Social and Personality Development in Middle Adulthood Notes

Two Perspectives on Adult Personality Development: Normative Crisis versus Life Events

• Normative-crisis theories: This traditional approach to personality development is based on universal stages tied to a sequence of age-related crises.

  • Criticism: Some critics suggest these models are outmoded as they arose during a time when gender roles were more rigid.

  • Modern View: Societal changes have called into question theories that link development closely with specific chronological ages.

• Life events theories: This approach suggests that personality development is based on the timing of particular events in an adult’s life (e.g., marriage, job loss) rather than being dictated by age per se.

• Perspective Comparison: It remains unclear which perspective provides a more accurate representation of personality development and change throughout adulthood.

Erikson’s Stage of Generativity versus Stagnation

• Generativity-versus-stagnation stage: This is the period during middle adulthood where individuals consider their contributions to their family and society.

  • Generativity: This involves looking beyond oneself and wanting to continue one’s life through others (e.g., via parenting, professional mentorship, or artistic creation).

  • Stagnation: This involves focusing on the triviality of one's own life and feeling that one has made little contribution to the world.

Building on Erikson’s Views: Vaillant, Gould, and Levinson

• George Vaillant: Proposed the stage of ‘keeping the meaning’ versus rigidity.

  • This occurs between the ages of approximately $45$ and $55\text{ years}$.

  • Middle-aged adults seek to extract meaning from their lives by accepting the strengths and weaknesses of others.

  • Failure to achieve this leads to rigidity and isolation.

• Roger Gould: Suggested that adults pass through seven distinct stages related to age periods.

  • Stage 1 ($16-18\text{ years}$): Planning to leave home and terminate parental control.

  • Stage 2 ($18-22\text{ years}$): Leaving the family and reorienting toward peers.

  • Stage 3 ($22-28\text{ years}$): Becoming independent; committing to career, spouse, and children.

  • Stage 4 ($29-34\text{ years}$): Questioning one's self and experiencing confusion; marital and career dissatisfaction may occur.

  • Stage 5 ($35-43\text{ years}$): Feeling an urgent need to achieve life goals and a heightened awareness of time limits; realignment of goals typically occurs.

  • Stage 6 ($43-53\text{ years}$): Settling down with a sense of acceptance regarding one's life.

  • Stage 7 ($53-60\text{ years}$): Growing more tolerant and accepting of the past; becoming more mellow and less negative.

  • Note: There is little research support for Gould's specific age-linked stage descriptions.

• Daniel Levinson’s Seasons of Life Theory: Based on a study of men, suggesting a series of stages starting at age $20$.

  • Midlife Transition: Around ages $40$ or $45$, people experience a period of questioning life choices.

  • Midlife Crisis: A stage of uncertainty and indecision caused by the realization that life is finite. Research indicates this is more myth than reality; most people find the transition smooth, rewarding, and a time when careers blossom.

Stability versus Change in Personality

• Opposing Views: Erikson and Levinson suggest substantial change over time, whereas Paul Costa and Robert McCrae argue for remarkable stability in traits across the life span.

• The Big Five Personality Traits:

  • Neuroticism: The degree to which an individual is moody, anxious, and self-critical.

  • Extroversion: How outgoing or shy a person is.

  • Openness: The level of curiosity and interest in new experiences.

  • Agreeableness: How easygoing and helpful a person tends to be.

  • Conscientiousness: Tendencies toward being organized and responsible.

• Trait Reinforcement: Evidence suggests that traits often become more ingrained as people age.

Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage in Middle Adulthood

• Marital Satisfaction Patterns:

  • U-shaped Configuration: Traditionally, satisfaction declines after marriage, reaching its lowest point after children are born, and rising again once children leave.

  • Newer Research: Some studies find that satisfaction begins to decline after marriage and continues to decline throughout.

• Successful Coping Mechanisms: Holding realistic expectations, focusing on the positive, compromising, and avoiding suffering in silence.

• Divorce in Midlife:

  • Since $1990$, the divorce rate for people $50\text{ and older}$ has doubled.

  • The divorce rate for those over $65\text{ years}$ has tripled.

  • Causes: Growing apart, subsidence of passionate love, increased social acceptability of divorce, reduction of legal/economic barriers, and infidelity.

• Remarriage:

  • About $75\%\text{ to }80\%\text{ of people}$ who divorce will remarry.

  • The Marriage Gradient: It is often harder for women to remarry than men.

  • Second Marriage Characteristics: Partners are often more mature, realistic, less romantic, and more flexible in roles. However, the divorce rate for second marriages is higher than for first marriages.

Family Evolutions: Empty Nest, Boomerang Children, and the Sandwich Generation

• Empty Nest Syndrome: A temporary period of unhappiness, worry, loneliness, and depression when children leave home. It is often harder for stay-at-home parents but typically transient.

• Parenting Styles:

  • Helicopter parents: Intrusively intervene in the lives of their children.

  • Snowplow parents: Preemptively remove obstacles that might impact their children negatively.

• Boomerang Children: Young adults who return to live with their middle-aged parents. Approximately $1/3$ of young adults live with parents; these numbers increased during the COVID-19 pandemic.

• The Sandwich Generation: Couples who must simultaneously meet the needs of their children and their aging parents. This is caused by later marriages, delayed childbearing, and increased longevity of the elderly.

Grandparenting Styles

• Involved Grandparents: Actively engaged and have influence over grandchildren's lives.

• Companionate Grandparents: Act as relaxed supporters and ‘buddies’ to their grandchildren.

• Remote Grandparents: Detached, distant, and show little interest.

Family Violence: The Hidden Epidemic

• Prevalence:

  • Between $21\%\text{ and }34\%\text{ of women}$ will be physically attacked or threatened by an intimate partner at least once.

  • Close to $15\%\text{ of US marriages}$ involve continuing, severe violence.

  • Globally, $1\text{ in }3\text{ women}$ experience violent victimization.

• Risk Factors: Large families with economic concerns, high verbal aggression, high marital conflict, lower socioeconomic levels, and growing up in a violent home.

• Stages of Spousal Abuse:

  1. Tension-building stage: Batterer becomes upset and utilizes verbal abuse.

  2. Acute battering incident: Physical abuse occurs.

  3. Loving contrition stage: The batterer apologizes and feels remorse; this often explains why victims stay.

• Cycle of Violence Hypothesis: Suggests that abused/neglected children are predisposed to be abusive adults. However, only about $1/3$ of abused children grow up to be abusers; $2/3$ of abusers were not abused as children.

Work, Career, and Leisure in Middle Adulthood

• Job Satisfaction: Generally increases with age; middle-aged workers focus on ‘here-and-now’ qualities. Productivity and earning power typically peak during this time.

• Burnout: Frequent in ‘helping’ professions; involves dissatisfaction, disillusionment, and weariness. It can lead to cynicism and indifference.

  • High-Burnout Careers: Physician, Nurse, Social Worker, Teacher, School Principal, Attorney, Police Officer, Public Accountant, Fast-Food Worker, Retail Worker.

• Unemployment: Has severe psychological (anxiety, depression, irritability) and economic consequences. Middle-aged adults remain unemployed longer than younger workers.

• Career Changes: Driven by dissatisfaction, lack of challenge, job changes, or wanting to return to the workforce after raising children (common for women).

• Intelligence Trends:

  • Fluid intelligence (reasoning/problem-solving): Peaks in young adulthood.

  • Crystallized intelligence (knowledge/skills): Peaks later in life.

  • Emotion-perception: Peaks in midlife.

• Leisure Time:

  • Average TV watching: $15\text{ hours/week}$.

  • Total social/leisure activities: $5\text{ hours/day}$.