Development Through the Lifespan 2nd edition Laura E' Berk

1
Development Through the Lifespan 2nd edition
Laura E. Berk

• Chapter 14

Emotional and Social Development in Early
Adulthood
PowerPoint Presentations Produced by
Joe Rizzo - Professor of Behavioral Sciences Rick
Lizotte - Curriculum Developer Felix Rizvanov -
Instructional Designer
Northern Essex Community College
2
Chapter 14Emotional and Social Development in
Early Adulthood

• Development Through the Lifespan
• 2nd edition Berk

3
Eriksons Stages
4
ERIKSONS THEORY

• Basic conflict in early adulthood Intimacy
  versus Isolation
• Permanent commitment to intimate partner
• Successful resolution prepares for generativity
• Caring for the next generation and improving
  society

5
ERIKSON'S THEORY (cont.)

• Without independence, people
• define themselves in terms of their partner.
• sacrifice self-respect and initiative.
• Without intimacy
• Loneliness and self-absorption
• A secure sense of intimacy enhances the quality
  of other close relationships.

6
Table 14.1Stages of Adult Psychosocial
Development
7
Levinson's Seasons of Life

• Sequence of distinct eras
• Eras begin with a transition.
• Lasting about 5 years
• Concluding the previous era and preparing for the
  next
• Stable periods between transitions
• Build a life structure
• Life structure
• Underlying pattern of person's life at a given
  time
• Relationships with significant others, groups, or
  institutions
• Structure-building lasts 5 to 7 years.

8
Levinson's Seasons of Life (cont.)

• Construction of a dream
• Image of the self in adult world that guides
  decision making
• For men, an independent achiever in an
  occupational role
• For career-oriented women, a "split dream" for
  both marriage and career
• Relationship with mentor who fosters advancement
  in the workplace

9
Levinson's Seasons of Life (cont.)

• Age 30 Transition
• Revaluation and change of life
• Men rarely reverse priority of career and family
  career-oriented women sometimes do.
• For dissatisfied, this transition can be a
  crisis.
• Settling Down for Men / Continued Instability for
  Women
• Ages 33 to 40 Men anchor more firmly in family,
  occupation, and community.
• Women integrate occupational or relationship
  commitment.
• Not until middle adulthood do many women attain
  stability.

10
Vaillant's Adaptation to Life

• Compatible with Levinson's
• Fills gaps between Erikson's stages
• Men focused on career in their thirties.
• During forties, men became more generative.
• In fifties, men became "keepers of meaning,"
  guardians of culture.
• Did not study women, but research suggests
  similar changes

11
Limitations of Levinson and Vaillant

• Conclusions were based on people born in the
  1920s to 1940s.
• Levinson sampled few non-college, low-SES adults
  (especially women).
• Levinson's middle-aged participants might not
  have remembered accurately.
• Studies of new generations with diverse SES and
  cultural backgrounds are needed.

12
Social Clock

• Age-graded expectations for life events.
• College women born in 1930s were followed up at
  27 and 43.
• If they started families, they became more
  responsible, self-controlled, tolerant, and
  nurturant but declined in self-esteem and felt
  more vulnerable as their lives progressed.
• If they followed occupations typical of me, they
  became more dominant, sociable, independent, and
  intellectual.
• Women who neither married nor begun a career by
  age 30 suffered from self-doubt, feelings of
  incompetence, and loneliness.
• Expectations for adulthood are no longer as
  definite.

13
CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS

• Selecting a Mate
• Social learning perspective Gender roles
  influence selection.
• Select partner who resembles self
• Women want intelligence, ambition, financial
  status, and character.
• Men want physical attractiveness.
• Women want same-age/slightly older partner.
• Men want younger partner.
• Parent-child bonds influence selection and
  quality of relationships.

14
Components of Love

• Intimacy Emotional
• Passion Physical and psychological
• Commitment Cognitive
• leads to decision to love and maintain love
• Passionate love becomes companionate love.
• In study of first year of marriage, spouses
  gradually felt less in love.
• Couples whose relationships endure report they
  love each other more.

15
Culture and the Experience of Love

• 20th century Western nations
• Passion and intimacy are basis for marriage.
• Eastern cultures
• Feelings distributed across social network,
  reducing intensity of any one relationship.
• Chinese and Japanese consider others when
  choosing a mate.

16
Friendships

• Friends enhance self-esteem, provide social
  support, and make life more interesting.
• Same-Sex Friendships
• Women have more intimate same-sex friendships.
• Female friends prefer to just talk.
• Male friends do something.
• Friends are preferred companions for young,
  single adults.

17
Other-Sex Friendships

• Occur less often and do not last as long as
  same-sex friendships
• Young adults learn about masculine and feminine
  styles of intimacy.
• Can evolve into romance
• May be more stable than relationships that formed
  without friendship.

18
Siblings as Friends

• Often like friendships
• Relationships are longest.
• In Vaillant's study
• Single best predictor of emotional health at age
  65 was having close ties with siblings in early
  adulthood.

19
Loneliness

• Results from gap between relationships we have
  and those we desire
• Adults feel lonely if they lack an intimate
  partner or friends.
• Loneliness peaks in late teens and early twenties
  and declines steadily into the seventies.
• Persistent loneliness is associated with
  self-defeating attitudes and behaviors.

20
THE FAMILY LIFE CYCLE

• Sequence of phases that characterizes development
  of most families
• In early adulthood, people typically live on
  their own, marry, and rear children.
• In middle age, children leave home and parental
  responsibilities lessen.
• Late adulthood brings retirement, aging, and
  death of one's spouse.

21
Leaving Home

• Departure for education tends to be at a younger
  age.
• For full-time work and marriage at later ages
• Half of young adults return home for a brief
  time.
• Departure from home is linked to more satisfying
  parent-child interaction and successful
  transition to adult roles.

22
Joining of Families in Marriage

• Nearly 90 percent of Americans marry at least
  once in their lives.
• Increasing numbers remain single, cohabit, or do
  not remarry after divorce.

Figure 14.1
23
Marital Roles

• If ethnic and religious backgrounds are
  different, extra challenges exist in married
  life.
• Traditional marriage
• Clear division of husband's and wife's roles
• Man head of household and economic provider. The
  woman devotes herself to creating a nurturant,
  comfortable home.

24
Marital Roles

• In egalitarian marriage, husband and wife share
  power and authority. Both partners try to balance
  the time and energy they devote to the workplace,
  the children, and their relationship. In reality,
  wives do the bulk of the housework.

Figure 14.2
25
Marital Satisfaction

• Contributing factors
• Marrying later
• Postponing having children until careers are
  underway
• Building a sense of togetherness that allows each
  partner to thrive as an individual
• Patience, caring, shared values, enjoyment of
  each other's company, and good conflict
  resolution skills
• More men report being happily married.
• For women, relationship quality has a greater
  impact on mental health.

26
Marital Expectations and Myths

• Happy couples reshape relationship to new
  circumstances and partner's changing needs.
• Many young people have a mythical image of
  marital bliss.

27
Parenthood

• Being childless more accepted
• Decision to have children
• Women with a traditional gender-role are more
  likely to have children.
• Reasons
• Desire for warm, affectionate relationship and
  the stimulation and fun that children provide
• Disadvantages
• Loss of freedom and financial strain

28
Table 14.3Advantages and Disadvantages of
Parenthood
Table 14.3
29
Transition to Parenthood

• Mild decline in marital happiness
• Gender roles become more traditional.
• Men who are nurturant show less decline in
  marital satisfaction after the birth of the baby.
• Special interventions such as couples' groups
  ease transition.

30
Parenthood

• Non-Western cultures
• Children less likely to threaten marital
  satisfaction
• Western industrialized nations
• Trend toward gender equality and isolation of the
  nuclear family unit leads marital and parenting
  roles to be closely linked

31
Additional Births

• Family size decline
• Birth control
• Career orientation of many women
• More divorce
• Research indicates adults and children benefit
  from small family size.

32
Families with Young Children

• Quality of marital relationship influences child
  rearing.
• Employed parents struggle to find good child
  care.
• Rearing young children expands parents' emotional
  capacities and enriches.

33
Families with Adolescents

• Must blend guidance with freedom and gradually
  relinquish control.
• Flexibility key to family success
• More in family therapy during this phase than any
  other

34
Parent Education

• Adults seek information on child rearing through
  popular books.
• Special courses designed to help parents
  understand
• child development,
• child-rearing values,
• family communication, and
• effective parenting strategies.

35
Singlehood

• Individuals not living with an intimate partner
• Men in blue-collar occupations and women in
  demanding, prestigious careers overrepresented
  after age 30
• Advantages
• Freedom and mobility
• Disadvantages
• Loneliness, limited sexual and social life,
  reduced sense of security, and exclusion from the
  world of married couples
• Many stressed in late twenties
• Mid-thirties is trying for single women, due to
  deadline for bearing children.

36
Cohabitation

• The lifestyle of unmarried couples who have an
  intimate, sexual relationship and share a
  residence

Figure 14.3
37
Cohabitation

• Sometimes preparation for marriage
• Alternative to marriage
• Offers sexual intimacy and companionship along
  with possibility of easy departure
• Couples who live together before marriage are
  more prone to divorce.
• Fights over property, money, and responsibility
  for children are common when unmarried couples
  split up.

38
Childlessness

• Childlessness can be involuntary or voluntary.
• Voluntarily childless adults are usually college
  educated, with prestigious jobs, and committed to
  work.
• Voluntarily childless adults are content with
  their lives.
• Infertile couples and parents whose children have
  serious psychological or physical problems are
  likely to be dissatisfied and depressed.

39
Divorce and Remarriage

• 50 divorce rate in U.S.
• Many divorces when children still at home
• 61 of divorced men and 54 of divorced women
  remarry.
• High divorce rate during first few years of
  second marriages

40
Divorce Factors

• Disrupted relationship
• Other factors
• Young age at marriage
• Not religious
• Previously divorced
• Parents were divorced
• Poverty
• Changing status of women
• Within 2 years after separation, many are
  depressed and anxious and display impulsive
  behavior.

41
Remarriage

• Remarriages break up because
• Practicality rather than love influences the
  decision to remarry.
• People transfer negative interaction and problem
  solving learned in first marriage.
• More likely to view divorce as acceptable
• Experience stress from stepfamily situations
• It takes 3 to 5 years for blended families to
  develop connectedness of biological families.

42
Remarried Parents

• The stepparent is an outsider.
• Stepmothers are likely to experience conflict and
  poor adjustment.
• Stepfathers without biological children may have
  unrealistic expectations and withdraw from
  parenting.
• For good stepparent adjustment
• Caring husband-wife relationship
• Cooperation of absent biological parent
• Willingness of children to accept new spouse
• The divorce rate is higher for couples with
  stepchildren

43
Never-Married Parents

• Never-married parenthood among low-SES women is
  costly, since living in a female-headed household
  makes it harder to overcome poverty.
• High among African-American young women
• Births to high-status unmarried women increased,
  but is still rare.

44
Gay and Lesbian Parents

• The children are as well adjusted as children of
  heterosexual parents, and a large majority of
  children are heterosexual.
• Homosexual parents build families of choice when
  extended family members have difficulty accepting
  them.
• The greatest concern of gay parents is that their
  children will be stigmatized.

45
VOCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

• For men, it is typically continuous, from
  completion of formal education to retirement.
• Many women experience discontinuous career paths.
• Interrupted or deferred by child bearing and
  rearing

• Self-efficacy
• Belief in ones own ability to be successful
• Affects career choice and development

46
Women and Ethnic Minorities

• Remain concentrated in occupations with little
  advancement
• For every dollar earned by a man, the average
  woman earns 76 cents.
• Women are unavailable as mentors to other women.

47
Work and Family

• Dual-earner marriages predominate.
• Role conflict is common for women.
• College-educated have higher standards of living
  and more self-fulfillment for the wife.