Chapter 11. Adulthood and Personality

Introduction

• The term adult derives from the Latin word “adultus,” meaning literally “grown up”.
• The concept of “adulthood” as a distinctive phase of the human life cycle is a relatively modern concept.
• Adulthood is the least studied phase in human development, although it spans the longest period in human life today.
• Adulthood begins roughly at the age of 17 and old age (late adulthood) starts around age 65.
• Industrial revolution brought rapid increase in human life span along with new social problems related to certain age groups such as child labor and juvenile delinquency.
• 1930s- the average life expectancy in Europe jumped from its pre-industrial 30 to 60 years of age. Concept of life span began to emerge.
• 1950s-a systematic paradigm was first elaborated by Erickson for the study of personality development beyond childhood and adolescence.
• 1970s- researchers realized study of adulthood was left out.
• There are three main theoretical approaches in the study of adulthood.

1. The Stage Theory
2. The Consistency or No-Change Theory
3. The Dialectic Theory

The Stage Theory of Adulthood

• Stage Theories on personality development generally assume that personality develops (or changes) through a certain pattern of age –linked stages that are more or less universal.
• Jung’s “stages of life” included “young adulthood,” “middle age,” and “old age” in addition to “childhood”
• Buhler’s “curve of life” spanned from birth to 85 years and over.
• Erickson expanded the Freudian five stage model to the eight-stage model of ego development.
• Levinson and Gould; Sampled forty middle aged men between the ages of 35-45 whom were of diverse backgrounds. Levinson chose to study men to because he wanted to understand his own adult development.
• Levinson formulated the pivotal concept of “life structure” for their entire research which took 2 years. The concept of life structure –the basic pattern of design of a person’s life at a given time-gives a way of looking at the engagement of the individual in society, considers both self and world and relationships between them.
• Levinson’s stage model consists of an alternating series of structure-building and structure-changing (transitional) periods, each structure building period usually last six or seven years, one forms a life structure and enhances life within it. The structure- changing periods, which usually last four to five years are times of shifting form one life structure to another. Transitions in this period could be either for “better” or “worse”
• Much of our lives is taken up with separations and new beginnings, exists and entries, departures and arrivals. Transitions are an intrinsic part of development, but they are often painful.
• Levinson’s developmental model includes four life structure building periods; entering the adult world (age 22-28), settling down (age 33-40), entering middle adulthood (age 45-50), and culmination of middle adulthood (age 55-60) and five transition periods; early adult transition (age 17-22), age 30 transition (age 28-33), mid-life transition (age 40-45), age 50 transition (age 50 to 55) and late adulthood transition (age 60-65). Each of these periods has developmental task.
• Levinson’s adult development is a process of building and rebuilding the individual’s life structure by meeting various task of age linked developmental periods. Adult development is sequential and more or less universal. Everyone lives through the same development periods in adulthood, just as in childhood, though people go through them in their own ways. Levinson’s theory is empirically grounded theory and not a demonstrated truth.

Gould’s Theory of Transformation in Adult life

• Gould tracked 125 patients age related changes in his study, his study included both questionnaires and tape- recorded statements. Both men and women were included in his study and age range was very wide. Gould found patients and non-patients of the same age shared the same general concerns about living.
• Universal pattern of age related changes or transformations in the life concerns and self- awareness among adults. Basic concept of adult development is transformation.
• Gould defined growth as a transformation. A transformation is an expansion of self-definition.
• Gould described the pattern of transformation in seven phases, corresponding to seven different age groups. Gould later compressed his 7 phases to a 5-phase transformation process, each of these phases is characterized by a developmental theme (task) and false assumptions (problems) to be overcome.
• The 5 phases are; leaving our parents world (age 16-22), I’m nobody’s baby now (age 22-28), opening up what’s inside (age 28-34), mid-life decade (age 34-45), beyond mid-life (age 45 and over).
• Age norms and expectations exist in all societies and they are tied to chronological age. Chronological age per se cannot cause stress but age linked normative systems can provide a stressful context for some people.

Mid Life Crisis: Myth or Reality

• Mid-life crisis grew out of life stage theories prevalent in the 1970s.
• Earlier literature tends to convey the negative image of mid-life experiences, whereas the crisis model claims its empirical bases in the following symptoms; (1) feeling of ambivalence, urgency, self- doubt, boredom, depression, restlessness, and disillusionment; (2) drastic behavioral changes or problems, such as sudden job change, marital problems, extra-marital affairs, divorce, alcoholism, suicide, etc.
• No-crisis model views crisis as myth, questions empirical validity of the crisis theory and that the symptoms are necessarily associated with any particular age group.
• Some scholars stress middle years as peak period of life in which people tend to feel confident and have a sense of power.
• Empirical validity of either model has not been clearly established: controversies center around methodology such as characteristics of sample (class, gender, race/ethnicity), cross-sectional vs longitudinal study, differences between age cohorts, qualitative in-depth and interview v. quantitative personality inventory (paper and pencil) test.
• Crisis model’s empirical base relies on interview and projective data.
• The no-crisis model draws its empirical evidence from the results of standardized personality inventory tests.
• Farrell and Rosenberg have the most comprehensive study using both quantitative and qualitative methods they compared samples of 300 men entering middle age (25-30). Their analysis was based on gathered standardized scales (attitudes, behavior, physical, and mental health). They did not find evidence for universal mid-life crisis, but they did find common patterns of stresses associated with mid-life transition. Common patterns of stressors include health problems and concerns (i.e. job pressures, parental death) and reactions to these vary.
• Middle-aged men tend to exhibit the severest symptoms of psychosocial and psychosomatic disorders and pathogenic defenses and tend to attribute their unhappiness to external circumstances and other people.
• Four different “paths” of adult development typologies by Farrell and Rosenberg.
• Path 1: The Transcendent-Generative, Path 2: The Pseudo-Developed Man, Path 3: The Mid-Life Crisis Type, Path 4: The Punitive –Disenchanted Type.
• Only 30 % of middle aged men experience satisfying adaptation in middle adulthood.

The Consistency or No Change Theory

• McCrae and Costa try to prove that personality does not change in adulthood.
• Researchers administered standardized self-report personality scales to about 1,000 men ages 25-90.
• McCrae studied that certain aspects may not change even in extreme situations. Their concept is limited to what they call “traits” measured by five factors;

neuroticism, extroversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness. These traits classify people and aim to measure a component of personality.

The Dialectic Theory

• Dialectic changes can be studied in four dimensions; inner biological, individual psychological, cultural sociological and physical.
• Human life is a dynamic process of changes produced by multiple and on-going interactions among various developmental conditions.
• Two most important areas of adult socialization and personality: marital and occupational
• Being unhappy in martial relationships and/or dissatisfied with work can show symptoms of becoming mentally and/or physically ill.
• Love and work have a distinctive domain of adult socialization and they exert a different influence on personality development.
• Will focus on marital socialization and personality.

Marital Socialization and Personality

• Americans divorce more and tend to marry again despite a marked increase in alternatives to traditional marriage.
• Freeman suggests that people remarry because it provides companionship and social security.
• American’s rated the three most stressful events in life are;1. death of spouse, 2. divorce

3.marital separation.

• Underlying causes of divorce derive from structural factors such changes in social conditions and cultural values, not from psychological factors the individual’s “divorce prone” personality.
• Factors associated with high divorce-proneness; Urban background, Lower socioeconomic status, No church affiliation, Teen-age marriage, Shorter acquaintanceship (less than six months), Parents with unhappy marriages, Marriage of people with different backgrounds.

Divorce-Prone Personality or Divorce-Prone Society?

• Structural factors associated with a high divorce proneness; urban background, lower socio-economic status, no church affiliation, teen age marriage, Shorter acquaintanceship, parents with unhappy marriages, heterogamy.
• Americans have the highest divorce rate in the world

Occupational Socialization and Personality

• Most include their occupation in their first 5 self-identities.
• Occupation is the global predictor of one’s life-chances in a given society, and hence also a powerful determinant of the individual’s well psychological well-being.
• Employment reduces distress.
• Employed women and housewives with the same levels of family income, the employed women are found to be less distressed.

Underemployment and Job Dissatisfaction

• There are three responses to unemployment: shock and disbelief, active job search with optimism, self-doubt, anxiety and depression, and resignation and apathy.

• If an individual experiences underemployment, it could have some serious damaging effects on their personality.
• Those who work in human services jobs such as social workers, primary school teachers and nurses deal with a lot of emotional stress, physical exhaustion, negative attitude, and low self-esteem.
• Workers are underpaid, overworked and emotionally drained.
• Intellectualizing, psychological withdrawal, taking breaks and hiding behind policy rules can help individuals cope with stress and dissatisfaction.