HUMAN BEHAVIOR IN THE SOCIAL
ENVIRONMENT
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Andrew T. Nilsson, Ph.D.
Eastern Connecticut State University
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HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
A LIFE STAGE PERSPECTIVE
(Adulthood in blue)
.
Boy •
¨ adolescent •
¨ husband/worker •
¨ family head/career •
¨
grandfather •
¨ retired •
¨ death
Girl •
¨ adolescent •
¨ wife •
¨ mother •
¨ grandmother •
¨ widow •
¨
death
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ERIKSON’S PSYCHO-SOCIAL CRISES
AGE
To 18 mo.
ERIKSONIAN CRISIS
Trust vs. mistrust
DURATION
1 ½ yrs.
18 mo.- 3 yrs. Autonomy vs. shame & doubt
3- 6 yrs.
Initiative vs. guilt
6-12 yrs.
Industry vs. inferiority
1 ½ yrs.
3 yrs.
6 yrs.
12-18 yrs.
20-35 yrs.
35-60 yrs.
65+
6 yrs.
15 yrs.
25 yrs.
?
Identity vs. role confusion
Intimacy vs. isolation
Generativity vs. stagnation
Ego integrity vs. despair
•Developmental periods increase in duration
•Individual differences increase as well
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ERIKSON’S STAGES OF ADULT DEVELOPMENT
• 20-35 yrs. - Intimacy vs. isolation
– The quest for intimacy – the ability to share one’s
self with another person without being afraid of
sacrificing one’s own identity.
– Love and work – mate selection and career choice
• 35-60 yrs, - Generativity vs. stagnation
– The need to be creative and productive in ways
which will contribute to future generations; creating
one’s legacy for the future.
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DEVELOPMENTAL TASKS OF MID-LIFE
Peck (1968)
• Socializing vs. sexualizing
– Redefine intimate relationships to value the individual,
friendship, and compaionship, rather than sex alone.
• Value wisdom vs. value physical power
– Life experience and wisdom replaces phyical ability and
attractiveness
• Cathectic flexibility vs. cathectic impoverishment
– The ability to shift one’s emotuional investment from one
activity to another or from one individual to another
• Mental flexibility vs. mental rigidity
– Life-long learning; the ability to seek and adapt to new
information and ideas
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LEVINSON’S STAGES OF ADULT LIFE
The Seasons of a Man’s Life (1978)
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LEVINSON’S STAGES OF ADULT LIFE
Levinson’s sample:
• Levinson interviewed 40 men in four occupational groups
(novelists, biologists, business executives, and factory
workers) between the ages of 35-45. Five percent were
black. All had been married at least once.
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LEVINSON’S STAGES OF ADULT LIFE
Levinson viewed life as a series of periods formed around
developmental tasks, the main goals, objectives, and concerns
faced by individuals during each life period. A period ends
when its tasks lose significance and new tasks emerge.
Developmental transitions:
• Existing life structure
• Transition period – period of personal crisis and re-evaluation
– Life structure questioned; new decisions made
• Review and evaluate the past
• Accept loses at the end of a period
• Explore new options – decide what to keep and what to
discard; consider possibilities for the future
• New life structure
– Structure building period – relative tranquility
– Structure based on new decisions
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STAGES OF ADULT LIFE
EARLY ADULT TRANSITION (17-22)
• Move from pre-adulthood to adulthood
– Graduation from school, move out of family home, go to work.
– Independence from family. Financial and emotional autonomy.
– College and military are transitional institutions – away from
family but not total independence.
– Make choices about how adult life will be lived
• Men have a “dream,” a vision of the future usually
viewed in terms of career
• Men have a “mentor,” an older (8-15 years) role model –
someone with experience and seniority in the world the
young adult wishes to enter.
• Second important relationship – a woman who supports
dream, makes man feel capable of obtaining it.
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LEVENSON – STAGES OF ADULT LIFE
• Entering the adult world (22-28)
– Explore and make commitments to adult roles – establish life style
– Work leads to career choice
– Intimate relationships lead to marriage, birth of children
• Age 30 transition (28-33)
–
–
–
–
Reappraisal of early adult commitments and change
Focus on adjustment and enrichment
“If I am to change my life, I’d better do it now.”
Sometimes crisis; divorce, occupational change common
• Settling down (33-40) – culminating life structure for early adulthood
– Apprenticeship over – time to be a successful, competent adult
– BOOM period – Becoming One’s Own Man – independence from
mentor
– Deeply absorbed in commitments to occupation, family, and activities
– Desire to get ahead, realize youthful ambitions
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LEVENSON – STAGES OF ADULT LIFE
• Midlife transition (40-45)
–
–
–
–
–
Midlife crisis – “What have I done with my life?”
Come to terms with the dreams of one’s youth
Work on discrepancy between what is and what will be
Life takes on a new sense of urgency
80% of Levinson’s subjects went through personal crisis and
re-evaluation
– Crisis may include divorce, extramarital affair, occupational
change
Levinson stopped gathering data on his subjects at age 45.
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LEVENSON – STAGES OF ADULT LIFE
• Entering middle adulthood (45-50)
– Living out previously made changes
– For many, the most satisfying, enriching time of life
• Age 50 transition (50-55)
– Time of moderate crisis
– Men “review where they have come from and make plans for
where they are heading.”
• Culmination of middle adulthood (55-60)
– Finish framework of life structure for middle adulthood
– A period of great fulfillment
• Late adult transition (60-65)
– Ending middle age and preparing for late adulthood
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APPLICATION OF LEVINSON’S THEORY TO WOMEN
• Papulia and Olds (1992) study of dissertations:
– The mentor - Women substantially less likely to have a mentor
– Love relationship – Men seek women to support their dreams.
Women seek a “special man” but see themselves as supporting his
dreams.
– The dream – Men find themselves by separating from family of
origin and pursuing own interests. Women develop identities
through responsibilities and attachments of relationships.
– Men dream of occupational achievement, status accomplishment.
Women – less clear dreams; more tentative mix of family and
career interests.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2003
LEVINSON’S STUDY OF WOMEN
The Seasons of a Woman’s Life (1996)
Levinson interviewed 45 women aged 35-45 years, including 15
homemakers, 15 female executives in major corporate financial
organizations, and 15 female faculty members.
• Women, similar to men, go through age-linked developmental
stages, often moving from one stage to the next through painful and
turbulent periods of transition.
• The homemakers dreamed in youth of traditional, family
centered life. By mid-life:
–
–
–
–
All but one working outside the home
Half were legally divorced; most of the rest, psychologically divorced
Motherhood was a less central component of their life structure
Increased independence and desire to exist on more equal terms with
men
• Levinson concluded that a traditional marriage is no longer
viable in our culture
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LEVINSON’S STUDY OF WOMEN
THE CAREER WOMEN
• The career women dreamed in youth of modifying
the traditional homemaker pattern.
• At midlife:
– Intense struggle between the “Traditional Homemaker
Figure” and the internal Anti-Traditional figure
– Attempting to be everything to everyone, seeking to have
everything
– Plagued by exhaustion, worries about their children, and
exasperation with their spouses who fail to do their fair share
of household responsibilities and child care.
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LEVENSON – STAGES OF ADULT LIFE
CRITICAL ASSESSMENT
• Small, biased samples – Not a random cross-section of men or
women.
• Generational issues – Will future generations follow the same
patterns?
Practical application:
– People seek help during periods of crisis
– Understanding the difficulties of transitions from one stage of life
to the next is useful for helping people understand and work
through the crises they experience.
Tasks of transition periods:
– Review and evaluate the past
– Accept loses at the end of a period
– Explore new options – decide what to keep and what to discard;
consider possibilities for the future.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2003
THINK AND SHARE
LEVINSON’S STAGES OF ADULT LIFE
• Locate yourself in Levinson’s stages of adult
development. Are you “on task” according to his
developmental model?
• Envision your “dream.” Does your gender influence
your dream in the ways described by Papulia and Olds?
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2003