Socioemotional Development in Middle Adulthood Chapter 16 © 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized instructor

Socioemotional Development in

Middle Adulthood

Chapter 16

© 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

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Chapter Outline

• Personality theories and adult development• Stability and change• Close relationships


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Personality Theories and Development

• Stages of adulthood– Erikson’s generativity versus stagnation• Generativity - 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• Generativity can be developed in a number of ways

– Biological generativity– Parental generativity– Work generativity– Cultural generativity


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Figure 16.2 - Levinson’s Periods of Adult Development


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• Stages of adulthood– Levinson’s seasons of a man’s life• Teens – transition from dependence to independence• 20s are a novice phase of adult development• 30s are a time for focusing on family and career

development• By the 40s, man has a stable career and now must look

forward to the kind of life he will lead as a middle-aged adult


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• Stages of adulthood – Levinson’s seasons of a man’s life • Transition to middle adulthood lasts - Conflicts

– Being young vs. being old– Being destructive vs. being constructive– Being masculine vs. being feminine– Being attached to others vs. being separated from them


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• Stages of adulthood – How pervasive are midlife crises? • The 40s are a decade of reassessing and recording the

truth about the adolescent and adult years• Only a minority of adults experience a midlife crisis


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Figure 16.3 - Emotional Instability and Age


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Figure 16.4 - Age and Well-Being


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• Stages of adulthood – Individual variations• Middle-aged adults interpret, shape, alter, and give

meaning to their lives• In 1/3 of cases where individuals report experiencing a

midlife crisis: – Triggered by life events such as job loss, financial problems, or

illness


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• The life-events approach– Contemporary life-events approach: 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


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Figure 16.5 - A Contemporary Life-Events Framework for Interpreting Adult Developmental Change


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• The life-events approach– Drawbacks• Life-events approach places too much emphasis on

change, not adequately recognizing stability• It may not be life’s major events that are the primary

sources of stress – Daily experiences


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Figure 16.6 - The Ten Most Frequent Daily Hassles and Uplifts of Middle-Aged Adults over a Nine-Month Period


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• Stress and personal control – Stress, personal control, and age• Middle-aged adults experience more “overload”

stressors that involve juggling too many activities at once• Some aspects of personal control increase with age

while others decrease


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– Stress and gender• Fight-or-flight: When men experience stress:

– Become aggressive, socially withdraw, or drink alcohol

• Tend-and-befriend: When women experience stress: – Seek social alliances with others, especially female friends

• Contexts of midlife development – Historical contexts (Cohort effects)• Changing historical times and different social

expectations influence:


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– How different cohorts move through the life span

• Social clock: Timetable according to which individuals are expected to accomplish life’s tasks

– Gender contexts• Stage theories have a male bias• The demands of balancing career and family are usually

not experienced as intensely by men


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• Contexts of midlife development – Cultural contexts• The concept of middle age is unclear or absent in many

cultures• Middle age like for women - Depends on the modernity

of the culture and the culture’s view of gender roles– Middle-aged women in nonindustrialized societies experience

certain advantages


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Stability and Change

• Longitudinal studies– Costa and McCrae’s Baltimore Study

– Focused on the big five factors of personality


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Figure 16.8 - The Big Five Factors of Personality


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• Longitudinal studies– Berkeley longitudinal studies• Intellectual orientation, self-confidence, and openness

to new experience were the more stable traits• Characteristics that changed the most

– Extent to which individuals were nurturant or hostile – Whether or not they had good self-control


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• Longitudinal studies– Helson’s Mills College Study• Three main groups of women

– Family-oriented– Career-oriented– Neither path


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• Longitudinal studies– George Vaillant’s studies• Conducted:

– Sample of 268 socially advantaged Harvard graduates born about 1920

– Sample of 456 socially disadvantaged inner-city men born about 1930

– Sample of 90 middle-SES, intellectually gifted women born about 1910


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Figure 16.9 - Links Between Characteristics at Age 50 and Health and Happiness at Age 75 to 80


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• Conclusions– Personality traits continue to change during the

adult years, even into late adulthood– Cumulative personality model - With time and

age, people:• Become more adept at interacting with their

environment in ways that:– Promote the stability of personality


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Close Relationships

• Love and marriage at midlife– Security, loyalty, and mutual emotional interest

are more important in middle adulthood– 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


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Close Relationships

• The empty nest and its refilling– Empty nest syndrome: Decrease in marital

satisfaction after children leave the home• Parents derive considerable satisfaction from their

children

– Refilling of empty nest is a common occurrence• Loss of privacy


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Close Relationships

• 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


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Close Relationships

• Grandparenting – Grandparent roles and styles• Three prominent meanings

– Source of biological reward and continuity– Source of emotional self-fulfillment– Remote role

– Three grandparenting styles• Formal • Fun-seeking • Distant-figure


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Close Relationships

• Grandparenting – The changing profile of grandparents• Most common reasons are divorce, adolescent

pregnancies, and parental drug use• Full-time grandparenting has been linked to health

problems, depression, and stress


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Close Relationships

• Intergenerational relationships – Middle-aged adults express responsibility between

generations– Midlife adults play important roles in the lives of

the young and the old– Relationships between aging parents and their

children:• Characterized by ambivalence


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Close Relationships

• Intergenerational relationships– Differences in gender• Mothers and daughters have closer relationships during

their adult years • Married men are more involved with their wives’

families than with their own• Grandparent-grandchild relationships

– Mothers’ intergenerational ties were more influential


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Socioemotional Development in Middle Adulthood Chapter 16 © 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized instructor