CHAPTER 16 SOCIOEMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN MIDDLE ADULTHOOD

Developmental Tasks

• Emphasize securing what they have established

• Generativity and stagnation– Adults at this stage have most skills and resources to

contribute toward well-being of others.– Resolution of this stage contributes toward better

psychological health.

Developmental Timetables and Regulation

• Developmental Timetables– Middle-aged adults become aware of time left to live.– Become focused on achieving goals

• Processes of Developmental Regulation– Elective selection– Loss-based selection– Optimization– Compensation

Figure 16.1: Life Goals that Involve Striving for Gains versus Avoiding Losses Across Age Groups

Marital Satisfaction in Midlife

• Changes in marital satisfaction– Cross sectional studies indicate U-shaped pattern over time.– Longitudinal studies indicate slow, steady decline.– Decline indicated in couples with and without children

• Enhancing marital satisfaction– Express affection toward each other – Sense of “we-ness” – Share adventures and stimulating activities together– Like very good friends– High level of commitment

Divorce in Midlife

• Rising rates of divorce in midlife– Women’s economic status– Harmful to psychological and physical health

• Gender differences

• Remarriage in midlife– Majority of divorced remarry within 5 years– Marriage market for women and men differ– Divorced middle-aged adults may disengage from goal of

remarrying.

Figure 16.3: Disengaging from the Goal of Finding a Partner in Late Midlife versus Early Adulthood as a Predictor of Psychological Well-Being Over a 15-

Month Period

Friendship in Midlife

• Friendship satisfies need for intimacy and companionship.

• Decline in contact frequency in early and mid adulthood

• As age choose to spend time with people enjoy the most

Figure 16.4: Ratings by Age of Interaction Frequency, Satisfaction, and Emotional Closeness

with Close Friends

Family in Midlife

• Relationships with Adolescent Children– Possible reasons for strained relationships• Teenagers’ desire for autonomy• Parents’ increased awareness of own aging• Parents’ evaluation of own life choices• Recognition that time horizon is limited for middle-aged

adults and expansive for teens

– Conflicts occur less often but with greater intensity

Family in Midlife

• Relationships with adult children– Adjustment to children leaving home is generally not

stressful for parents.– Boomerang children have become more common.

• Quality of relationships with adult children– Quality of relationship related to psychological well-being of

parents.– Parents’ well-being is associated with how children “turn

out”.

Figure 16.5: Adult Children’s Problems and Parent’s Psychological Well-Being

Family in Midlife

• Relationships with Grandchildren– Affected by gender and age of grandparent– Relationship between grandparent and grandchild

complicated by divorce and remarriage– Skipped generation family – grandparents raising

grandchildren• Off –time events

Family in Midlife

• Relationships with Aging Parents– Contact and closeness with parents tend to increase from

young adulthood to midlife.– Adult daughters provide bulk of care for aging parents.– The sandwich generation – squeezed between needs of

younger and older generation– Death of a parent

• Prompts self-reflection and re-examination of their own life goals

• Confront own mortality

Video: Child and Adult Daycare

Video: Caring for Aging Parents

Work in Midlife

• Satisfaction with work in midlife– Social contact– Personal needs– Financial needs– Generativity

Figure 16.6: Percent of Men and Women Employed in the Labor Force by Age

Work in Midlife

• Challenges of work in midlife– Issues facing women and ethnic minorities– Patterns of career development among women

• Regular career pattern• Interrupted career pattern• Second career pattern• Modified second career pattern

– Age discrimination in the workplace– Challenges from changing nature of work

Video: Adult Women Juggling Roles

Figure 16.7: Ratio of Female Earnings to Male Earnings and Median Earnings of Full-Time

Workers by Sex from 1960 to 2008

Figure 16.8: Charges Filed for Age Discrimination in the Workforce

Work in Midlife

• Unemployment in midlife– Ways that quality of life and hopes for the future suffer

• Financial status• Loss of self worth• Inability to use one’s talents and make a contribution• Loss of social contacts with peers• Impact on family relationships• Concerns about the future

Personality Development in Midlife

• Big five personality traits– Openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion,

agreeableness, and neuroticism– Personality becomes more consistent over time.– There is room for personality change as we age.– Individual differences in trajectories due to life events.

• Self-regulatory capacities– Greater emotional control in midlife– Anticipatory coping

Self-Concept and Emotional Health in Midlife

• Midlife crisis– Evidence suggests midlife crises are rare.– Middle-aged adults generally tend to be content with their

lives.