PSY 223 Chapter 16 Socioemotional Development in Middle Adulthood

Parents who live vicariously through their children and who report a decline in marital satisfaction when their children leave the home are experiencing

empty nest syndrome.

What are young adults who return to their parents homes to live sometimes called?

B2B (back-to-bedroom) kids and boomerang kids

Which grandparenting style is associated with the avoidance of giving parenting advice?

Formal

Three major contexts that influence development in middle adulthood

Gender, historical, culture

Which theorist asserted that midlife is not a crisis for most people?

George Vaillant

Who conducted the "Grant Study," which involved Harvard University men in their early 30s and their late 40s who had initially been interviewed as undergraduates?

George Vaillant

What are characteristics reported by women in their fifties as opposed to women in other age periods?

Greater financial security A sense of better health Improved self-confidence

George Vaillant's study, called the "Grant Study," involved

Harvard University men in their early 30s and their late 40s who had initially been interviewed as undergraduates.

Which two areas are parents and their adult children most similar?

Politics and religion

Which theorist headed the study of 132 women at Mills College in the late 1950s?

Ravenna Helson

On average, perceptions of persona control

decrease after middle adulthood.

Friendships that begin in childhood and remain into adulthood are often

deeper than those than begin in middle adulthood.

Grandparents who are full-time caregivers for grandchildren are at elevated risk for

depression, stress, and health problems.

Parenting, teaching, and involvement in the community are examples of how middle-aged adults can

develop generativity.

The finding of a recent study on divorce and relationships with grandparents revealed that when children's relationships with their father deteriorated after a divorce, their relationships with their paternal grandparents were

distant, negative, or nonexistent.

According to Neugarten, the social clock is

the timetable on which individuals are expected to accomplish life's tasks.

The cultural context of adult development includes

the ways in which a society defines adulthood.

Compared to grandfathers, grandmothers have

more contact with grandchildren.

Some studies suggest that the role demands between work and family are

more intense for women than for men.

The Berkeley Longitudinal Studies profiled

more than 500 children and their parents in the 1920s and early 1930s and then again as they entered midlife, resulting in the book Present and Past in Middle Life.

According to Levinson, what age most closely corresponds to the point in adulthood when a person enters the phase of Becoming One's Own Man (BOOM)?

38

At what age does Vaillant see an adult reassessing and recording the truth about the adolescent and adulthood years?

40s

According to Levinson, how long does the transition to middle adulthood last?

5 years

What is not a daily hassle frequently reported by middle-aged adults?

Career concerns Being lonely

Some main reasons middle-aged and older women give for initiating a divorce

Cheating, alcohol or drug abuse, and verbal, physical, or emotional abuse.

In an AARP survey of 40- to 79-year-olds who were divorced at least once in their 40s, 50s, or 60s, what was the main reason they stayed married as long as they did before divorcing?

Children

Which adult children are most likely to provide social support for their older parents?

Children who were given more financial support by parents earlier in their lives and children who spent more time in shared activities with their parents

According to the Mills College Study, what helped women control their impulses, develop interpersonal skills, become independent, and work hard to achieve goals in middle age?

Commitment to the tasks of early adulthood, whether to a career, a family, or both.

According to Levinson, a person between the ages 28 and 33 is faced with what task?

Determining life goals

According to Levinson, what are the two major tasks to be mastered in early adulthood?

Developing a stable life structure and exploring the possibilities for adult living

What are common reasons that grandparents are thrust back into the "parenting" role for their grandchildren

Divorce, teen pregnancy, and drug use by parents of grandchildren

Two prominent theories that define stages of adult development in midlife are

Erikson's stage of generativity versus stagnation and Levinson's seasons of a man's life.

Grandparenting and longevity

In 1900, only 4% of 10-year-olds had four living grandparents The current trend in delaying childbearing is likely to offset the increasing longevity of grandparents somewhat In 2000, 40% of 10-year-olds had four living grandparents

The view that adults experience a midlife crisis was based on findings from

Levinson's The Seasons of a Man's Life

Beliefs attributed to the contemporary life-events approach

Life events are mediated by things like physical health and family supports The impact of life events depends on the sociohistorical context of the event The impact of life events on development depends on a person's ability to adapt and cope

George Vaillant performed longitudinal studies of adult development and aging on which three groups?

Middle-SES, intellectually gifts women born about 1910 Socially advantaged Harvard graduates born about 1920 Socially disadvantaged inner-city men born about 1930

George Vaillant's methods in his longitudinal study

Numerous assessments and extensive interviews

What are some criticisms about Levinson's Seasons of a Man's Life?

Respondents may have distorted memories or forget parts of their past Levinson's work included no statistical analysis The original Levinson data included no females

Which two theorists conducted the Baltimore Study using a five-factor personality test?

Robert McCrae and Paul Costa

George Vaillant used data collected from individuals when they were 50 to predict whether they would end up in which of the following categories

Sad-sick, dead, and happy-well.

Because many middle-aged adults today are responsible for their children as well as for their aging parents, what names are given to this generation?

Sandwich, squeezed, overload

In what ways does immigration increase intergenerational stresses on Mexican families?

Separation of immediate and extended family members Relocation to a new community without a social network Discrepancies between acculturation levels within the family

What is the name of Daniel Levinson's report on his extensive interviews with middle-aged men?

The Seasons of a Man's Life

Which perspective of adult development argues that groups of individuals born during the same time period act and react according to a shared set of historical and social expectations?

The contemporary life-events approach

What is considered to be a limitation of stage theories of adult development?

There is often individual variation in the way people experience the stages Stage theories place too much emphasis on crises in development, especially midlife crises

What does recent studies suggest about middle-aged parents?

They are more likely to provide support to their grown children than to their parents.

Married men were more likely to be involved with what family group?

Wives' kin

The Mills College Study distinguished what main groups among the Mills College women?

Women without children who pursued low-level work Family-oriented women Career-oriented women

What group experiences the highest rate of daily stressors as opposed to "overload" stressors?

Young adults

The term "sandwich" generation refers to

a situation in which the middle generations alternates attention between the demands of grown children and aging parents.

Romantic love is stronger in early adulthood, whereas

affectionate love increases in middle adulthood.

The majority of single-grandmothers raising their grandchildren are

african-american.

Openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism make up the

big five factors of personality, according to one influential trait theory.

The majority of sibling relationships in middle adulthood can be described as

close.

Historical contexts are also known as

cohort effects.

Compared to younger adults, most individuals in midlife who are married voice

considerable satisfaction with their marriages.

According to a recent meta-analysis of stability and change, the personality trait of conscientiousness showed a

continuous increase from early adulthood to late adulthood.

Seasons of a Man's Life by Daniel Levinson was based upon the results of

extensive interviews with 40 middle-aged men.

A limitation of the contemporary life-events approach is that it

fails to address daily experiences that may also be a source of stress.

What was the most common response when 40- to 79-year-olds were asked "when you think of who you are, you think mainly of

family"

When adults work to leave a legacy of themselves to the next generation, they are working toward

generativity.

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

fight-or-flight manner, becoming aggressive or withdrawing socially.

The three main styles of grandparenting are

fun-seeking, formal, and distant.

Parents and their children are more similar in areas of politics and religions and less similar in

gender roles and work orientation.

Good predictors of being happy and healthy in late adulthood

getting regular exercise, avoiding being overweight, being well educated, having a stable marriage, being future-oriented, being thankful and forgiving, empathizing with others, being active with other people, and having good coping skills.

According to Erikson, stagnation develops when

middle-aged adults sense they have not done anything for the next generation.

The Baltimore Study by Costa and McCrae assessed

personality in adulthood.

The Berkeley study found little to support the view that

personality universally changes or remains stable from early adolescence through a portion of midlife.

Jacob, who is 45, has amassed a lot of wealth but has not done anything to benefit the next generation. According to Erikson, he may be in a state of

stagnation.

By 2020, experts projects that 80% of children at 30 years of age will

still have living grandparents.

The contemporary life-events approach takes into account

support from family and friends, the type of life event experienced, and one's physical health.

In the individual variations view middle-aged adults are seen as

taking an active role in understanding, changing, and giving meaning to their lives.

The process by which, over time, people become more adept at interacting with the environment and in ways that promote increased stability in personality can be described as

the cumulative personality model.