Psychosocial

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• Psychosocial
• Development in
• Middle Adulthood

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Eriksons TheoryGenerativity versus Stagnation

• Generativity
• Reaching out to others in ways that give to and
  guide the next generation
• Commitment extends beyond self
• Typically realized through child rearing
• Other family, work mentoring relationships also
  generative

• Stagnation
• Place own comfort and security above challenge
  and sacrifice
• Self-centered, self-indulgent, self-absorbed
• Lack of involvement or concern with young people
• Little interest in work productivity,
  self-improvement

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Concern About Physical Aging
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Vaillants View of Midlife

• Keepers of meaning
• Guardians of culture
• Adults in 40s and 50s carry responsibility for
  functioning of society
• Passing the torch becomes important
• Focus on longer-term goals
• Prevents too rapid change

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Midlife Crisis?

• Research Wide individual differences
• Gender differences
• Men changes in early 40s
• Women late 40s50s,
• different directions
• Sharp disruption uncommon
• Differences in handling regrets
• Changes or not
• Interpretation, acceptance

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Midlife Stage or Life Events?

• Stage View
• Midlife changes are developmental transitions or
  crises

• Life Events View
• Midlife changes simply adaptation to normal life
  events

Many researchers suggest a combination of
continuity and stagewise change
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Possible Selves

• What one hopes or fears becoming
• Become fewer, more modest concrete with age
• May become more
• time-oriented with age
• Compare to what
• you had planned
• May help with adjustment
• and self-esteem

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Self-Perceptions in Midlife

• More complex, integrated self-descriptions
• Increases in feelings of
• Self-acceptance
• Autonomy
• Environmental mastery
• Linked to increased
• well-being, happiness
• Varies with culture

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Factors in Midlife Psychological Well-Being

• Good Health
• Exercise
• Sense of Control
• Personal Life Investment
• Positive Social Relationships
• Good Marriage
• Mastery of Multiple Roles

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Aging and Daily Stressors
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Coping Improvements in Middle Adulthood

• Identifying positives
• Postponing action during evaluation
• Anticipation and planning
• Humor
• Integrating strengths
• and weaknesses
• Confidence, experience

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Gender Identity in Middle Adulthood

• Women Increase in masculine traits
• Men Increase in feminine traits
• Theories
• Parental Imperative
• Decline in sex hormones
• Demands of midlife

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Big Five Personality Traits

• Neuroticism
• Extroversion
• Openness to Experience
• Agreeableness
• Conscientiousness

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Relationships at Midlife

• Many people have more close relationships than
  any other period of life
• Children
• launching
• Parents
• Friends

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Marriage in Middle Adulthood

• Economic well-being and time between parenting
  and retirement allow focus on marriage
• Review and adjust marriage
• Many strengthen relationship
• Some divorce
• Strong marriage linked to
• psychological well-being

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Divorce in Midlife

• More likely among
• Remarried
• Highly educated
• Midlifers adjust more easily than young adults
• Practical problem solving
• Effective coping strategies
• Feminization of poverty

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Parenting in Middle Adulthood

• Launching - culminates letting go process
• Decline in parental authority
• Continued contact, support to children
• Adjusting to in-laws - kinkeepers
• Affected by
• Investment in nonparental roles
• Childrens characteristics
• Off time children stress parents
• Cultural social clocks

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Promoting Positive Ties with Adult Children

• Positive communication
• Avoid leftover childhood comments
• Accept changes in cultural values, practices
• Rest urge to fix problems
• Be clear about own needs

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Grandparenthood

• Become grandparent average late 40s
• Can spend one-third of life
• Highly meaningful to most
• Grandparenting styles vary
• Geography, age, gender, SES, ethnicity are factors

• Trends in grandparenting
• Raising grandchildren
• Coping with divorce of grandchildrens parents

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Meanings of Grandparenthood

• Valued elder
• Immortality through descendents
• Reinvolvement with personal past
• Indulgence

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Middle-Age Children andTheir Aging Parents

• More likely than in past to have living parents
• Reassess relationships with parents
• Proximity increases with age
• Move closer or move in together
• Children provide more help
• to parents
• Financial, household aid caregiving
• Helping based on earlier relationships

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Caring for Aging Parents

• Sandwich generation
• Finances, location, gender, culture are factors
• Highly stressful
• Average 20 hours/week
• Often starts suddenly, duration uncertain
• Work and costs increase
• Hard to witness parents decline
• Support needed

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Who is Caring for Aging Parents
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Relieving Caregiving Stress

• Use effective coping strategies
• Seek social support
• Use community resources
• Get workplace help
• Work for helpful public policies

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Siblings in Middle Adulthood

• Contact and support decline during middle
  adulthood
• Demands of diverse roles
• Still, often feel closer
• Share similar events
• Affected by
• Earlier relations
• Culture

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Friendships in Middle Adulthood

• Gender trends continue
• Men less expressive than women
• Fewer friends more selective
• More complex ideas of friendship
• Rely on for pleasure
• more than support
• Invest more time,
• effort in friends

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Age-Related Changein Job Satisfaction
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Burnout

• Result of long-term job stress
• Overload
• Common in helping professions

• Linked to
• Mental exhaustion attention, memory problems
• Loss of personal control, depression
• Physical illness
• Reduced sense of accomplishment, poor
  performance, absenteeism, turnover

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Career Developmentin Middle Adulthood

• Limits to advancement
• Training
• Glass ceiling
• Midlife career changes
• Few, not usually drastic
• Often for more relaxing career
• Unemployment
• Middle age older most affected by downsizing
• More stressful than for young adults
• Retirement planning

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Influences on Interest in Job Training

• Personal
• Desire to change
• Growth v. security needs
• Coworkers, supervisor
• Stereotypes
• Self-efficacy
• Job
• Challenging tasks
• Co-workers, teams

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Ingredients in Effective Retirement Planning

• Finances
• Fitness
• Role adjustment
• Where to live
• Leisure activities
• Health insurance
• Legal affairs