Section 11 – 5
Adulthood’s Ages and Stages
Objective: Explain why the path of adult
development need not be lightly linked to one’s
chronological age.
Midlife Transition
 Midlife Crisis - As age comes around the 40’s, there is
a sudden crisis of great struggle and regret.
 According to data however, there is no significant
surge in emotional crisis rates.
 Midlife Crises, and emotional stability surges can
happen at any age, due to a variety of causes.
Social Clock
 Social clock is the culturally preferred timing of social
events such as marriage, parenthood, and retirement.
 Social clock varies from cultural to cultural and era to era.
 In Jordan, 40% of brides are in their teens; in Honk Kong
only 3% are in their teens.
 In Western Europe, less than 10% of men over 65 remain in
the work force, while in the United States 16% do.
 The social clock once prescribed that university graduation
should occur around the age of 22. Today, more students
are earning at other ages.
Life Events and Chance
Encounters
 Significant events in life (like marriage, divorce, and
vocational change) can have a drastic effect on one’s path
in life and can mark transitions to new life stages.
 In this day and age, people are more likely than ever to go
out of sync with the “social clock”
 The influence of chance encounters can be best observed
with David Lykken and Auke Tellegen’s research into twins
and their spouses, finding that only 5 percent of twin
siblings said “I could have fallen for my twin’s partner.”
 Therefore, adult development relies less on the biological
processes within the body and mind, but more on the
experiences in life itself.