PSY 3063- Chapter 14

Midlife crisis

40s as a decade of reassessing and recording truth about adolescent and adult years a minority experience midlife crisis

Entry life structure for middle adulthood:

45 to 50

Age 50 transition:

50 to 55

Culminating life structure for middle adulthood:

55 to 60

Costa and McCrae's Baltimore study - Focused on the Big Five factors of personality:

Openness to experience Conscientiousness Extaversion Agreeableness Neuroticism

Conscientiousness

Organized or disorganized careful or careless disciplined or impulsive

Extraversion

Sociable or retiring fun-loving or somber affectionate or reserved

Levinson's seasons of a man's life: 20s

are a novice phase of adult development

Levinson's seasons of a man's life: 30s

are a time for focusing on family and career development

Fight of flight

become aggressive, socially withdraw, or drink alcohol

Cumulative personality model: with time and age, people:

become more adept at interacting with their environment in ways that promote stability of personality

In Vailant's longitudinal study, factors at age 50 that were linked with being in the "happy-well" group at age 75 to 80 years of age included all of the following EXCEPT:

being wealthy.

Transition into middle adulthood- conflicts

being young versus being old being destructive versus being constructive being masculine versus being feminine being attached to others versus being separated from them

Neuroticism (emotional stability)

calm or anxious secure or insecure self-satisfied or self-pitying

Refilling of empty nest is a ___________ ___________

common occurrence (loss of privacy)

Sense of control associated with ____________ ________ ___ _______ in middle age

delaying onset of disease

According to Lachman, researchers have found that on average a sense of personal control peaks in __________.

midlife

Drawbacks to life events approach

places too much emphasis on change may not be major life events that are primary sources of stress (daily experiences)

"Sandwich generation"

responsibilities for caring for adolescent/young adult children and aging parents

Middle-aged adults express _____________ between generations

responsibility duty to care for parents in late life share experiences, transmit values to younger generations

What three characteristics are most important in middle adulthood regarding love?

security, loyalty, and mutual emotional interest are more important in middle adulthood

Tend or befriend

seek social alliances with others, especially female friends

Culminating life structure for early adulthood:

33 to 40

Entry life structure for early adulthood:

22 to 28

George Valliant's Studies: Longitudinal of 3 samples

268 socially advantaged Harvard grads born about 1920 456 socially disadvantaged inner-city men born about 1930 90 middle-SES, intellectually gifted women born around 1910

Age 30 transition:

28 to 33

Era of late adulthood:

Age 60 to 65

Generavity can be developed in what number of ways?

Biological generavity Parental generavity Work generavity Cultural generavity

What did the Costa and McCrae's Baltimore Study conclude on?

Concluded considerable stability across adult years for Big Five factors

A recent study by Specht, Egloff, and Schukle found that ______________ showed a continuous increase from early adulthood to late adulthood.

Conscientiousness

According to research on intergenerational relationships, in which of the following ways is an adult child most likely to be similar to his or her parents?

In politics

Conclusions

Evidence does not support that personality traits are completely fixed in adulthood (changes are typically limited) age is positively related to stability (stability peaks in 50s and 60s)

Characteristics that changed the most in Berkeley's Longitudinal Studies:

Extent to which individuals were nurturing or hostile whether or not they had good self-control

How did the Georg Valliant's Studdies categorize 75-80 years olds?

Healthy- well sad-sick dead (predictions based on data collected when individuals were 50 years old)

According to the Almeida and Horn study, which of the following is the difference in the experience of stressors between young adults and middle-aged adults?

Middle-aged adults experienced more "overload" stressors.

Love and marriage at midlife

Most married individuals are satisfied with their marriages during midlife divorce in middle adulthood may be more positive in some ways, more negative in others increasing divorce rates in middle-aged adults

According to research by Rossi, who were found to have the closest relationships during their adult years?

Mothers and daughters

Levinson's seasons of a man's life: Teens

Transition from dependence to independence

Gender differences in intergenerational relationships

Women's relationships are typically closer than other family bonds married men more involved with wives' kin than their own mother's intergenerational ties influential for grandparent-grandchild relationships

According to a recent study, middle-aged adults report more ___________ when discussing caring for aging parents than when supporting their emerging adults.

ambivalence

According to a recent study, middle-aged report more________ when discussing caring for aging parents than when supporting their emerging adults.

ambivalence

Empty nest syndrome:

decrease in marital satisfaction after children leave that home (parents derive considerable satisfaction from their children)

Some grandparents thrust back into "parenting role" due to:

divorce adolescent pregnancy parental drug use

When men face stress, they are more likely to respond in a:

fight-or-flight manner.

According to George Vailant's longitudinal studies, _________ in middle-aged was more strongly related than ___________ to whether individuals would have an enduring and happy marriage at 75 to 80 years of age.

generality intimacy

Erikson's stage of generavity vs stagnation

generavity: adults' desire to leave legacies of themselves to the next generation stagnation: develops when individuals sense that they have done nothing for the next generation

Developmental changes in perceived personal control

greater sense of control over fiances, work, and marriage less sense of control over sex life and children

The results from an 18-year longitudinal study revealed that longevity gap between African American and non-Latino white men is linked to:

higher marriage rates for non-Latino white men.

Contemporary life-events approach

how life events influence the individual's development

Openness

imaginative or practical interested in variety or routine independent or conforming

Middle-aged adults experience more "overload" stressors

involve juggling too many activities at once

How life events influence the individual's development depends on:

life event itself mediating factors individual's adaptation to the life event life-stage context sociohistorical context

Optimism

linked to being healthier and living longer

Ambivalent relationships between aging parents and their children

love, reciprocal help, shared values on positive side Isolation, family conflicts and problems, abuse, neglect, caregiver stress on negative side

Levinson's seasons of a man's life: By the 40s

man have a stable career and now must look forward to the kind of life he will lead as a middle-aged adult

Grandparenting

many adults become grandparents for the first time in middle age grandmothers have more frequent contact than grandfathers full-time grandparenting linked to health problems, depression, and stress divorce and remarriage related to special concerns about grandparent visitation privileges

Berkeley's Longitudinal Studies

most stable characteristics were intellectual orientation, self-confidence, and openness to experience

Levinson sees the twenties as a(n) __________ phase of adult development.

novice

A study of healthy women ages 63 to 93 years old regarding their daily experiences revealed that:

older women reported less frequent negative emotions

Researchers increasingly are finding that _________ is linking to being healthier and living longer.

optimism

Whereas ___________ is important in new relationships, especially in young adulthood, __________ becomes more important in middle adulthood.

passion security

Sibling relationships and friendships

sibling relationships may be extremely close, apathetic, or highly rivalrous friendships that have endured over the adult years tend to be deeper

Agreeableness

softhearted or ruthless trusting or suspicious helpful or uncooperative