Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Middle adulthood challenges
Emerging adulthood problems
Emerging adulthood problems
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Middle adulthood challenges
What are two major issues people face in middle adulthood and how are they different from the issues people face as young adults?
Two major issues that face people in middle adulthood are generally marriage, the starting of a family and the establishment of one’s identity often largely attached to a stable career. Erik Erikson explained these two major issues faced in middle adulthood as the explains: “Two basic aspects of our lives dominate adulthood. Erik Erikson called them intimacy (forming close relationships) and generativity (being productive and supporting future generations).” (Meyers) In middle adulthood most people in modern western culture begin to establish a family through marriage and having children, which coincides not only with biological clocks later end of reproductive deterioration, especially in the case of women but also with the stages of mental and emotional development. Since at this stage of development in life an adult has a far less impulsive decision making process and a more mature mentality they are more apt and better prepared to face these major two issues. It is also noted in our text that :”Researchers have chosen various terms—affiliation and achievement, attachment and productivity, connectedness and competence. Sigmund Freud (1935) put it most simply: The healthy adult, he said, is one who can love and work.” (Meyers) This echoes Erikson’s sediments and by breaking down two of the most formidable issues that shape one’s life in middle adulthood into to work and love as Freud and out text do we can better examine who they are involved in middle adulthood. While in modern times young adults are taking more time to focus on education and taking longer periods to establish finical independen...
... middle of paper ...
...d accomplishment.” (Meyers) The text also speaks to the difference between self-identity and self-esteem between the two stages saying that:” From the teens to midlife, people typically experience a strengthening sense of identity, confidence, and self – esteem” (Meyers)
The overall difference seen between the stages of young adult to middle adulthood and how it effects the issues of love and work is that in the transition to middle adulthood everything becomes more well defined through not only physiological developments but by the values of experience and time to gain and apply education to both of these progressions allowing us to evole our lives further as a whole from that which we knew of life at a younger age .
Works Cited
Meyers, David G. Phsychology 1oth edition. New York, NY 10010: Worth Publishers, 2011. text book.
A person entering their twenties are in for a challenge when they are asked to take on Erickson 's first task of adult life. The first stage of adulthood is intimacy versus isolation where people are searching for a partner also looking for a loving relationship. This can be a very entertaining experience or a very stressful experience for young adults. Both Belsky, Privacy, Intimacy, and Isolation and observation can give a reader many great examples of what it is like to go through this time in life.
Erikson modeled his life cycle schema after the Shakespearean play “As You Like It”. The play identifies the seven ages that men experience starting with infancy and continuing in to old age.In the play the first age is infancy which lasts until a child is old enough to go to school. The third age is when a man falls in love. Next the man becomes strong and mature like a soldier and then becomes just and wise like a judge. The sixth age is when a man reaches old age and incompetency followed by age seven which is death. Erikson believed that Shakespeare had neglected to include the play stage in his seven ages presented in the play “As You Like It”. “In the late 1940s Eriksons received an invitation to present a paper on the developmental stages of life at the midcentury White House conference on children and youth. The paper they were to contribute for the conference was on growth and crisis of the healthy personality.” (Capps, 2004) It was on the way to this conference that the Eriksons realized that if Shakespeare had left out a stage then they too may have forgotten a stage. Erik Erikson realized that his life cycle model went from intimacy, signifying young adulthood in stage six to old age in stage seven. After this realization the Eriksons added “Generativity Versus Stagnation” as the new seventh
For instance, one of the most influential theories in human development is Erick Erickson’s developmental theory, in which he separated human development in stages. His stages of development encompassed about ambiguous developmental period that he characterized as the conflict of Intimacy vs. Isolation in young adult, Generativity vs Stagnation in middle adulthood and Integrity vs. Despair in late adulthood (Schwartz, 2001). Erickson’s developmental stages theory paves the way for in-depth research on social developmental changes that occurred from young adulthood (18-25), middle adulthood (26-39), to late adulthood (40-67). In his developmental research on social relationships, Berndt (2002) found that friendships vary in term of quality, stability,
Showing up in a fancy new car, deciding to start a new career, throwing out an entire wardrobe and staring over or ending a marriage of over twenty years, these all seem to be connected what society calls a ‘mid-life crisis.’ Is the mid-life crisis fact or fiction? Mid-life is the life span between the ages of 35 and 65 years old and as people age, there are biological and physiological gains and losses (Tillery 2014). When people enter into the middle adulthood, they have usually settled into family and carrier life, their knowledge base has grown and they are usually particularly healthy (Tillery 2014). However, as adults progress through this life-stage, a crisis can occur; which is the result of biological and physiological changes, an
In recent years more and more attention has been placed on the period of development known as emerging adulthood; a period of life from the late teens to late 20s. In many ways emerging adulthood is a period defined by a sense of uncertainty, as individuals try and grasp a better understanding of themselves. A large piece of this puzzle is development in the cognitive, physical, emotional, and social fields; yet in many ways society and the internet work against this young age group in maturing these four domains. The trends, pressures, and stereotypes set my popular culture warp the development of emerging adults in a negative direction.
Emerging Adulthood represents the period of development from late teens through their twenties, mainly focusing on the ages 18-25. This is the period which people start exploring and realizing the capabilities of their lives, which then helps them characterize as adults and no longer teenagers. This topic of psychology is compelling to me because it’s a stage that every adult has lived through, it’s interesting that we have all experienced it differently based on our life circumstances and demographics. It’s interesting to see the changes throughout the years and eventually it will be easier for young people to explore these years as more young adults are going to school nowadays. It teaches me to further understand why emerging adults go through
The lives of people never remain in stasis; instead, as a human develops, his or her life path changes accordingly with his or her gains and losses in cognitive and physical ability. This essay will discuss how these changes in life path affect people in middle adulthood (40 – 60) with reference to Erikson’s developmental theory and give examples of how these changes impact social function. It will use peer-reviewed journal articles and books as references to form a reliable information base when discussing the theories and scientific outcomes of aging. It will begin by explaining and critiquing Erikson’s developmental theory and then continue to discuss the kinds of changes being made in middle adulthood and the impact of these
J. J. Arnett argues his theory about a developmental stage individuals go through of 18-25 year olds as a new concept, (Arnett, 2000, pp. 469). He describes emerging adulthood as being a sustained period of time where this age group, as mentioned previously, explores their roles preceding being an adult. These movements can include events similarly by taking longer than previous years to get married and have children, moving back in with their parents at a point during this age span, exploring self-identities, not feeling like an adult and feelings of self-failure. James E. Cote, who is a previous colleague of Arnett argues the opposite about this concept being an unexperienced developmental stage Arnett calls, “Emerging Adulthood”. Cote states
Adulthood is not easily defined when it starts and finishes. If this cycle was based on biology it would be easy to define. Once again social pressures define this stage as well. Americans tend to look at it in three stages; Early adulthood, Middle adulthood, and old age. In early adulthood, we learn to manage the day to day affairs for ourselves, often juggling conflicting priorities such as, job, partner, children, and parents. During this stage, we learn to start putting everything we have learned together and manage ourselves. Early adulthood tends to end around forty years of age and Middle adulthood begins roughly from forty to sixty years of
“Though the age boundaries are not set in stone, we will consider middle adulthood as the developmental period that begins at approximately 40 to 45 years of age and extends to about 60 to 65 years of age” (Santrock, 2013, p. 485). I interviewed two individuals for this paper. Each person was asked the same fifteen questions (Appendix). I interviewed a male and a female who fell in the midrange of middle adulthood.
According to Vander Zanden (1997), Erikson says that during each life stage of development, individuals will have to encounter unique life events. These life events enable the individuals to achieve their level of growth through life (Vander Zanden, 1997). Papalia and Olds (1998) say that young adulthood is a can-do period. This is the stage where decision making is important. Exercising their freedom to be independent, and using what they have learnt in their adolescent years. This is the time of exploration, trying things out, and weighing up the pros and cons. This is also the stage where the individual chooses to be away from family, to be independent, make their own decisions, buying their own home, budgeting, finance, accommodation, and day to day living.
Adulthood has often been associated with independence. It serves as a turning point in life where one has to take responsibility for oneself and no longer being dependent on his or her family. Early adulthood, usually begins from late teens or early twenties and will last until the thirties (Santrock, 2013). Early adulthood revolves around changes and exploration while middle and late adulthood are more of stability. The transition from adolescence and adulthood differs among every individual. The onset of the transition is determined by many factors such as culture, family background, and the personality of the individual. Emerging adulthood (as cited in Santrock, 2014) is the term to describe the transition period from adolescence to adulthood.
As individuals age they will come to a point in their lives where they are considered to be in middle adulthood. According to Zastrow and Kirst-Ashman (2016), middle adulthood is the range from 30-60 which involves physical and health changes (p. 477). Some individuals may take this time to reflect on their lives and be happy will all of the things they have done and look forward to what is still to come and there may be others who feel that should have changed things or even may experience a “midlife” crisis. AllPsychologyCareers website (2016) states, “Midlife crisis is a time of great emotional upheaval, anxiety, and drastic changes in behavior (para. 13). Middle adulthood can be a time of contentment or even regret.
At age 18, when one usually graduates high school, you are thrown into the world, expecting to know what you are going to do with your life. But what are you classified as? An adult? An adolescence? Or somewhere in between? This period of time in between adolescence and adulthood can be classified as the transition phase called “emerging adulthood”, termed by Jeffrey Arnett. What Arnett defines emerging adulthood as, is the period from late teens through mid-twenties. Although, some would say this period is still defined as adolescence (ages 12 to 24); such as childhood psychiatrist, Dr. Daniel Siegel. Although the time period may be called something else depending on who you ask, there are still commonly shared, yet to be fully debunked, myths
This paper will focus on the latter part of middle adulthood. Middle adulthood represents the time in life between ages 34 to 60 (Newman & Newman, 2015). Since the middle adulthood is the longest stage of the life cycle, this paper will focus on an individual within the age of 45- 60. Individuals in the middle adulthood stage begin to develop concerns about future generation. They feel the need to contribute to the world through family and work. These feelings and thoughts are referred to as generativity. Erik Erikson refers to the problem posed at this stage as generativity vs. stagnation (Newman et al., 2015). Stagnation occurs when an individual is self-centered and unwilling to help society move forward. Several changes begin to