santrock essentials4e ppt_ch14

© 2015 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.

SOCIOEMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN MIDDLE ADULTHOOD

14ESSENTIALS OF LIFE-SPAN DEVELOPMENTJOHN W. SANTROCK

4e

© 2015 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part. 14-2

CHAPTER OUTLINE

• Personality theories and development• Stability and change• Close relationships


PERSONALITY THEORIES AND DEVELOPMENT

• Erikson’s stage of generativity versus stagnation• Generativity: Adults’ desire to leave legacies of themselves to the next

generation• Stagnation: Develops when individuals sense that they have done

nothing for the next generation

• Generativity can be developed in a number of ways• Biological generativity• Parental generativity• Work generativity• Cultural generativity



• Levinson’s seasons of a man’s life• Teens – Transition from dependence to independence• 20s are a novice phase of adult development• 30s are a time for focusing on family and career development• By the 40s, man has a stable career and now must look forward to the

kind of life he will lead as a middle-aged adult


FIGURE 14.1 - LEVINSON’S PERIODS OF ADULT DEVELOPMENT



• Transition into middle adulthood – Conflicts• Being young versus being old• Being destructive versus being constructive• Being masculine versus being feminine• Being attached to others versus being separated from them

• Midlife crisis• 40s as a decade of reassessing and recording truth about adolescent and

adult years• A minority experience midlife crisis

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• Life-events approach• Contemporary life-events approach: How life events influence the

individual’s development depends on:• Life event itself• Mediating factors• Individual’s adaptation to the life event• Life-stage context• Sociohistorical context


FIGURE 14.2 - CONTEMPORARY LIFE-EVENTS FRAMEWORK FOR INTERPRETING ADULT

DEVELOPMENTAL CHANGE



• Drawbacks to life events approach• Places too much emphasis on change• May not be major life events that are primary sources of stress • Daily experiences



• Stress and personal control in midlife• Middle-aged adults experience more “overload” stressors• Involve juggling too many activities at once

• Developmental changes in perceived personal control• Greater sense of control over finances, work, and marriage • Less sense of control over sex life and children

• Sense of control associated with delaying onset of disease in middle age



• Stress and gender• Fight or flight• Become aggressive, socially withdraw, or drink alcohol

• Tend or befriend• Seek social alliances with others, especially female friends

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STABILITY AND CHANGE

• Longitudinal studies• Costa and McCrae’s Baltimore Study - Focused on the Big Five factors

of personality:• Openness to experience• Conscientiousness• Extraversion• Agreeableness• Neuroticism

• Concluded considerable stability across adult years for Big Five factors


FIGURE 14.3 - THE BIG FIVE FACTORS OF PERSONALITY



• Berkeley’s Longitudinal Studies• Most stable characteristics were intellectual orientation, self-confidence,

and openness to experience• Characteristics that changed the most:• Extent to which individuals were nurturant or hostile• Whether or not they had good self-control

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• George Valliant’s Studies• Longitudinal studies of 3 samples:• 268 socially advantaged Harvard grads born about 1920• 456 socially disadvantaged inner-city men born about 1930• 90 middle-SES, intellectually gifted women born around 1910

• Categorized 75-80 years olds as “healthy-well,” “sad-sick,” or “dead”• Predictions based on data collected when individuals were 50 years old

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FIGURE 14.4 - LINKS BETWEEN CHARACTERISTICS AT AGE 50 AND HEALTH AND HAPPINESS AT AGE 75 TO

80



• Conclusions• Evidence does not support that personality traits are completely fixed in

adulthood• Changes are typically limited,

• Age is positively related to stability• Stability peaks in 50s and 60s

• Cumulative personality model: With time and age, people:• Become more adept at interacting with their environment in ways that

promote stability of personality


CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS

• Love and marriage at midlife• Security, loyalty, and mutual emotional interest are more important in

middle adulthood• Most married individuals are satisfied with their marriages during

midlife• Divorce in middle adulthood may be more positive in some ways, more

negative in others


CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS

• The empty nest and its refilling• Empty nest syndrome: Decrease in marital satisfaction after children

leave the home• Parents derive considerable satisfaction from their children

• Refilling of empty nest is a common occurrence• Loss of privacy


CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS

• Sibling relationships and friendships • Sibling relationships may be extremely close, apathetic, or highly

rivalrous• Friendships that have endured over the adult years tend to be deeper


CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS

• Grandparenting• Many adults become grandparents for the first time in middle age• Grandmothers have more frequent contact than grandfathers• Some grandparents thrust back into “parenting role” due to:• Divorce, adolescent pregnancy, parental drug use

• Full-time grandparenting linked to health problems, depression, and stress

• Divorce and remarriage related to special concerns about grandparent visitation privilieges


CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS

• Intergenerational relationships • Middle-aged adults express responsibility between generations• Duty to care for parents in late life• Share experiences, transmit values to younger generations

• “Sandwich generation” – responsibilities for caring for adolescent/young adult children and aging parents

• Ambivalent relationships between aging parents and their children• Love, reciprocal help, shared values on positive side• Isolation, family conflicts and problems, abuse, neglect, caregiver stress on

negative side


CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS

• Gender differences in intergenerational relationships• Women’s relationships are typically closer than other family bonds• Married men more involved with wives’ kin than their own• Mother’s intergenerational ties influential for grandparent-grandchild

relationships

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