Emerging Adulthood: Psychosocial Development

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Part VI
Chapter Nineteen

• Emerging Adulthood Psychosocial Development

Identity Achieved Intimacy Emotional Development
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Emerging Adulthood Psychosocial Development

• In psychosocial development, even more than in
  physical or cognitive development, the hallmark
  of contemporary adult life is diversity.

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Identity Achieved

• the search for identity begins at puberty, and
  continues through adulthood
• each stages crises provides the foundation for
  each new era as is evident in the emerging adult

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Identity Achieved

• Ethnic Identity
• in the U.S. and Canada 1/2 of the 18 25-
  year-olds are either children of immigrant or
  native-born Americas of African, Asian, Indian,
  or Latino descent
• most individuals identify with very specific
  ethnic groups, e.g. Vietnamese, Pakistani, or
  Korean Americans, not simply Asian

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Identity Achieved

• Ethnic Identity
• emerging adults meet many more people of other
  backgrounds
• European Americans also understand the importance
  of their own ethnicity, e.g., Ukrainian Catholic
  or Russian Jewish

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Identity Achieved

• Ethnic Identity
• everyone struggles to forge an identify, but
  immigrants combining their parents past and
  their future new social context often have
  conflicts

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Identity Achieved

• Ethnic Identity
• choices affect language, manners, romance,
  employment, neighborhood, religion, clothing, and
  values

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Identity Achieved

• Ethnic Identity
• is complex
• it is reciprocal, both a personal choice and a
  response to others
• it depends on context and therefore changes with
  time and circumstances
• it is multifaceted emerging adults choose some
  attributes and rejects others

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Identity Achieved

• Ethnic Identity
• the changing contexts of life require ethnic
  identity to be reestablished at each phase with
  one identity in adolescence, another in emerging
  adulthood

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Identity Achieved

• Vocational Identity
• is a part of growing up
• college is considered an important step towards a
  career
• a correlation between college education and
  income has been evident few unskilled jobs have
  been created in the 21st century

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Identity Achieved

• Vocational Identity

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Intimacy

• intimacy versus isolation
• the sixth of Eriksons eight stages of
  development adults seek someone with whom to
  share their lives in an enduring and
  self-sacrificing commitment without such
  commitment they risk profound aloneness and
  isolation

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Intimacy

• Friendship
• friends defend against stress and provide joy
  throughout life
• friends are chosen for understanding, tolerance,
  loyalty, affection, humor
• friends are earned they choose us, unlike family

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Intimacy

• Choosing Friends
• gateway to attraction
• the various qualities, such as appearance and
  proximity, that are prerequisites for the
  formation of close friendships and imitate
  relationships
• physical attractiveness (even in platonic
  same-sex relationships)
• apparent availability (willingness to talk, to do
  things together)
• frequent exposure
• absence of exclusion criteria (no unacceptable
  characteristics)

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Intimacy

• Choosing Friends
• absence of exclusion criteria (no unacceptable
  characteristics)
• exclusion criteria
• a persons reasons for omitting certain people
  from consideration as close friends or partners
  exclusion criteria vary from one individual to
  another, but they are strong filters

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Intimacy

• Gender and Friendship
• men and women have the same friendship needs
• humans seek intimacy, lifelong
• men tend to share activities and interests
• women have friendships that are more intimate and
  emotional

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Intimacy

• Gender and Friendship
• more men than women are homophobic
• male-female differences may be cultural and seem
  to be less stereotyped among contemporary
  emerging adults
• cross-sex friendships have potential problems
• outsiders may believe the relationship is sexual
• heterosexual couples tend to have fewer cross-sex
  friendships to avoid partner jealousy
• keeping a sexual relationship just friendly is
  sometimes difficult

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Intimacy

• Romance and Relationships
• couples are marrying later and divorcing more
  often than earlier cohorts
• marriage is being postponed, not abandoned

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Intimacy

• Romance and Relationships
• the relationship between love and marriage
  depends on the culture
• In 1/3 of all nations, people fall in love and
  then decide to marry, with the young man asking
  the young woman
• North Americans and Europeans expect to fall in
  love several times but not to marry until they
  are financially and emotionally independent

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Intimacy

• The Dimensions of Love
• love is not a simple emotion
• not something universally recognized as the glue
  that holds a relationship together

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Intimacy

• The Dimensions of Love
• Sternberg described three distinct aspects of
  love
• passion
• intimacy
• commitment
• Sternberg believes that the relative presence or
  absence of these three components give rise to

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Intimacy

• The Dimensions of Love

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Intimacy

• Living Together, Not Married
• cohabitation
• an arrangement in which a man and a women live
  together in committed sexual relationship but are
  not formally married
• more than ½ of all emerging adults cohabit
  during emerging adulthood

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Intimacy

• Living Together, Not Married
• cohabitation
• many people think that living together is a good
  prelude for marriage researchers suggest they
  are mistaken
• contrary to widespread belief, living together
  before marriage does not preclude problems that
  might arise after a wedding

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Intimacy

• What Makes Relationships Work
• marriage is not what it once was a legal and
  religious arrangement that couple sought for
  sexual expression
• most adults aged 20 to 30 are not yet married
• compared to any year in the past, fewer adults
  are married (58) and more are divorced
• the divorce rate is ½ the marriage rate (3.4
  compared to 7.8 per, 1000)not primarily because
  more people are divorcing but because fewer
  people are marrying

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Intimacy

• What Makes Relationships Work
• homogamy
• marriage between individuals who tend to be
  similar with respect to such variables as
  attitudes, interest, goals, socioeconomic status,
  religion, ethnic background, and local origin
• heterogamy
• marriage between individuals who tend to be
  dissimilar with respect to such variables as
  attitudes, interest, goals, socioeconomic status,
  religion, ethnic background, and local origin

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Intimacy

• What Makes Relationships Work
• social homogamy
• the similarity of a couples leisure interests
  and role preferences
• social exchange theory
• the view that social behavior is a process of
  exchange aimed at maximizing the benefits one
  receives and minimizing the costs one pays

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Intimacy

• What Makes Relationships Work
• Domestic Violence
• common couple violence
• a form of abuse in which one or both partners of
  a couple engage in outbursts of verbal and
  physical attacks also called situational couple
  violence
• intimate terrorism
• spouse abuse in which, most often, the husband
  uses violent methods of accelerating intensity to
  isolate, degrade, and punish the wife

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Intimacy

• Family Connections
• It is hard to overestimate the importance of the
  family at any time of the life span.
• families are our most important individual
  support system, a problem-solving system

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Intimacy

• Family Connections
• made up of individuals, families are more than
  the people who belong to them
• children grow
• adults find support
• everyone is part of an ethos (culture,
  philosophy, nation) that gives meaning to, and
  provides models for personal aspiration and
  decisions

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Emotional Development

• during emerging adulthood people are at their
  peak
• strength
• sexual impulse
• health
• cognitive growth

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Emotional Development

• Well-Being
• allows emerging adults to
• learn
• explore
• make friends
• find lovers
• take whatever job
• journey
• take risks

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Emotional Development

• Well-Being
• positive emotions increase when emerging adults
  have close relationships with
• friends
• lovers
• parents
• undergo successful transitions
• leaving home
• graduating from college
• securing a good job

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Emotional Development

• Well-Being
• some of the depression and anxieties of
  adolescence lift when young people leave their
  high schools and distance themselves from
  dysfunctional families

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Emotional Development

• Psychopathology
• not all young adults benefit from independence
  some adults have too many choices and too little
  guidance
• diathesis-stress model
• the view that mental disorders, such as
  schizophrenia, are produced by the interaction of
  a genetic vulnerability (the diathesis) with
  stressful environmental factors and life events

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Emotional Development

• Substance Abuse Disorders
• emerging adulthood is the most common time for
  substance abuse
• 1 in 8 is addicted before age 27
• substance abuse can be a common interest for
  friends and romantic partners
• most sufferers manage to put an end to abuse
  without professional counseling

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Emotional Development

• Mood Disorders
• before age 30, 8 of U.S. residents suffer from
  a mood disorder
• major depression is the most common
• major depression may be biochemical imbalances
  in neurotransmitters and hormones (can also be
  triggered by an arrest, or romantic break-up)

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Emotional Development

• Anxiety Disorders
• ¼ of U.S. residents below the age of 25,
  including
• post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
• obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
• panic attacks
• age and genetic vulnerability shape the symptoms
  of anxiety disorders

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Emotional Development

• Schizophrenia
• 1 of all adults experience at least one episode
  of schizophrenia
• partly genetic
• malnutrition when the brain is developing
• symptoms typically begin in adolescence
• diagnosis is most common from ages 18-24

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Emotional Development

• Continuity and Discontinuity
• most emerging adults have strengths as well as
  liabilities
• many overcome anxieties, substance abuse, etc
  through self-righting, social support and
  ongoing maturation