Objective 11-5
Adulthood’s ages & stages
“Midlife crisis”
• People in their forties enter a midlife
transition—the process of coping
with the realization that they will
soon find their life mostly behind
them.
• Research indicates that general
dissatisfaction, divorce, anxiety, and
suicide do NOT surge during the
early forties.
Age & Adulthood
• Age not a trigger of life crises, rather
life events such as illness, divorce or
job loss.
• The “social clock”—the societal
standard for the timing of marriage,
child-rearing, retirement, etc. relative
to one’s life—differs among cultures.
Chance & Life Events
• Life events signify transitions to new
phases of adulthood. The “social
clocks” remain, but people are
straying from them more frequently
due to such events becoming
increasingly unpredictable.
• Chance occurrences such as
romantic attraction may heavily
influence adulthood.