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