Chapter 14
Socioemotional Development in
Middle Adulthood
PowerPoints developed by Nicholas Greco IV,
College of Lake County, Grayslake, IL
(c) 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Erikson’s Middle Adulthood
 The crisis 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
also known as self-absorption
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Generativity
 Commitment to continuation and
improvement of society as a whole
 Biological generativity -- bearing offspring
 Parental generativity -- nurturing children
 Work generativity -- skills to pass on
 Cultural generativity -- creating,
renovating, and conserving some aspect
of culture
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Levinson’s Seasons of a
Man’s Life
 Results of extensive interviews with
middle-aged men
 20s -- novice phase of experimentation
and testing
 28 to 33 years -- transition and adoption of
goals
 30s -- BOOM -- becoming one’s own man
phase
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Levinson’s Seasons of a
Man’s Life
 40 to 45 years -- transition to middle
adulthood requires facing four main issues
being young versus being old
being destructive versus being constructive
being masculine versus being feminine
being attached to others versus being
separated
 40s -- middle age
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Insert Figure 14.1
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Midlife Crisis
 Levinson’s view of the crisis
being suspended between past and future
trying to cope with threats to continuity
 Vailliant’s “Grant Study”
a time of reassessing and recording the truth
about adolescence and adulthood
only a minority of adults actually experience a
crisis in midlife
(Levinson, 1978; Vailliant, 1977)
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Life Events Approach
 Some events tax ability to cope and force
personality change
 Contemporary life events approach
emphasizes considering event as well as
mediating factors, adaptation to the event,
the life-stage context, and the historical
context
 May overemphasize change and discount
the importance of everyday stressors
(Holmes & Rahe, 1967)
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Stress and Personal Control in
Midlife
 Do middle-aged adults experience stress
differently than young adults and older
adults?
Young and middle-aged adults had more
stressful days than older adults
Middle-aged adults experienced more
“overload” stressors that involved juggling too
many activities at once
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Contexts of Midlife
Development
 Historical contexts -- cohort effects
cohort -- individuals born in the same year or
time period
cohort and context influence values, attitudes,
expectations, and behavior
social clock -- timetable according to which
individuals are expected to accomplish life’s
major tasks; provides a guide for life
(Neugarten, 1986)
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Contexts of Midlife
Development
 Cultural contexts
midlife is unclear and/or absent in many nonindustrialized cultures
some cultures even divide the life course
differently for males and females
midlife is influenced by degree of modernity
and society’s gender roles
Eligibility for certain statuses is influenced by
gender
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Stability and Change
 Big five factors of personality -- openness to experience,
conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and
neuroticism
 Three longitudinal studies
 Costa and McCrae’s Baltimore Study
Personality traits changed most during early adulthood
 The Berkeley Longitudinal Studies
Results from early adolescence through a portion of
midlife did not support either extreme in the debate
whether personality is characterized by stability or
change
 Valliant’s Studies
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The Big Five Factors of
Personality
 INSERT FIGURE 14.3 HERE
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Stability and Change
 Evidence does not support the view that
personality traits become completely fixed
at a certain age in adulthood
 Cumulative personality model -- with time
and age, people become more adept at
interacting with their environment in ways
that promote stability
 Some people are likely to change more
than others
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Close Relationships
 Love and Marriage at Midlife
affectionate, companionate love increases in
middle adulthood
security, loyalty, and mutual emotional
interest become more important as
relationships mature
even difficult marriages become better
adjusted in middle adulthood
married people express satisfaction
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Close Relationships
 Divorce in middle adulthood
 couples may be alienated and avoidant
 marriages may have become “empty” -- lacking
laughter, love, and interest in one another
 divorce may be more positive in some ways and more
negative in others
+ -- often more resources
+ -- children less “damaged” and can cope better
minus -- may be seen as personal failure or as
betrayal
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The Empty Nest and Its Refilling
 Empty nest syndrome -- decline in marital
satisfaction after children leave the home;
a time for pursuit of other interests, career,
and time for each other
 Refilling of the nest when young adult
children return home to save money or
recover from career setback
 Parents continue to provide emotional
and/or financial support
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Sibling Relationships
 Sibling relationships persist over the entire
life span
 Majority of adults have at least one living
sibling
 Most have been found to be close
 Siblings who were not “close” tend not to
become closer in midlife
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Friendships
 Continue to be important just as they were
in early adulthood
 Enduring relationships become deeper
(Antonucci, 1989)
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Grandparenting
 Grandmothers have more contact with
grandchildren than grandfathers
 Satisfaction -- easier than parenting
 Styles and roles -- 3 meanings
 source of biological reward and continuity
 source of emotional fulfillment
 remote role
 Differing functions in families and in cultures or
in situations
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The Changing Role of
Grandparents
 Divorce, adolescent pregnancy, and drug use
have contributed to increasing numbers of
grandparents assuming parental roles
 Grandparents who are full-time caregivers for
grandchildren are at elevated risk for health
problems, depression, and stress
 Grandparent visitation issues in divorced and
stepfamilies
 Grandparents’ legal rights for visitation
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Intergenerational Relationships
 Middle-aged adults share experiences and
transmit values to the younger generation
 As children become middle aged, they
develop more positive perceptions of
parents
 Family members maintain contact across
generations
 Most common conflicts are interaction
style, habits and lifestyle choices, childrearing practices, and values
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Intergenerational Relationships
 Sandwich or Squeeze Generation -responsibilities for adolescent and young
adult children and for aging parents
 Relationships between aging parents and
their children are usually characterized by
ambivalence
 When necessary, responsibilities are
assumed by daughters
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