Human Growth
and
Development
Chapter Nineteen
Early Adulthood:
Psychosocial Development
PowerPoints prepared by Cathie Robertson, Grossmont College
Revised by Jenni Fauchier, Metropolitan Community College
Theories of Adulthood
• Many theories describe, analyze, and
predict the transformations that
occur during adulthood
• Different theories about
psychological needs reach similar
conclusions
Love and Work
• Two basic needs: affiliation and
achievement
– or affection and instrumentality
• Maslow: hierarchy of needs
• Erikson: intimacy vs. isolation
Ages and Stages
• Patterns of the Past
– by 20s: identity
– by 30s: intimacy
– by 40s: generativity
• Adult lives today “are less orderly
and predictable than stage models
suggest”
The Social Clock
• Culturally set timetable that
establishes when various events and
endeavors in life are appropriate
• What are some of the appropriate
timetables in the United States?
The Social Clock, cont.
• Developed vs. Developing Nations
– developed nations now permit
grandmothers to be college graduates,
while developing nations do not
– developing nations encourage teens to be
mothers, while developed nations
discourage this practice
• Rich and Poor
– the lower the SES, the sooner a person is
expected to reach life’s milestones
Intimacy
• Need for Intimacy
– meeting it depends on affiliation,
affection, interdependence, love
• Two primary sources are close
friendships and romantic
partnerships
Friendship
• Better than the family in buffering
against stress, as guide to selfawareness, and as a source of positive
feelings like joy
Choosing Young-Adult
Friends
• Physical attractiveness
• Apparent availability (willingness to
chat)
• Absence of exclusion criteria
• Frequent exposure to each other
Gender Differences in
Friendship
• Conversations and Expectations
– women - self-disclosure
– men - external matters—sports,
politics, work
– female-female pattern may better
reduce loneliness and self-absorption
– male-male pattern may be more
effective and efficient, especially in
work situations
Gender Differences in Friendship,
cont.
• Friendships Between Men and Women
– cross-sex friendships allow learning
about common humanity and let people
help each other gain skills
– problems may arise when a platonic
relationship is sexualized or there are
conflicts of expectations
• Same sex friendships may be most
effective and efficient
– especially in the workplace
Development of Love and
Marriage
• Sternberg’s Theory of love
– 1) passion 2) intimacy 3) commitment
– 7 forms of love based on presence or
absence of three components above
– in West, consummate love— a
combination of all three—is the ideal
form
– difficult to achieve consummate love
• familiarity and security diminish passion
Contact and Courtship
• Throughout history marriages commonly
arranged
– still common today in many nations and certain
cultures
• Typical U.S. pattern today—initiated
and sustained by the two people involved
– duration and seriousness increase until, couples
marry, typically 10 years after their first love
affair
• Courtship follows predicable pattern—
from passion to intimacy
Living Together
• Cohabitation— a couple’s living
together in a committed sexual
relationship without being formally
married
– increasingly common
– cohabitation not just for young
adults
– slightly more than half of all women
aged 25-40 years have cohabited
Living Together, cont.
• Cohabitation does not necessarily
benefit the participants
– one study found people who cohabitate
much less happy and healthy, and less
satisfied with financial status than are
married couples
– in another study, cohabiting relationships
were 3 times as likely to be abusive than
marriages
– in a third, compared to single adults,
cohabitants are likelier to have alcohol
problems
Marriage
• Not like it “used to be”
– proportion of unmarried adults is
higher than at any time in the past
century
– 10 percent of brides are virgins
– nearly one-half of all births are to
single mothers who are increasingly
unlikely to marry the fathers of
their babies
Marriage, cont.
• Not like it “used to be,” cont.
– 20 percent of first births
conceived before marriage
– divorce rate is 49 percent of
marriage rate
– the rate of first marriages in young
adulthood lowest in 50 years
Marriage, cont.
• Marriage, still most enduring evidence
of couple commitment, is celebrated
in every culture in the world by a
wedding
– hoped-for-results: a love that deepens
over the years, as bond cemented by
• birth of children
• weathering economic and emotional
turbulence
• surviving serious illness or other setbacks
• sharing social and financial commitments
Marriage, cont.
• Worldwide research says married
people are happier, healthier, and
richer
What Makes Marriages
Work
• Developmentally, marriage is a useful
institution
– children generally thrive when two
parents are committed to their
well-being
What Makes Marriages Work, cont.
• One developmental factor affecting
success of marriage is maturity of
the partners
• A second factor is degree of
similarity, or homogamy—marriage
within same group
– heterogamy—marriage outside of group
– social homogamy—similarity of couple’s
interests and role preferences
What Makes Marriages Work, cont.
• Marital Equity
–social exchange theory
–in modern marriages, what
matters most is perception of
fairness, not absolute equality
Same-Sex Partners
• Long-term homosexual partnerships
are more common and open today
• 2-5 percent of all U.S.adults spend
some part of adulthood in such
relationships
• Homosexuals generally have same
relationship issues as heterosexuals
Divorce
• Influenced by social and political
context
– affects many lives for years
• United States has highest divorce
rate
– almost 1 in 2 first marriages end in
divorce
• Historically, an increase, but
stabilizing
– one reason: lower marriage rate
The Role of Expectations
• People today expect more from
marriage partners than in the past,
but expectations are not always as
well defined
The Developmental Impact
of Divorce
• Initially worse than expected in
– health
– happiness
– self-esteem
– financial stability
– social interaction
– achievement
Domestic Violence
• Violence in intimate relationships
has multiple causes
– social pressures that create stress,
cultural values, personality pathologies,
and drug and alcohol addiction
– common couple violence—1 or both
partners engage in verbal and physical
attack
– intimate terrorism—1 partner
systematically isolates, degrades, and
punishes the other
Domestic Violence, cont.
• Intimate terrorism less prevalent
than common couple violence
• Perpetrator usually anti-social and
violent in many ways
• Leads to battered-wife syndrome,
with woman not simply physically
beaten but broken socially and
psychologically
• Similarities Between 2 Types of
Domestic Violence
– jealous male partner doesn’t want female partner
to talk to other men
– male partner tries to limit female partner’s
contact with family and friends
– male partner insists on knowing who female
partner is with and where she is at all times
– Difference Between 2 Types of Domestic
Violence
• But in intimate terrorism, partner
seeks to exert violent control over the
other
Generativity
• Defined as the motivation to achieve
or the drive to be generative
Importance of Work
• Develops and uses personal skills and
talents
• Provides structure for daily life
• Work can help a person to
– develop and use personal skills
– express unique creative energy
– aid and advise coworkers, as a mentor or
friend
– contribute to larger community via
product or service
New Patterns of
Employment
• Restructuring
–
–
–
–
–
–
work
workers
employers
schedule
teamwork
typical career sequence
• Manufacturing estimated to shrink by
1/3 between 1995-2005
New Patterns of Employment, cont.
• Workplace characterized by ongoing
reorganization and growing
automation
• Timing and pace of jobs are changing
• Burden of these new work patterns
falls especially on young adults
Diversity in the Workplace
• A major social change is most adult
women are employed
– motherhood no longer considered
impediment to employment
• Gender and ethnic diversity are
increasing in every developed nation
– glass ceiling (invisible barrier
impeding rise of both groups)
Diversity in the Workplace, cont.
• Work teams function best when they
are diverse
• Work requires same relationship skills
as friendship or marriage
Parenthood
• Adult Development
– having children, nurturing them, and
launching them into the world has a
major impact on the parent’s
development
– birth of a child brings conflict and
challenges and begins the lifelong
process of interdependence
Children Affect Their
Parents
• The bond is reciprocal
• Challenges emerge at every stage of
child’s development
• Few young adults anticipate the time
required for parenting
Employed Parents
• Benefits and Problems
– role overload
– role buffering
• Logistics in Everyday Life
Children and Divorce
• Children make divorce more
complicated
• Financial burden of child rearing on
custodial parent
– Only one-half of fathers pay full
child support
Alternative Routes to
Parenthood
• Roughly one-third of North American
adults become
– stepparents
– adoptive parents
– foster parents