SOCIAL AND PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT IN EARLY ADULTHOOD

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SOCIAL AND PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT IN EARLY
ADULTHOOD
Seasons of Life Video - Early Adulthood
Please watch the video via the link above. The
link is in aqua
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Table 14-1
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What makes young adults happy?

• Happiest memories psychological needs rather
  than material needs satisfied
• Unhappiest memories basic psychological needs
  left unfulfilled
• Culture influences which psychological needs are
  most important in determining happiness

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What makes us tick?

• Social Clocks of Adulthood
• - milestones of development
• - marriage?
• - children?
• Cultural influence
• Ravenna Helsons research
• found that women become more focused as they
  age
• whether family oriented or career oriented,
  both fared well

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Seeking Intimacy Eriksons View of Young
Adulthood

• INTIMACY-VERSUS-ISOLATION STAGE
• Intimacy Close, intimate relationship with
  others
• Isolation Feelings of loneliness and fearful of
  relationships
• - felt that people who did not develop
• traditional relationships would suffer

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Friendship

• Important part of adult life? need for belonging
• Maslow
• Filters
• Proximity
• Similarity
• Personal qualities

481
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Passionate and Companionate Love Two Faces of
Love

• PASSIONATE (ROMANTIC LOVE)
• Deals more with physiological arousal
• COMPANIONATE LOVE
• Affection that we feel towards family and loved
  ones

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Sternbergs Triangular Theory Three Faces of Love

• Robert Sternberg
• Intimacy-feelings of closeness
• Passion-sex, physical closeness and romance
• Decision/Commitment-love and determination that
  maintain that love

484
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Seeking a Spouse Is Love All That Matters?

• U.S. love as a major factor
• Love and mutual attraction
• In other cultures, love may be a secondary
• Emotional maturity, health, similar education,
  chastity
• China-men look for good health
• women look emotional stability and maturity

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Attachment Styles and Romantic Relationships

• Infant attachment style is reflected in adult
  romantic relationships (Shaver)
• Secure
• Happy and confident about relationships
• Avoidant
• Less invested, higher break-up rates, often feel
  lonely
• Anxious-ambivalent
• Overly invested, repeated break-ups with same
  partner, low self-esteem

489
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Developmental Diversity

• Gay and Lesbian Relationships Men with Men and
  Women with Women
• Research findings suggest that gay and lesbian
  relationships are quite similar to relationships
  between heterosexuals
• Most gays and lesbians seek loving, long-term,
  and meaningful relationships that differ little
  qualitatively from those desired by heterosexuals
  

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THE COURSE OF RELATIONSHIPS
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To Marry or Not to Marry That is the Question
More people may be Labeled a POSSLQ Persons
of the opposite Sex living together
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Why do people choice cohabitation rather than
marriage?

• Not ready for lifelong commitment
• Practice for marriage
• Cohabitating does not necessarily mean the
  marriage will work out
• Chances for divorce seem to be higher for those
  cohabitating prior to marriage
• Reject institution of marriage

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Why marry?

• Preferred alternative during early adulthood
• Desirability of spouse roles economic, sexual,
  therapeutic and recreational roles
• Legitimatization of children
• Legal benefits and protections

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What makes marriage work?

• Successful married partners
• Show affection
• Communicate relatively little negativity
• Perceive themselves as interdependent
• Experience social homogamy, similarity in leisure
  activity. and role preferences
• Hold similar interest
• Agree on distribution of roles

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Divorce Around the World
Increases in divorce rates are significant
worldwide.
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When the Honeymoon Wanes
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• Nearly half of married couples experience
  significant degree of conflict.
• Realities of daily living sink in, and they
  become more aware of flaws.
• Sources of conflict
• Separating from parents, becoming autonomous.
• Some have trouble identifying with spouse, and
  some want to have separate identity from spouse.
• Allocation of time with friends/family of origin.

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But the news is not all bad!

• Most married couples
• View early years of marriage as deeply satisfying
  
• Find themselves more deeply in love than before
  marriage
• Report newlywed period as one of happiest in
  entire married life

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Parenthood Choosing to Have Children

• Statistics
• Costs
• Reasons

495
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• Some children are unplanned, but couples cope,
  because they wanted children eventually some
  unplanned children are unwanted.
• Today most families have no more than 2 children,
  rate in US today is 2.1 children per woman (in
  1957, it was 3.7 children per woman).
• Women are having children later today, into their
  late 30s and older.
• A middle-class family with two children will
  spend about 233,000 for each child before the
  child reaches the age of 18.
• People have children for psychological reasons.
• Pleasure of watching them grow.
• Hope children will provide for them in old age or
  offer companionship.
• Most married couples have at least one child.

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What produced the decline in the US fertility
rate?

• Availability of more reliable birth control
  methods
• Increasing numbers of working outside the home
• Choosing to have children later
• Cost of raising and educating children
• Fear of not being good or accessible parent

496
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Dual-Earner Couples

• Working Parent Statistics and Distribution of
  Chores

496
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• Close to ¾ of married women with school-aged
  children work outside home.
• More than 50 of mothers of children under age 6
  work outside home.
• In majority of families, both partners work, but
  wife generally spend more time taking care of the
  children.
• Husbands primarily perform outside chores, and
  women do housework, child care, meal preparation.
• Although husbands and wives work about same
  number of hours at their paying, women spend more
  time doing chores and child care tasks.
• Womens household chores tend to be devoted to
  things that need immediate attention and wives
  may experience greater levels of anxiety and
  stress.

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Twos a Couple, Threes a Crowd?

• Dramatic shift in spouse's roles
• Challenges to marital satisfaction
• Successful coping

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• Birth of child brings about dramatic shift in
  spouse's roles and sometimes decrease in marital
  satisfaction.
• Western cultures emphasis on individualism views
  childrearing as primarily private enterprise.
  Parents in Western society are largely left
  without significant community support.
  Consequently, for many couples, strains
  accompanying the birth of child produce lowest
  level of marital satisfaction of any point in
  marriage.
• Not all couples experience decrease in marital
  satisfaction upon birth of child. Factors that
  permit couples to successfully weather stress of
  child
• Working to build fondness and affection towards
  each other.
• Remaining aware of events in spouse's life and
  responding to those events.
• Considering challenges controllable and solvable.
• Satisfaction closely related to state of marriage
  before birth of child.

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Gay and Lesbian Parents

• About 20 of gay men and lesbian women are
  parents
• No difference in psychological adjustment from
  children raised in heterosexual homes
• Specialization of roles develop
• For children, no differences in terms of eventual
  adjustment from those raised in heterosexual
  households

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Singlehood

• Statistics
• Rationale
• Societal view

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From Research to Practice

• Majority of American Women Are Living Without
  Spouse
• What do the numbers say?
• What do the numbers mean?

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Something to ponder

• Why do you think that women are less inclined to
  remarry after a divorce than men are?

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WORK CHOOSING AND EMBARKING ON A CAREER
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Identity During Young Adulthood Role of Work

• Vaillant Career consolidation
• General pattern of psychological development as
  young adults center on careers
• Career concerns supplant focus on intimacy
• Criticisms
• Highly restricted sample limits Generalizability
• Dated findings questions in view of shifts in
  attitudes toward importance of work

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Picking an Occupation

• Ginzbergs Career Choice Theory
• Fantasy period
• Tentative period
• Realistic period
• Criticism
• Non-representative sample
• Overstates choices and options to lower SES
  people
• Age demarcations may be too rigid

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Gender and Career Choices Womens Work

• Traditionally
• COMMUNAL PROFESSIONS women
• AGENTIC PROFESSIONS men
• Women less likely found in male-dominated
  professions

502
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The Gender-Wage Gap
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Why Do People Work?

• Motivation
• Extrinsic
• Intrinsic
• Personal identity
• Status

Job status
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Satisfaction on the Job

• Satisfaction related to job status
• Worker satisfaction also associated with
• Nature of job
• Amount of input one has into ones duties
• Influence employees have over others

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The Informed Consumer of Development

• Choosing a Career Beginning Guidelines
• Systematically evaluate a variety of choices.
• Know yourself.
• Create a balance sheet,
• Try out different careers through paid or
  unpaid internships.
• Remember that if you make a mistake, you can
  change careers.
• It is reasonable to expect that careers may
  change throughout life.