Chapter 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

• 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

Stagnation or self absorption

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

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 seasons of life

The Seasons of a Man’s Life

• Extensive interviews with 40 middle aged men

• Stages and transitions during the period from 17 to 65 years of age

• Data on middle adulthood are more reliable than on early adulthood since memory of earlier life can be distorted

Four stages

1. End of teens

2. Age 30 trasition

3. Culminating life structure for early adulthood

4. Transition to middle adulthood 

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

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

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

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

Criticisms

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

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

How Pervasive Are Midlife Crises?

Personal control changes when individuals age through their adult years

• 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

George Vaillant

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

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

• 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

Young people

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

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

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

Sense of control

• Sense of personal control peaks in midlife, then declines with age

• Middle-aged adults feel more control over finances, work, and marriage, but less over sex life and children

Context of midlife development

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

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

• Midlife is a diversified, heterogeneous period for women, just as it is for men

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 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

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

Divorce

The rise in divorce among adults 50+

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

Top reasons for divorce

Risk factors: abuse, substance use, and infidelity

Men: falling out of love, infidelity, and differing values or lifestyles

Risk factors

Shorter marriages, low marital quality, lack of home ownership, and financial strain

Empty nest syndrome

Decline in marital satisfaction after children leave the home

• 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

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

Grandparent roles

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

Support young generation

Share their experience and transmit values to the younger generation

• Launching children and experiencing the empty nest, adjusting to having grown children return home, or becoming grandparent

• Giving or receiving financial assistance, caring for a widowed or sick parent, or adapting to being the oldest generation after both parents have died

“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

Parent-child relationships in intergenerational relationships

Often ambivalent—mixing love, help, and conflict

• Affection and family solidarity can outweigh ambivalence in some families

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

Gender differences in intergenerational relationships

Women maintain stronger intergenerational bonds than me

Immigration

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