Social and Personality Development in Early Adulthood

1. Social and Personality Development in Early Adulthood WEEK III Chapter 14

2. Topic 17 p.478-485 • Table 14-1 • Components of Happiness • Erik Erikson • Falling in love • Sternberg’s love triangle • Fig 14-3 • Pg 492 cohabitation • Pg 493 postponing marriage

3. I. Forging Relationships: Intimacy, liking and loving during early adulthood.

4. The Components of Happiness: Fulfilling the Psychological Needs • Components of happiness during early adulthood tend to be related to psychological needs and not material ones. • Feelings of independence, competence, self-esteem, relation well to other people, being chosen for a job, develop a deep relationship, moving into their own apt. • Culture impacts what psychological needs are most important—in the United States satisfaction with experiences related to the self hold primary importance.

5. The Social Clocks of Adulthood • Each person has a psychological timepiece which records the major milestones of one's life. • Social clocks used to be relatively uniform across people. • In today's society social clocks are more heterogeneous—the clocks of women have changed dramatically.

6. Women’s Social Clocks • There are patterns of development in the female personality: women become increasingly more self-disciplined and committed to duties as they age and feel more independent and confident and are better able to cope with stress and adversity. • Traditional feminine behavior increases from 21 to 27 years old. (the increase and decrease was found to be related to level of involvement with children during certain periods of life). Less tradition roles when the children grow up. • As long as a woman selects a social clock that is socially acceptable, her personality is not adversely impacted.

7. Seeking Intimacy: Erikson’s View of Young Adulthood • Erikson explains that during early adulthood, individuals are in the stage of intimacy-versus-isolation during which individuals focus on intimate relationships with others. • Individuals are confronted with issues related to degrees of selflessness, sexuality, and devotion. • Those who are unsuccessful resolving the crisis of this stage are often lonely, isolated, and fearful of relationships. • Those who are successful resolving the crisis are able to form intimate relationships with others on a physical, intellectual, and emotional level.

8. Friendship During early adulthood, friendships are formed based on: • proximity, • similarity, • and the degree of trust, loyalty, warmth and affection shared

9. Falling in Love: When liking Turns to Loving The stimulus-value-role theory explains that there is a similar progression to most relationships and that progression goes through three stages: • the stimulus stage is when relationships are built on surface, physical characteristics; • the value stage occurs between the second and seventh encounter and is characterized by increasing similarities of values and beliefs; • the role stage is when specific roles are adopted by each individual. This theory has had some critics who believe that not all relationships follow this very specific pattern.

10. Passionate and Companionate Love • Feelings of love typically involve intense physiological arousal, fantasizing, mood swings, etc.; passionate love is marked by an absorption in someone that motivates intense physiological interest and arousal and feelings of care for the other's needs. • Companionate love is affection we feel for those close to us. • According to the labeling theory of passionate love, people tend to feel passion when there is a physiological arousal and when "love" is the appropriate label to describe the situation.

11. Sternberg’s Theory:The Three Faces of Love Sternberg explains that love is made up of three components: • intimacy (encompassing feelings of closeness, affection, and connectedness), • passion (comprising the motivational drives relating to sex, physical closeness, and romance) • decision/commitment (involving cognition that one loves another and the commitment to maintain that love on a long term basis). By considering these three components, eight combinations of love can be formed (e.g., when all three components are absent, nonlove is displayed; when all three components are present, consummate love is displayed).

13. The combination of love • What do you think these loves are?

16. Recognizing Mr. or Ms. Right • Some of the characteristics that make for a potential spouse differ according to culture; for example, in the United States love and mutual attraction are significant characteristics whereas in China, good health is an important characteristic for men in their future wives. • Reasons for the cross-cultural similarities in gender differences have been explained as being due to evolution or due to social gender stereotyping.

17. Filtering Models: Sifting Out a Spouse • People put potential mates through filters, first looking for factors relating to broad determinants of attractiveness and eventually looking for more specific and defined determinants of compatibility; compatibility is often determined by homogamy (the tendency to marry someone who is similar in age, race, education, religion, and other basic demographic characteristics); • The marriage gradient also impacts perceived compatibility.

18. Attachment Styles and Romantic Relationships The influence of one's attachment style during infancy affects romantic relationships later in life. For example: • Infants with a secure attachment status tend to grow up to be adults who readily enter into relationships and feel positive about the future of the relationship. • Infants who display an avoidant attachment status tend to grow up to be adults who are less invested in their relationships, break up with mates more often and often feel lonely.

19. Gay and Lesbian Relationships • Homosexuals and heterosexuals identify similar characteristics of a successful relationship and seek out the same qualities in their relationships (e.g., long term, loving relationships)

20. II. The Course of Relationships

21. Marriage, POSSLQ and other Relationship Choices • During adulthood, couples can • cohabit, • get married, • or remain committed while not sharing a living space; • Cohabitation is becoming more common with young adults who choose cohabitation over marriage because: • they are not ready for a lifelong commitment, • they are "practicing" for marriage, • they reject the institution of marriage, • they think spending one's life with one person is unrealistic. • Chances for divorce are somewhat higher in those that cohabit.

22. Marriage, POSSLQ and other Relationship Choices • Marriageis the preferred way to share a relationship during early adulthood. • Couples decide to marry because: • it is the logical step in a loving relationship, • it is the "right thing to do" after reaching a particular age, • of the roles the spouse can fill, • it is the only widely accepted way of having children in our culture. • Fewer people are married now than in the last century due to increase in divorce rates and decisions to postpone marriage.

23. What Makes Marriage Work Partners in successful marriages: • show visible affection for one another. • communicate with little negativity. • think of themselves as part of an interdependent couple. • and experience social homogamy.

24. Early Marital Conflict • Perceptions of marital quality decline over the first 10 years of marriage. • Conflict is often related to: • difficulties in making transition to adulthood, • difficulty having a separate identity from one's spouse, • difficulty finding time to spend with one's spouse.

25. Choosing to Have Children • Couples decide to have children for many reason including psychological reasons related to the pleasure received from watching children grow and developing close relationships with them; • Couples decide for more selfish reasons to have children so that there will be someone around to take care of them and be their companion when they are old. • Some (mostly the socially and economically disadvantaged) have children unintentionally.

26. Family Size There has been a decline in the birth rate as a result of: • availability of birth control, • a desire for fewer children in decades past, • an increase in the number of women entering the workforce, • less attractive incentives for having more children, • the cost of raising children, • and fear of the work involved in raising children.

27. Dual-Earner Couples • When both members of a couple work, there is a definite economic benefit from two salaries. • Women however tend to spend more time taking care of the children than males (who do spend more time with their children than they did in past generations). • Husbands tend to take on roles and duties that can be prescheduled while wives take on activities that need immediate attention, causing stress and anxiety.

28. The Impact of Children on Parents • Having children can lead to greater marital satisfaction, at least for couples who are already satisfied with their marriage. • For marriages in which satisfaction is low, having children may make a bad situation worse.

30. Topic 18 • Parenthood ( 495- 499) • Work (500-505)

31. III. Work: Choosing and Embarking on a Career

32. Identity during Young Adulthood:The Role of Work • Vailliant explains that, during early adulthood, becoming centered on a career happens to be very important. • He describes the stage as the career consolidation stage and proposed it should be added on to Erikson's conception of identity development and, in fact, supplant one's focus on intimacy. • Critics question Vaillant's sample and generalizability of his findings.

33. Choosing Life’s Work According to Ginzberg, people typically move through a series of stages when choosing a career: • during the fantasy stage, which lasts until about age 11, career choices are made and discarded without thought to skills or opportunities but, rather, are based on what sounds appealing; • during the tentative period, which occurs during adolescence, people begin to think more practically and consider their own values and goals when deciding upon a career; • during the realistic period, which occurs in early adulthood, people have actual experience with different careers by taking on jobs and/or internship/volunteer experiences which enables them to narrow their career choices and make a commitment to a career.

34. Influence of Personality Six personality types affect vocational choice (Holland). • Investigative person enjoys working with ideas; selects a scientific occupation • Social person likes interacting with people; selects human services • Realistic person prefers real-world problems; selects a mechanical occupation • Artistic person is emotional and high in need for individual expression; selects an artistic field • Conventional person likes well-structured tasks, values material possessions and social status; selects business fields • Enterprising personisadventurous, persuasive, a strong leader; selects sales and supervisory positions

35. Influence of Personality (cont.) • Many people are blends of personality types and do well at more than one kind of occupation. • however, not all people fit neatly into one personality type and people often have to choose a career for which their personalities do not fit. • Decisions are made in the context of family background, educational opportunities, and life circumstances.

36. Gender and Career Choices:Women’s Work • Traditionally, men have been considered appropriate for agentic professions (associated with getting things accomplished, such as carpentry) and women for communal professions ( associated with relationships, such as nursing). • There is a significant wage gap between men and women in the workforce. • 55% of the workforce is made up of women. • There are significantly more opportunities available to women of today's generation than of generations past. • Women in high status jobs often hit the glass ceiling.

37. Why do People Work? • People are motivated to work for extrinsic reasons, like money and prestige. • And also for intrinsic reasons: • work brings a sense of personal identity, • adds to one's social life, • and brings a certain sense of status to one's identity. • The kind of work that people do is a factor in determining status.

38. Job satisfaction Job satisfaction is partly determined by • the status of one's job, • control of management over workers, • level of input workers have into the nature of their jobs, • and the amount of influence employees have over others.