PSYCH 210-Chp 14- Socioemotional Development in Middle Adulthood

*Generativity*

encompasses adults' desire to leave legacies of themselves to the next generation -through these legacies adults achieve a kind of immorality

George Vaillant did a study called "the Grant Study"

He concludes that just as adolescence is a time for detecting parental flaws and discovering the truth about childhood, - 40s are a decade of reassessing and recording the truth about the adolescents and adulthood yrs.

main reasons that middle-aged and older adults cited for divorce:

Main causes for women: 1) Verbal, physical, or emotional abuse (23%) 2) Alcohol or drug abuse (18%) 3) Cheating (17%) Main causes for men: 1) No obvious problems, just fell out of love (17%) 2) Cheating (14%) 3) Different values, lifestyles (14%)

*Contemporary Life-Events Approach*

emphasizes how life events influence the individuals development depends not only on the life event itself but also on mediating factors (physical health, family support), the individuals adaptation to the life event, the life-stage context, and the sociohistorical context

*Berkley Longitudinal Studies*

more than 500 children and their parents were initially studied in the late 1920s and early 1930s -most stable characteristics were the degree to which individuals were intellectually oriented, self-confident, and open to new experiences

*Big Five factors of personality*

openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism (emotional stability)

*Stagnation*

sometimes called "self-absorption" develops when individuals sense that they have done little or nothing for the next generation

cultural contexts

-concept of middle age is not very clear or in some cases is absent

*Levinson's* Seasons of a Man's life

in the seasons of a mans life- reported extensive interviews with 40-middle-aged men.

parents who live vicariously through their children might experience the *Empty Nest Syndrome*

includes a decline in marital satisfaction after children leave the home

Love and Marriage at Midlife

romantic love burn strongly in early adulthood -affectionate love or compassionate love increases during middle adulthood

*Social Clock*

timetable according to which individuals are expected to accomplish life's tasks, such as getting married, having children, or establishing themselves in a career. -provide guides for our lives -individuals whose lives are not synchronized with these social clocks find life to be more stressful than those who are on a schedule

*Fight-or Flight*

when men face stress, they are likely to respond in fight or flight -become aggressive, socially withdraw, or drink alcohol

George Vaillant- conducted 3 longitudinal studies of adult development and aging

1) a sample of 268 socially advantaged Harvard graduates born about 1920 (called the grant study) 2) a sample of 456 socially disadvantaged inner-city men born about 1930 3) a sample of 90- intellectually gifted women born about 1910 -categorized 75 to 80 yr old as "happy-well, "sad-sick" and "dead"

According to Levinson, the transition to middle adulthood lasts about 5 yrs (40 to 45) and requires male adults to come to grips with 4 major conflicts that have existed in his life since adolescence.

1) being young vs. being old 2) being destructive vs. being constructive 3) being masculine vs. being feminine 4) being attached to others vs. being separated from them

Two prominent theories that define stages of adult development are:

1) Erik Erikson's life-span view (Generativity vs. Stagnation) 2) Daniel Levinson's seasons of a man's life

Levinson's seasons of a mans life

20s= a novice phase-time of reasonably free experimentation and of testing the dream in the real world -2 major tasks to be mastered are exploring the possibilities for adult living and developing a stable life structure 30s= focuses on family and career development -later yrs of this period, he enters a phase of Becoming Ones Own Man

*Cumulative personality model*

states that with time and age, people become more adept at interacting with their environment in ways that promote stability of personality

emotional stability, extraversion, openness, and agreeableness were lower in early adulthood, peaked between 40 and 60 yrs of age, and decreased in late adulthood

while conscientiousness showed a continuous increase from early adulthood to late adulthood -greatest change occurs in early adulthood

*Tend-and-befriend*

when women experience stress, they are more likely respond this way -seeking social alliances with others, especially friends -when women experience stress an influx of the hormone *oxytocin*, which is linked to nurturing in animals, is released