[DEV] CH 16: Socioemotional Development in Middle Adulthood

Eriksonian stage in middle adulthood 

7th stage: generativity versus stagnation

Generativity

Adults’ desire to leave legacies of themselves to the next generation

• desire for generativity increases in midlife

• more strongly related to enduring & happy marriage at 75-80 yo than intimacy 

• linked with greater wisdom in late adulthood

• Adults achieve a kind of immortality

• Commit themselves to the continuation and improvement of society as a whole through their connection to the next generation.

• Through biological, parental, work, cultural generativity

types of generativity

1. biological 

2. parental

3. work

4. cultural

[types] biological generativity

produce offspring

[types] parental generativity

nurturing and guiding children

[types] work generativity

develop skills that are passed down to others

[types] cultural generativity

adults create, renovate, or conserve some aspect of culture that ultimately survives

Stagnation or self absorption

Develops when individuals sense that they have done nothing for the next generation

• feel stagnant: feel like they aren’t progessing in their life

• lack a sense of purpose

• feel unfulfilled in life

• can manifest in being focused on their own needs 

• balance needed; a person doesn’t have unlimited energy and resources

  • need to take care of the self to give to the world

Research supporting erikson

• Generativity grows from the 30s to 50s

• Respect from grandchildren boosts life satisfaction

• Intergenerational programs strengthen generativity

• Greater midlife generativity leads to more wisdom later

• Meaningful work increases generativity

• Sharing life lessons reduces loneliness and improves support

Levinson’s Periods of Adult Development

The Seasons of a Man’s Life

• Extensive interviews with 40 middle aged men

• 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

• Transition to middle adulthood lasts for 5 yrs

• 80% found the transition to be tumultuous & psychologically painful

[levinson] Four stages

1. End of teens

2. Age 30 trasition

3. Culminating life structure for early adulthood

4. Transition to middle adulthood 

[levinson] End of teens

20s

Transition from dependence to independence 

• Marked for the formation of a dream: kind of life youth wants to have especially in career and marriage

• Novice phase of adult development 

• Reasonably free experimentation and testing dream in world 
  

1. Explore possibilities for adult living

2. Developing stable life structure

[levinson] Age 30 transition

28 to 33 years old

Face more serious question of determining goals 

• Focus on family and career development 

• Phase: becoming one’s own man

[levinson] Culminating life structure for early adulthood

40

reach stable point in career, outgrown attempts at learning to be an adult,, look forward to the kind of life lead as a middle aged adult

[levinson] Transition to middle adulthood

Last about 5 years (40 to 45) and requires to come to grip with four major conflicts 

1. Being young versus being old

2. Being destructive versus being constructive

3. Being masculine versus being feminine

4. Being attached to others versus being separated from them

• aim: reduce polarities, accept that each is an integral part of life

[levinson] caveats/critcisms

• His original research included only men, though he later claimed the stages also apply to women 

• Data about middle adulthood is more valid than their data on young adulthood

• Participants may distort and forget things about earlier experiences

• The study lacked statistical analysis but offered rich qualitative insights through detailed life histories

[midlife] levinson

• Levinson: Midlife as crisis -> suspended between past and future

[midlife crisis] George Vaillant’s Grant Study

The forties are a decade of reassessing and recording the truth about the adolescent and adulthood years. 

• maintains that only a minority of adults experience a midlife crisis

• most people, midlife is not a crisis 

  • cognitive skills and career peak 

• happiness & positive effect have an upward trajectory from early adulthood to late adulthood

• midlife crises have been exagerrated

[midlife crises] Stage Theories

The stage theories place too much emphasis on crises in development, especially midlife crises

• Individual variation shows some individuals may experience a midlife crisis in some contexts of their lives but no others

  • For example, turmoil and stress may characterize a person’s life at work even while things are going smoothly at home.

Stress and personal control

Personal control changes when individuals age through their adult years

• personal sense of control is challenged by 

  • many demands and responsibilities

  • physical and cognitive aging

• Middle age is a time when a person’s sense of control is frequently challenged by many demands and responsibilities, as well as physical and cognitive aging

[personal control] Young people

Focus primarily on self-pursuits and don’t worry much about responsibilities for others

• a sense of invulnerability, unrealistic about their personal control, unaware of the aging process; worry about self-pursuits, don’t have to worry much about responsibilities for others.

[personal control] Middle age

Less attention is given to self-pursuits and more to responsibility for others, including people who are younger and older than they are

• Taking on and juggling responsibilities in different areas of their lives

• A sense of control peaks in Midlife then declines

• Some aspects of personal control increase with age while others decrease

• Ex. Finances, work, marriage > sex life, children

[personal control] emotional & physical domain

• Better self control in childhood: aged slower, fewer signs of aging (brain), better able to manage later-life health, financial , social demands.

• During midlife: improving self-control (across 4 yrs) also helps

• People with higher sense of control: better health behavior, higher psychological well-being, lower psychological distress, decreased loneliness, more contact with friends

[stress and gender] women

• Women: more vulnerable to social stressors

  • ex. Higher level of stress for when things go wrong in Romantic & marital relationships, more depressed than men in Divorce & death of a friend

  • seek psychotherapy, talk to friends about stress, self help book, take prescription medication, engage in comfort eating

• tend and befriend

[stress and gender] tend and befriend

Type of behavior women engage in when they experience stress

• Seek social alliances with others

• Bec: oxytocin is released when stressed

[stress and gender] men

• Men: attend a support group mtg, have sex, use porn, try to fix the problem themselves, not admit to having problems

• fight or flight

[stress and gender] fight or flight

• Type of behavior men engage in when they experience stress

• Become aggressive, socially withdraw, or drink alcohol

Health status and aging

Childhood self-control predicts slower aging and better brain health in midlife

• Those with strong early self-control handle health, financial, and social challenges more effectively

• Midlife self-control still matters; increases in self-control lead to better health, well-being, and social connection

Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological Systems

Importance of the complex settings of our lives, exploring everything from our income and family supports to our sociohistorical circumstances

[bronfenbrenner] Gender contexts

Some say that stage theories of adult development have a masculine bias

• The view that midlife is a negative age period for women is stereotypical, as so many perceptions of age periods are

• The demands of balancing career and family are usually not experienced as intensely by men as it is by women

• Midlife is a diversified and heterogenous period for women and men

  • Some it is a negative period

  • For some it is a New prime of life, a time of renewal, shed preoccupations on youthful appearance & body, seeking new challenges, valuing maturity, enjoying change

[bronfenbrenner] Cultural contexts

The concept of middle age is not very clear, or in some cases is absent.

• Nonindustrialized societies to describe individuals as young or old but not as middle-aged

• Some cultures have no words for “adolescent,” “young adult,” or “middle-aged adult.

• Gusii culture: life course status is based on life events not age

[cultural] Gusii culture in kenya

Females 

1. Infant

2. Uncircumcised girl

3. Circumcised girl

4. Married woman

5. Female elder

Males 

1. Infant

2. Uncircumcised boy

3. Circumcised boy warrior

4. Male elder

close relationships

• Love and marriage at midlife

• Companionate love increases during middle adulthood

• Security, loyalty, and mutual emotional interest are more important in middle adulthood

• Most married individuals are satisfied with their marriages during midlife

• Some marriages that were difficult & rocky improved in middle adulthood

Two major forms of love

• Romantic love

• Affectionate love

Romantic love

Strong in early adulthood

Affectionate love

Increases during middle adulthood

• Physical attraction, romance, and passion are more important in new relationships, especially in early adulthood

• Security, loyalty, and mutual emotional interest become more important as relationships mature, especially in middle adulthood

Marriage

Having a happy relationship or marriage, having children, and being there for others were the life goals rated as most important across almost the entire adult life span

• Prior to middle adulthood it is more important for women, but it becomes more important for men in late adulthood

Effects of happy marriage

• Better health

• Lower likelihood of work-related health limitations

Marital conflict

Health risk behaviors, vulnerability for physical illness

gray divorce

The rise in divorce among adults 50+

• women usually initiate divorce

• Many delay divorce for their children, but most report satisfaction with their decision afterward

[divorce] reasons for women

• verbal, physical, emotional abuse

• alcohol 

• drug abuse

• cheating

[divorce] reasons for men

• falling out of love

• cheating

• differing values or lifestyles

Empty nest syndrome

Decline in marital satisfaction after children leave the home

• parents who live vicariously through their children expeirence this

• But for most, marital satisfaction does not decline after children have left home but rather increases during the years after child rearing

Refilling of empty nest

• Many stay due to financial struggles, delaying independence into their late twenties

• Middle-generation parents often give financial, emotional, and practical support to adult children

• Both generations benefit emotionally but face privacy and independence issues

B2B/ Back to bedroom/ boomerang kids

Economic uncertainty causes more adult children to return home after college, job loss, or divorce

Complaints when kids come back

Parents complain about noise, disrupted routines, and added responsibilities; children feel restricted and treated like kids

• Returning home creates family disequilibrium that needs mutual adaptation

Grandparenting

• first time during middle age

• Provide childcare – mothers & fathers can work, OFW parents, separation, parent illness

• Grandfathers: perceive it as voluntary; Grandmothers: perceive it is their responsibility to maintain ties across generations

• The increase in longevity is influencing the nature of grandparenting

• Important in lives of grandchildren when family crises like divorce, death, illness, abandonment, poverty occur 

• Grandmothers have more contact with grandchildren

[grandparenting] 3 prominent meanings of being a grandparent

1. Biological reward and continuity

2. Source of emotional self fulfillment (companionship and satisfaction)  

3. Remote role

Intergenerational relationships

Adults in midlife play important roles in the lives of the young and the old, as intergenerational relationships increases during midlife

• middle aged adults are happiest when they have harmonius relationships with their parents and grown children

• middle aged adults develop more positive perception of parents

• Positive perceptions; love, help, shared values

• Negative perceptions: isolation, family conflicts, abuse, neglect, stress

[intergen] summary of possible experiences

• Launching children

  • Experiencing empty nest

  • Adjusting to children coming back

  • Becoming grandparents (common role in older Filipinos)1

  • Giving or receiving financial assistance to/ from children

  • Caring for a sick/widowed parent or parents-in-law

  • Adapting to being the oldest generation (if both parents pass away)

“Sandwich,” “squeezed,” or “overload” generation

Called these because of the responsibilities they have for their adolescent and young adult children as well as their aging parents

Stress involved in intergenerational relationships

Caring for ill or dying parents; over 40% (mostly daughters) provide such care

• Despite this, many give more support to their grown children than to aging parents

Care involved in intergenerational relationships

Arranging medical help, managing finances, or assisting with daily activities

[intergen] Parent-child relationships

Often ambivalent—mixing love, help, and conflict

• Values and traits are passed across generations; adult children often view parents more positively with age

• netherlands: affection and solidarity than ambivalence

[intergen] Gender differences

• Women maintain stronger intergenerational bonds than men

• Mothers and daughters have closer relationships during their adult years than mothers-sons, fathers-daughters, or fathers –sons.

• Married men are more involved with their wives’ families than with their own

• Grandparent-grandchild relationships

• Mothers’ intergenerational ties were more influential

Immigration

Increases family stress due to separation, though new support networks eventually form