Early Adulthood: Physical and Cognitive Dev

Early Adulthood: Work and love

Early adulthood involves finding one's place in society, committing to a stable life, and balancing work and love.

Transition to Adulthood

  • Emerging Adulthood:
    • A transition period from adolescence to adulthood, approximately ages 18-25.
    • Characterized by experimentation and exploration in career, identity, and lifestyle.
    • Five key features:
      • Identity exploration in love and work.
      • Instability in residence, love, work, and education.
      • Self-focused with few social obligations.
      • Feeling in-between adolescence and adulthood.
      • Age of possibilities for transforming lives.
    • Criticisms: May primarily apply to privileged adolescents and not a self-determined choice for those in limiting socioeconomic conditions.
    • Can be a time of both increased well-being and increasing anxiety/depression.
  • Health Choices:
    • Emerging adulthood linked to unhealthy behaviors like binge drinking and risky sexual behavior.
    • Categories of health choices:
      • Consistently healthy lifestyle
      • Consistently unhealthy lifestyle
      • Shifting lifestyle over time
    • Resilience is key for redirecting life in a positive direction after a troubled adolescence.
  • Changing Landscape:
    • Developmental milestones (college, job, household) reached later than previous generations.
    • Increased education, especially among young women.
    • More young women in the workforce.
    • Living with parents is a common arrangement for 18-34 year olds.
  • Parental Role:
    • Parents should provide opportunities for contribution, candid feedback, positive adult connections, and challenges to foster maturity.
  • Markers of Adulthood:
    • Holding a full-time job.
    • Economic independence.
    • Taking responsibility for oneself. (Denmark study) This is the most important thing, even more tham marriage.
    • In developing countries, marriage is often a significant marker.

Physical and Cognitive Development

  • Physical Performance:
    • Peak physical performance typically occurs before age 30, often between 19 and 26.
    • Decline in muscle tone and strength may begin around age 30.
  • Health:
    • Emerging adults have higher mortality rates than adolescents, particularly among males.
    • Engage in more health-compromising behaviors.
    • Bad habits from adolescence often increase in emerging adulthood.
  • Lifestyles:
    • Associated with poor health and diminished life satisfaction, such as not eating breakfast, overeating, smoking, excessive drinking, lack of exercise, sleep deprivation, and risky sexual behavior.
    • Positive correlation between life satisfaction and not smoking / regular exercising / using sun protection / eating fruit and limiting fat intake.
    • Sleep deprivation may contribute to cardiovascular disease, cognitive and motor impairment, and increased accident risk.

Eating and Weight

  • Obesity:
    • A serious problem for adults, linked to hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and mental health issues.
    • Influenced by heredity and environmental factors.
    • Environmental Factors:
      • Obesitiy rate has doubled since 1900.
      • Linked to food and less physcial activity and more energy-saving devices
      • higher among low income people.
    • Effective weight loss programs include exercise.
  • Binge Eating Disorder (BED):
    • Frequent binge eating without compensatory behavior characteristic of bulimia.
    • Individuals with BED frequently overweight.
    • Therapies include cognitive behavior and interpersonal therapy
  • Regular Exercise:
    • Aerobic exercise helps prevent chronic disorders.
    • Associated with higher self-concept, and lower anxiety and depression.
    • Strategies for incorporating exercise: reduce screentime, chart progress, and get ride of excuses
  • Substance Abuse:
    • Many reduce alcohol and drug use by their late twenties.
    • Male college students more likely to take drugs than females.
    • Only 20 percent for college students are abstaining from alcohol.
  • Binge Drinking:
    • Common in college.
    • Extreme binge drinking is described as "high intensity drinking".
      • 10 or more drinks -> 12% of students in 2016 reported this.
      • 15 or more drinks -> 4% of students in 2016 reported this.
    • drinking before going to an event is becoming more common
    • Associated with problems such as absence from classes, physical injuries, troubles with police, and unprotected sex, cardiovascular changes, delayed college graduation.

Cognitive Development

  • Piaget's View:
    • Adolescents and adults think in the same way qualitatively, with adults possessing more knowledge.
    • Formal operational thought is the final stage.
  • Postformal Thought:
    • Reflective, relativistic, and contextual.
    • Provisional, recognizing the ongoing search for truth.
    • Realistic and pragmatic in thinking.
    • Influenced by emotion.
    • Emerging adults are more likely on engage in postformal thing than adolescents.
  • Creativity:
    • Often peaks in adulthood, sometimes in the forties.
    • The decline in contributions is not as thought but is very influenced on the domain involved.
  • Flow:
    • A helghted state of please experienced when we are engaged in mental and physical challenges that absorb us
    • Strategies for more creative life: cultivating curiosity, surprising at least on person a day, look forward to day, and spending time in creative environments

Careers and Work

  • Developmental Changes:
    • Career decision-making becomes more serious in late teens and early twenties.
    • Individuals often seek to establish their career in a particular field from mid-twenties onward.
    • An ingrained cultrual belief about working that hard work yields success.
  • Finding a Path to Purpose:
    • Purpose questioned during studies, but not communicated in importance.
  • Occupational Outlook:
    • The U.S government provides the latest info available. Fastest growing jobs though education.

Impact of Work

  • Influences financial standing, housing, time use, friendships, and health.
  • Also provides structure to life that creates emotional well-being.
  • Increase of job numbers from college students and full-time workers. Especially long-range workers.
  • College grads have low income compared to those in private sector companies.
  • Those with aspiration and certainty over career goals have higher chance to succeed
  • Stress from work linked to health factors.
  • Work During College:
    • Helps offset school costs but can restrict learning opportunities.
    • Cooperative programs, internships, and part-time jobs can enhance education.
      **Unemployment causes stress through income, decreased self-esteem, and mental health.
    • Dual-Earner Challenges:
      • Finding balance between work and family life.
      • Implementing responsibilities over work in house and children.

Socioemotional Dev

  • Those able to help manage the roles have a better relationship between the two sides.
  • Diversity in the Workforce:
    • Becoming increasingly diverse, with more women and ethnic minorities.
    • Women and ethnic minorities often struggle to advance to higher positions.
    • Also increasing the importance for sensitivity in other cultures.