Lifespan Psych Chapter 16

1. Socioemotional
Development in
Middle
Adulthood
Chapter 16
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2. 16 - 2
Chapter Outline
• Personality theories and adult development
• Stability and change
• Close relationships
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3. 16 - 3
Personality Theories and Development
• Stages of adulthood
– Erikson’s generativity versus stagnation
• Generativity - Adults’ desire to leave legacies of
themselves to the next generation
• Stagnation: Develops when individuals sense that they
have done nothing for the next generation
• Generativity can be developed in a number of ways
– Biological generativity
– Parental generativity
– Work generativity
– Cultural generativity
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4. 16 - 4
Figure 16.2 - Levinson’s Periods of Adult
Development
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

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Personality Theories and Development
• Stages of adulthood
– Levinson’s seasons of a man’s life
• Teens – transition from dependence to independence
• 20s are a novice phase of adult development
• 30s are a time for focusing on family and career
development
• 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
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

6. 16 - 6
Personality Theories and Development
• Stages of adulthood
– Levinson’s seasons of a man’s life
• Transition to middle adulthood lasts - Conflicts
– Being young vs. being old
– Being destructive vs. being constructive
– Being masculine vs. being feminine
– Being attached to others vs. being separated from them
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

7. 16 - 7
Personality Theories and Development
• Stages of adulthood
– How pervasive are midlife crises?
• The 40s are a decade of reassessing and recording the
truth about the adolescent and adult years
• Only a minority of adults experience a midlife crisis
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

8. 16 - 8
Figure 16.3 - Emotional Instability and
Age
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

9. 16 - 9
Figure 16.4 - Age and Well-Being
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

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Personality Theories and Development
• Stages of adulthood
– Individual variations
• Middle-aged adults interpret, shape, alter, and give
meaning to their lives
• In 1/3 of cases where individuals report experiencing a
midlife crisis:
– Triggered by life events such as job loss, financial problems, or
illness
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

11. 16 - 11
Personality Theories and Development
• The life-events approach
– Contemporary life-events approach: How life
events influence the individual’s development
depends on:
• Life event itself
• Mediating factors
• Individual’s adaptation to the life event
• Life-stage context
• Sociohistorical context
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

12. 16 - 12
Figure 16.5 - A Contemporary Life-Events Framework for
Interpreting Adult Developmental Change
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

13. 16 - 13
Personality Theories and Development
• The life-events approach
– Drawbacks
• Life-events approach places too much emphasis on
change, not adequately recognizing stability
• It may not be life’s major events that are the primary
sources of stress
– Daily experiences
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

14. 16 - 14
Figure 16.6 - The Ten Most Frequent Daily Hassles and
Uplifts of Middle-Aged Adults over a Nine-Month Period
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

15. 16 - 15
Personality Theories and Development
• Stress and personal control
– Stress, personal control, and age
• Middle-aged adults experience more “overload”
stressors that involve juggling too many activities at
once
• Some aspects of personal control increase with age
while others decrease
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

16. 16 - 16
Personality Theories and Development
– Stress and gender
• Fight-or-flight: When men experience stress:
– Become aggressive, socially withdraw, or drink alcohol
• Tend-and-befriend: When women experience stress:
– Seek social alliances with others, especially female friends
• Contexts of midlife development
– Historical contexts (Cohort effects)
• Changing historical times and different social
expectations influence:
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

17. 16 - 17
Personality Theories and Development
– How different cohorts move through the life span
• Social clock: Timetable according to which individuals
are expected to accomplish life’s tasks
– Gender contexts
• Stage theories have a male bias
• The demands of balancing career and family are usually
not experienced as intensely by men
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

18. 16 - 18
Personality Theories and Development
• Contexts of midlife development
– Cultural contexts
• The concept of middle age is unclear or absent in many
cultures
• Middle age like for women - Depends on the modernity
of the culture and the culture’s view of gender roles
– Middle-aged women in nonindustrialized societies experience
certain advantages
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

19. 16 - 19
Stability and Change
• Longitudinal studies
– Costa and McCrae’s Baltimore Study
– Focused on the big five factors of personality
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20. 16 - 20
Figure 16.8 - The Big Five Factors of
Personality
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

21. 16 - 21
Stability and Change
• Longitudinal studies
– Berkeley longitudinal studies
• Intellectual orientation, self-confidence, and openness
to new experience were the more stable traits
• Characteristics that changed the most
– Extent to which individuals were nurturant or hostile
– Whether or not they had good self-control
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

22. 16 - 22
Stability and Change
• Longitudinal studies
– Helson’s Mills College Study
• Three main groups of women
– Family-oriented
– Career-oriented
– Neither path
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

23. 16 - 23
Stability and Change
• Longitudinal studies
– George Vaillant’s studies
• Conducted:
– Sample of 268 socially advantaged Harvard graduates born
about 1920
– Sample of 456 socially disadvantaged inner-city men born
about 1930
– Sample of 90 middle-SES, intellectually gifted women born
about 1910
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

24. 16 - 24
Figure 16.9 - Links Between Characteristics at Age 50
and Health and Happiness at Age 75 to 80
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

25. 16 - 25
Stability and Change
• Conclusions
– Personality traits continue to change during the
adult years, even into late adulthood
– Cumulative personality model - With time and
age, people:
• Become more adept at interacting with their
environment in ways that:
– Promote the stability of personality
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

26. 16 - 26
Close Relationships
• Love and marriage at midlife
– Security, loyalty, and mutual emotional interest
are more important in middle adulthood
– Most married individuals are satisfied with their
marriages during midlife
– Divorce in middle adulthood may be more positive
in some ways, more negative in others
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

27. 16 - 27
Close Relationships
• The empty nest and its refilling
– Empty nest syndrome: Decrease in marital
satisfaction after children leave the home
• Parents derive considerable satisfaction from their
children
– Refilling of empty nest is a common occurrence
• Loss of privacy
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Close Relationships
• Sibling relationships and friendships
– Sibling relationships may be extremely close,
apathetic, or highly rivalrous
– Friendships that have endured over the adult
years tend to be deeper
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29. 16 - 29
Close Relationships
• Grandparenting
– Grandparent roles and styles
• Three prominent meanings
– Source of biological reward and continuity
– Source of emotional self-fulfillment
– Remote role
– Three grandparenting styles
• Formal
• Fun-seeking
• Distant-figure
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Close Relationships
• Grandparenting
– The changing profile of grandparents
• Most common reasons are divorce, adolescent
pregnancies, and parental drug use
• Full-time grandparenting has been linked to health
problems, depression, and stress
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31. 16 - 31
Close Relationships
• Intergenerational relationships
– Middle-aged adults express responsibility
between generations
– Midlife adults play important roles in the lives of
the young and the old
– Relationships between aging parents and their
children:
• Characterized by ambivalence
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32. 16 - 32
Close Relationships
• Intergenerational relationships
– Differences in gender
• Mothers and daughters have closer relationships
during their adult years
• Married men are more involved with their wives’
families than with their own
• Grandparent-grandchild relationships
– Mothers’ intergenerational ties were more influential
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document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.