted suicide at age 11, had polysubstance dependency at age 16, and become homeless; and Maha Ahmed had fled her war-torn homeland as a child, become a caregiver for her depressed mother as an adolescent, and moved to a new country far away from her parents and siblings.
Exhibit 15.1 Levinson's Seasons of Adulthood
Source: Levinson and Levinson, 1996. "Illustrations" from THE SEASONS OF A WOMAN'S LIFE by Daniel J. Levinson, copyright © 1996 by Daniel J Levinson. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
EXHIBIT 15.1 DESCRIPTION
Levinson (1978) initially developed his theory based on interviews with men about their adult experiences; later, he included women in the research. From his research, he developed the concept of life structure, by which he means the underlying patterns and central components of a person's life at a particular point in time. Levinson uses the concept of central components to designate the relationships that have the greatest significance to a life structure. He suggests that usually no more than two central components exist in a life structure, but the structure may also have peripheral components and unfulfilled components. In most cases, family and occupation are the central components in the life structure, but people vary [Page 524]widely in how much weight they assign to each. These variations are quite evident in the life course trajectories of Caroline Sanders, Mark Raslin, and Maha Ahmed. Work is a central part of Caroline's life. Mark's mental health problems have made it difficult for him to keep a sustained connection to work and family, but with the help of the mental health system, he is hoping to make better connections with both. Family has been the major focus of Maha's life, and she is struggling to rebuild a life structure that puts less focus on that component of life.
Levinson considered the ages of 17 to 33 to be the novice phase of adulthood. In this approach, Caroline Sanders would be considered a novice adult, and that idea seems consistent with how she sees herself. The transition into young adulthood, which occurs during the ages of 17 to 22, includes the tasks of leaving adolescence and making preliminary decisions about relationships, career, and belief systems; the transition out of this phase, which occurs around the age of 30, marks significant changes in life structure and life course trajectory. During the novice phase, young persons' personalities continue to develop, and they prepare to differentiate (emotionally, geographically, financially) from their families of origin (Levinson, 1978). Levinson suggested that it may take up to 15 years for some individuals to resolve the transition to adulthood and to construct a stable adult life structure.
Building on Levinson's concepts, others have noted that cultural and societal factors affect life structure choices during young adulthood by constraining or facilitating opportunities (Schoon & Polek, 2011). For example, socioeconomic status, parental expectations, availability of and interactions with adult role models, neighborhood conditions, and community and peer group pressures may all contribute to a young person's decisions about whether to marry early, get a job or join the military before pursuing a college education or advanced training, or delay childbearing. Social and economic factors may directly or indirectly limit a young person's access to alternative choices, thereby rigidifying a young person's life structure. Along these lines, many researchers discuss the strong link between social capital and human capital, suggesting that a family's "wealth transfer" or extent of familial assets, such as the ability to pay for children's college education, is influential in opening or limiting young adults' opportunities for advanced education and viable employment (Friedline & West, 2016).
Especially in young adulthood, life structures are in constant motion, changing with time and evolving as new life circumstances unfold. According to Levinson (1978; Levinson & Levinson, 1996), the early adulthood era, from about 17 to 45, is the adult era of greatest vigor but also of "greatest contradiction and stress" (p. 19). The 20s and 30s are peak years biologically. Psychosocially, early adulthood offers only limited experience for making crucial decisions about domestic partnerships, family, work, and lifestyle. Heavy financial obligations are likely to be incurred, but earning power is still comparatively low. Both the rewards and costs of this era are enormous.
During the transition to middle adulthood, individuals often try to give greater attention to previously neglected components. Levinson sees this transition in terms of balancing four opposing aspects of identity: young versus old, creation versus destruction, feminine versus masculine, and attachment versus separation (Levinson, 1977). The era of middle adulthood, from about 40 to 65, is a time of reduced biological capacities but also a period when many people are energized by satisfying intimate relationships and gratifying contributions at work and in the community. For some, however, middle adulthood is a time of progressive decline, self-absorption, and emptiness. Maha Ahmed is determined not to let that be the story of her late middle adulthood. Recent research has focused on how midlife adults attempt to balance the multiple roles of paid worker, parent, spouse, and caregiver of older adults (see Fischer et al., 2015; Frisvold et al., 2012; Gareis et al., 2009).
Arnett's "Emerging" Adulthood
A number of prominent developmental scholars who have written about the stages of adolescence and young adulthood in advanced industrial countries have described phenomena that represent an experimentation phase of young adulthood (Arnett, 2000; Erikson, 1968; Levinson, 1978; Levinson & Levinson, 1996; Settersten et al., 2005; Sheehy, 1995). Arnett has gone one step further, defining a phase he terms emerging adulthood in some detail (Arnett, 2015). He describes emerging adulthood as a developmental phase distinct from both adolescence and young adulthood, occurring from ages 18 to 25 in industrialized societies, but he adds that for some people, emerging adulthood spans the age period 18 to 29. There is considerable variation in personal journeys from emerging adulthood into young adulthood, but most individuals make the transition by age 30. Arnett conceptualized this new phase of life based on research showing that a majority of young people ages 18 to 25 believe they have not yet reached adulthood and that a majority of people in their 30s agree they have reached adulthood.
According to Arnett (2006, 2007), identity exploration has become the central focus of emerging adulthood, not of adolescence. Emerging adulthood is a period of [Page 525]prolonged exploration of social and economic roles where young people try out new experiences related to love, work, financial responsibilities, and educational interests without committing to any specific or lasting plan. The social role experimentation of adolescence becomes further refined, more focused, and more intense, although commitment to adult roles is not yet solidified. Arnett explains this adulthood transition using an organizing framework that includes cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and role transition elements. After 20 years of research, Arnett (2015) proposes five features that make emerging adulthood distinct from both adolescence and young adulthood:
Identity exploration: Finding answers to the question Who am I? and trying out various choices, especially those related to love and work
Instability in love, work, and residence
Self-focus, with limited focus on obligations to others
Feeling in-between, neither adolescent nor adult
Possibilities/optimism; a sense of hope and belief in opportunity to transform one's life
Most young persons in emerging adulthood are in education, training, or apprenticeship programs working toward an occupation; most individuals in their 30s have established a more solid career path and are moving through occupational transitions (e.g., promotion to leadership positions and recognition for significant accomplishments). From 1980 to 2010, the proportion of emerging adults attending college rose steeply in all the wealthy countries of the world, including the United States (Arnett, 2015). In 2013, about 66% of high school graduates in the United States enrolled in two- or four-year colleges. About one third of students who enroll at a two-year institution graduate within three years, and about two thirds of students who enroll in a four-year institution graduate within six years (National Center for Education Statistics, 2014). Students who are the first in their families to attend college and those from underrepresented racial and ethnic or low socioeconomic families tend to have the hardest time transitioning to college (Kuther, 2017). The likelihood of holding a bachelor's degree is higher for Asian Americans and non-Hispanic whites as compared to Latinxs or Blacks (Ryan & Bauman, 2016). Like many emerging adults, Caroline experienced a lack of attachment to her postsecondary institution because she lived at her parents' home and commuted to school, which did not allow her to develop meaningful college friendships or participate in activities beyond her classes.
Experience with work results in many (if not most) emerging adults changing their occupational expectations. One longitudinal study examined young people's occupational expectations and accomplishments each year for the first seven years after high school and again at age 30. The researchers found a great deal of instability during the late teens and early 20s, and by age 25, less than half of the emerging adults had careers that matched their expectations (Rindfuss et al., 1999). Longitudinal research indicates that emerging adults average 8.2 jobs from ages 18 through 32 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2020d).
Although marriage has traditionally been cited as a salient marker in the adulthood transition, current research shows that marriage has not retained its high status as the critical benchmark of adulthood. In 2015, the median age of marriage in the United States was 27 for women and 29 for men, an increase of six years since 1975 (Stritof, 2017). Exhibit 15.2 shows the trend in median age of marriage for both men and women from 1890 to 2015. Similar increases in the median age of marriage have occurred in Canada and some European countries. For example, in 2013, the median age of first marriage in Sweden was 36 for men and 33 for women, up seven years since 1980 (Eurostat, 2015). There are variations in the age of first marriage, with young people of low socioeconomic status marrying earlier.
Perhaps nothing demonstrates the instability and exploratory nature of emerging adulthood better than how often emerging adults move from one residence to another. Emerging adults in the 18-24 age group have the highest rate of residential mobility of any age group. Emerging adults either live with a partner, alone, with roommates, in their parents' home, or with other family members, with the majority living with their parents (Vespa, 2017). By race, data show that Latinx and Black emerging adults are more likely to live at home; White emerging adults are equally likely to be living at home or with a spouse; and living with a spouse is the most common arrangement for Asian American emerging adults (Copen et al., 2012). To demonstrate the high rate of residential mobility among emerging adults, Exhibit 15.3 shows the age-specific migration rates in the United States in the periods 2007-2009 and 2010-2012 (Benetsky et al., 2015). As you can see, the rate of migration peaks from ages 20 to 25 and declines steadily until about age 55. In Case Study 15.1, Caroline Sanders, at age 23, is currently wondering if it would be wiser to move to another state where she could develop her gender identity without the memories of her male specter.