MIDDLE ADULTHOOD: Emotional and social development

1. Chapter 16 MIDDLE ADULTHOOD: Emotional and social development

2. Theories of Self in Transition • Maturity and Self-Concept • Maturity: capacity to undergo continual change in order to adapt successfully and cope flexibly with the demands and responsibilities of life. • Self-Concept: The view we have of ourselves through time as “the real me.”

3. Stage Models • Generativity versus stagnation (Erikson) • The concern in establishing and guiding the next generation.

5. Peck • Robert Peck’s 4 tasks at midlife: • Valuing wisdom versus valuing physical powers • Socializing vs. sexualizing • Cathectic flexibility v cathectic impoverishment • Mental flexibility v mental rigidity

6. Trait Models • Behavioral traits that constitute the core of personality: extraversion, neuroticism, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness.

7. Situational Models • Behavior as the outcome of the characteristics of the situation in which the person is momentarily located.

8. Interactionist Models • Behavior is always a joint product of the person and the situation.

9. Gender and Personality at Midlife • Levinson’s Theory of Male Midlife Development • Midlife transition (40-45) • Entry life structure for middle adulthood (45-50) • Age 50 transition(50-55) • Culminating life structure for middle adulthood (55-60) • Late adult transition (60-65)

11. Levinson’s Theory of Women’s Midlife Development • Primarily Homemakers • Women center lives in domestic sphere • Traditional Marriage • The women are homemakers and the men are provisioners • Single Successful Career Woman: • Afraid of “single” stigma

12. Women • Midlife Transition Career Woman • Compromise of work and family

13. Women • Ravenna Helson and the Mills Longitudinal Study Subjects at Midlife • Women: Turmoil in 40s, stability by 52 • Men: greatest productivity after 50 • Homemaker women: adjustments with empty nest. • Blue collar workers both genders: time of decline

14. Women • Continuity and Discontinuity in Gender Characteristics • Men and women move in opposite directions across the life span with respect to assertive and aggressiveness. • Unisex pattern emerges in later life.

15. Personality • Personality Continuity and Discontinuity • Sandwich generation: responsibilities for aging parents and minor children; bridge across generations.

16. The Social Milieu • Familial Relations • Married Couples • (Lauer and Lauer) Successful couples: • Positive attitude toward one’s spouse • Marriage is a long-term commitment and a sacred institution.

17. Extramarital Sexual Relations • Sex not the lure for EMS. • Loneliness, emotional excitement, and wanting to prove “still young.”

18. Separation and Divorce • College-educated wives: less risk • Married young : higher risk • Longer a marriage survives: less risk • Larger family, own home: less risk • Wife’s economic independence: higher risk • Empty nest transition: impacts marital stability

20. Life as a Single • Displaced Homemaker: a woman whose primary activity has been homemaking and who has lost her main source of income because of divorce from or death of husband.

21. Remarriage • 6 of every 10 divorced men remarry. • 3 of every 4 divorced women remarry. • Men more likely to remarry: larger pool

22. Stepfamilies • 60% of remarrieds are parents. • More than one-third of children will live in stepfamily before they are 18. • The more complex the social system the greater opportunity for conflict. • Opportunity for positive adaptation.

23. Adult Children and Grandchildren • Empty nest: period of life when children have grown up and leave home. • Empty-nest syndrome: a parent who has found her or his meaning in life primarily in the children often experiences a profound sense of loss when children are gone. • Adjustment is gradual.

24. Caring for Elderly Parents • Daughters and daughters-in-law face most pressures. • Best scenario: financially independent generations with separate residences.

25. Friendships • Friendships play a vital part in happiness and health. • Women in midlife have more friends. • Men have more acquaintances. • Women maintain family contacts, and friendships take up where marriages leave off.

26. The Workplace • Job Satisfaction • Alienation: a pervasive sense of powerlessnes, meaninglessness, normlessness, isolation and self-estrangement.

27. Job Burnout • The inability to gain a sense of self-actualization in their work. • Older people more satisfied with jobs than younger people.

28. Midlife Career Change • Half of Americans polled had switched jobs at least once and 43% said a future switch was likely.

29. Unemployment and Forced Early Retirement • Unemployment has adverse effects on physical and mental health • Stages of behavioral and emotional reactions to unemployment: • Shock, relief, relaxation • Concerted effort to find new job • Self-esteem begins to crumble • Resignation and withdrawal; conscious decision to change careers

30. Dual-Earner Couples • 61% of married couples are dual earners.