Chapter 13: Early Adulthood:
Physical and Cognitive
Development
Development Across the Lifespan
Physical Development and Stress
In Early Adulthood
 In most respects physical development and
maturation are complete by early
adulthood.
 Full height, proportional limbs, tend to
be healthy, vigorous, energetic
 Most people are at the peak of their
physical capabilities.
 The brain continues to grow in both size
and weight, reaching its maximum in early
adulthood.
 Brain wave patterns show changes (more
mature patterns)
The senses are as sharp as they will ever be.
No significant deterioration in vision (until
the 40’s)
Hearing is at its peak
Taste, smell, sensitivity to touch good
Most professional athletes are at their peak
during early adulthood
Psychomotor abilities (eye-hand
coordination, etc.)
Physical Fitness in Early Adulthood
 The superior physical capabilities common
to early adulthood don’t come naturally;
exercise and diet are required to reach full
physical potential
 Although exercise is talked about a lot in
the U.S., no more than 10 % of Americans
exercise enough to keep themselves in
good physical shape.
 Less than ¼ participate in moderate
exercise on a regular basis
Unfortunately….
 Exercise is largely an upper- and middle-class
phenomenon
People of low socioeconomic status (SES) often lack
the time or money to participate
People in general do not exercise enough!
The conspicuousness of exercise in the U.S. is
misleading!
Less than 10% of Americans exercise sufficiently
to keep them in shape
Less than a quarter engage in even moderate
regular exercise
Physical Fitness in Early Adulthood, continued
 According the CDC (center for disease control),
people should get 30 minutes of moderate
physical activity at least 5 days per week
 Can be continuous, or in 10 minute chunks
(as long as it totals 30 min. per day)
 Examples of moderate activity: walking
briskly, biking/10 mph, golfing (no cart!),
fishing, ping pong, household chores
(weeding, vacuuming, etc.)
The Result of Fitness: Longevity
The greater the fitness level, the lower the death rate.
Other advantages to regular exercise
 increases cardiovascular

fitness
 lung capacity increases
 muscles become stronger
 body becomes more
flexible and

maneuverable
 reduces osteoporosis, the
thinning of bones, in later
life

optimizes the
immune response
decreases stress,
anxiety, and
depression
increases sense of
control and feelings
of accomplishment
increases longevity
Health & exercise in early adulthood, continued
 A lack of exercise may lead to poor
health in general, but health risks in
general are low during early adulthood
 Young adults are less susceptible to
colds and illnesses
 Good immune systems
 Tendency to exercise
 More likely to die in accidents (usually
car related) than most other causes
Health & exercise in early adulthood, continued
 The leading causes of death among
young adults (ages 25-34) are:
 accidents
 AIDS
 cancer
 heart disease
 Suicide
~ At age 35, this reverses and illness and disease
become more likely causes (for the 1st time since
infancy)
Not all people fare equally well in early adulthood…
 Men are more apt to die from accidents than
women
 African-Americans have twice the death rate
of Caucasians.
~~~The murder rate in the U.S. is significantly
higher than in any other developed country.
—U.S rate = 21.9 per 100,000 me; Japanese
rate = 0.5 murders per 100,000 men <4000%
difference!>
Tracking Murder
Racial Factors effect murder rates
Murder is the fifth most frequent cause of death for
young White Americans (1 in 131 chance in lifetime)
Murder is the most frequent cause of death for AfricanAmericans (1 in 21 chance in lifetime)
---In some areas of the country, a young black male has
a higher probability of being murdered than a soldier in
the Vietnam War had of being killed!
 African American male: 1 in 21 chance of being
murdered in his lifetime
 European American male: 1 in 131 chance
Eating, Nutrition, and Obesity
Most young adults know which foods
are healthy, but ignore good nutrition
Since physical growth is beginning to
decline in this developmental period,
young adults must reduce the
calories they were used to during
adolescence
Eating, Nutrition, and Obesity, continued
 Young adults will put on weight if they do
not eat sensibly.
 31 % of the adult population is classified
as overweight.
 7 % of men and 10 % of women between
the ages of 20 and 25 are obese.
 The rate of obesity in the U.S. is
increasing
Obesity on the Rise…
Genetic factors may lead people to become
obese.
Environmental and social factors also produce
obesity.
Obese people may have a higher WEIGHT SET
POINT, the particular level the body strives to
maintain.
Most people who diet eventually gain back the
weight
Physical Disabilities in Young Adulthood: Coping With
Physical Challenge
 Some 50+ million Americans are physically
challenged - or disabled - a condition that
substantially limits a major life activity such as
walking or vision.
 Fewer than 10 % of people with major
handicaps have finished high school.
 Fewer than 25 % of disabled men and 15 % of
disabled women work full time.
 Adults with handicaps are often unemployed,
or stuck in routine, low-paying jobs.
~~WHY? BARRIERS!
Discrimination and prejudice are barriers and affect the
way that people with disabilities view themselves (their
cognitive development!)
 Despite the Americans with Disabilities Act (1990),
many older buildings are inaccessible to wheelchairs.
 Prejudice and discrimination affect the way disabled
people think of themselves.
 Pity, avoidance
 Treating adults as children
 Seeing disabled person as a category rather than
an individual
Stress & Coping in Early Adulthood: Another Factor
Effecting Cognitive Development
 STRESS is the response to events that
threaten or challenge an individual.
 Our lives are filled with events and
circumstances known as stressors, that
cause threats to our well-being.
(Stress & Coping in Early Adulthood, continued)
Stressors can be both pleasant events and
unpleasant events (weddings, winning awards,
exams, arguments)
Long-term, continuous exposure to stressors may
result in a reduction of the body's ability to deal
with stress.
People become more susceptible to diseases
as their ability to fight off germs declines
According to Lazarus and Folkman, not every
situation produces stress

Lazarus and Folkman believe that people move
through a series of stages that determine whether
or not they will experience stress (the way a
situation is appraised will determine the
perception of stress)
 PRIMARY APPRAISAL is the assessment of an event to
determine whether its implications are positive, negative,
or neutral
 SECONDARY APPRAISAL is the assessment of whether
one's coping abilities and resources are adequate to
overcome the harm, threat, or challenge posed by the
potential stressor
~The way an individual evaluates a potential stressor
determines whether the individual will experience stress.
Steps in the
Perception of
Stress
Overall Principals Predicting When an Event will be
Stressful (Shelly Taylor, 1991)
 Events and circumstances that produce negative
emotions are more likely to produce stress.
 Situations that are uncontrollable or
unpredictable are more likely to produce stress.
 Events and circumstances that are ambiguous
and confusing produce more stress.
 People who must accomplish simultaneously
many tasks are more likely to experience stress.
 Stress Quiz in text
The Consequences of Stress During Early
Adulthood
 Stress may lead to PSYCHOSOMATIC
DISORDERS, medical problems
caused by the interaction of
psychological, emotional, and physical
difficulties.
 Some young adults are better than
others at COPING, the effort to reduce,
or tolerate the threats that lead to
stress.
Styles of Coping…
 Problem-focused coping is the attempt to
manage a stressful problem or situation by
directly changing the situation to make it less
stressful.
 Emotion-focused coping involves the
conscious regulation of emotion.
 Coping is also aided by the presence of social
support, assistance and comfort supplied by
others.
 Defense coping involves unconscious
strategies that distort or deny the true nature of
the situation.
Cognitive Development in Early Adulthood
Physical development slows down during
early adulthood, but does cognitive?
Piaget and others argued that by the
time the teen years were finished,
thinking stabilized
BUT increasing evidence suggests that
this part of Piaget’s theory was incorrect!
Cognitive Development in Early Adulthood, continued…
 Developmentalist Giesela Labouvie-Vief suggests
that the nature of thinking changes qualitatively
during early adulthood.
 Adults exhibit POSTFORMAL THOUGHT, thinking
that goes beyond Piaget's formal operations.
 Adult predicaments are sometimes solved by
relativistic thinking rather than pure logic.
 Postformal thought acknowledges that the world
sometimes lacks purely right and wrong
solutions and adults must draw upon prior
experiences to solve problems.
K. Warner Schaie suggests that adults' thinking
follows a set pattern of stages
 The ACQUISITIVE STAGE, which
encompasses all of childhood and
adolescence, in which the main
developmental task is to acquire
information.
 The ACHIEVING STAGE is the point
reached by young adults in which
intelligence is applied to specific
situations involving the attainment of
long-term goals regarding careers, family,
and societal contributions.
Schaie stages of cognitive development,
continued…
 The RESPONSIBLE STAGE is the stage where the
major concerns of middle-aged adults relate to their
personal situations, including protecting and
nourishing their spouses, families, and careers.
 The EXECUTIVE STAGE is the period in middle
adulthood when people take a broader perspective
than earlier, including concerns about the world.
 The REINTEGRATIVE STAGE is the period of late
adulthood during which the focus is on tasks that
have personal meaning
Schaie’s Stages of Adult Development
“How do you meet your goals?”-- The way adults answer
has a lot to do with their future success according to
psychologist Robert Sternberg.
 Robert Sternberg, in his TRIARCHIC
THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE
suggests that intelligence is made up
of three major components:
 Componential aspects
 Experiential components
 Contextual factors
Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of Intelligence
Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of Intelligence
Componential intelligence relates to the
mental components involved in analyzing
data, and in solving problems, especially
problems involving rational behavior.
(traditional IQ tests focus on this aspect)
Experiential intelligence refers to the
relationship between intelligence, people's
prior experience, and their ability to cope
with new situations
(Sternberg, continued)
 Contextual intelligence involves the degree
of success people demonstrate in facing
the demands of their everyday, real-world
environments.
~~ Sternberg contends that success in a
career necessitates this type of intelligence
(contextual), also called PRACTICAL
INTELLIGENCE, intelligence that is
learned primarily by observing others and
modeling their behavior.
Sample
items from a
test that
taps four
domains of
practical
intelligence
(see text)
Expanding on Sternberg’s theory…
Psychologist Seymour Epstein argues
that constructive thinking, a form of
practical intelligence, underlies
success in such areas as social
relationships and physical and
emotional health
Creativity: Novel Thought in Early Adulthood
The major works of many creative
individuals were produced during early
adulthood
Psychologist Sarnoff Mednick proposed that
higher productivity exists during early
adulthood
 One factor: “familiarity breeds rigidity”
(the more people know about something,
the more rigid they become)
Clearly not universal
Creativity & Age…The period of maximum creativity differs
depending on the particular field.
(Creativity: Novel Thought in Early Adulthood,
continued)
 CREATIVITY, combining responses or ideas in creative
ways, is at its peak for many individuals during early
adulthood.
 People in early adulthood may be at the peak of their
creativity because many of the problems they
encounter on a professional level are novel.
 Creative people are willing to take risks.
 Creative people develop and endorse ideas that are
unfashionable or regarded as "wrong".
 Not all people reach their creative peak in early
adulthood
Life events & cognitive development
 Some research suggests that major life events,
such as marriage, birth of a child, starting a first
job, having a child, buying a house, may lead to
cognitive growth.
 The ups and downs of life events may lead young
adults to think about the world in novel, more
complex, sophisticated, and often less rigid ways.
 Applying postformal thought (Labouvie-Vief)
allows them to deal more effectively with the
complex social world
College: Pursuing Higher Education
 Nationwide, a minority of high school graduates
enter college.
 40 % of White Americans enter college.
 29 % of African-Americans enter college.
 31 % of Hispanic high school graduates enter
college.
 Only about 40 % of those who start will graduate
from college in 4 years.
 ½ will eventually finish.
 70 % of African-Americans drop out of college.
By the year 2000, the U.S. Dept. of Education projects
increases in college attendance
 Minority students are an increasingly
larger proportion of the college
population.
 African-American students have
increased by 13 %.
 Hispanic students have increased by 22
%.
 White students have increased by 6 %
College Enrollment by Racial Group
Ethnic diversity has increased over the last several decades.
Changes in College Attendance,
continued…
~These changes reflect differences in
the racial & ethnic composition of
the U.S. & the growing realization
that higher education improves
economic well-being.
Education & Economic Security
Higher education, continued
 There are now more women than men
enrolled in college, and by the year 2007,
women's enrollment is expected to increase
30 % from 1995 compared to an increase of
only 13 % for men.
 College is a period of developmental growth
that encompasses mastery not just of
particular bodies of knowledge, but of ways
of understanding the world.
The Changing College Student: Never too Late
to go to College
 40 % of college students today are 25
years of age or older.
 The average age of a community college
student is 31.
 A college degree is becoming increasingly
important in obtaining a job.
 Many employers require and encourage
their workers to update their skills.
(The Changing College Student, continued)
 According to Sherry Willis, adults return to
college for several reasons.
 To understand their own aging.
 To keep up with rapid technological and
cultural advances.
 To combat obsolescence on the job.
 To acquire new vocational skills.
 As a means of broadening their intellectual
skills
What do college students learn?.
 William Perry found that students grow
intellectually and morally during college
 On entering, students tend to use dualistic
thinking, either something was right or wrong,
good or bad, for them or against them.
 Students increasingly realize during college that
issues can have more than one plausible side,
that it is possible to hold multiple perspectives
on an issue, characterized by multiple thinking.
William Perry’s view of intellectual and moral
development in young adulthood, continued
 Students eventually enter a stage
regarded as relativistic, where,
rather than seeing the world as
having absolute standards and
values, they see that different
societies, cultures, and individuals
can have different standards and
values, all equally valid.
Gender & College Performance
 Prejudice and discrimination directed at women is still a
fact of college life.
 Hostile sexism (overtly harmful treatment)
 Benevolent sexism (a form of sexism in which women
are placed in stereotyped & restrictive roles that may
appear positive.
 Complimenting a student on appearance
 Offering an easier research project so a student
won’t have to work so hard
~ Message may be that the woman is not taken
seriously, and competence is undermined.
~Classes in education and the social sciences
have larger proportions of women than men.
Differences exist in gender distribution in classes &
attrition rates
Classes in engineering, the physical sciences,
and mathematics tend to have more men than
women.
Women earn just 22 % of the bachelor degrees
in science and 13 % of the doctorates
Women are more likely to drop out of math,
engineering, and physical science classes.
Why do differences exist in gender distribution in
classes & attrition rates?
 The powerful influence of gender
stereotypes!
Women are less likely to consider choosing
these majors their 1st year of college
(societal messages)
More likely to choose fields traditionally
populated by women
Different expectations regarding
competence
During the
1st year of
college,
men are
more likely
to view
themselves
as above
average in
several
academic
areas.
The Great Gender Divide
What is at the root of this difference?
Gender differences reflect the powerful effect of
gender stereotypes.
 Women expect to earn less than men and in
fact earn 70 cents for every dollar that men
earn.
 Women expect to do worse in some academic
areas than men
~ Stereotype threat hypothesis (expectation
based on stereotype leads to outcomes)
 Study by Spencer, Quinn & Steele (1997)Tough math test given. When the test portrayed
as gender-neutral, no gender difference in
results! (chart, next slide)
Stereotype Threat
Women are
vulnerable to
expectations
regarding their
success.
(gender & college performance, continued)
 Males receive more extra help and more positive
reinforcement for their comments than women do.
 Although not entirely consistent, some research
shows that women who attend same-sex colleges
show higher self-esteem than those attending
coeducational colleges.
 They receive more attention.
 More professors are women.
 They receive more encouragement in science
and math.
(gender & college performance, continued)
 Boys & girls perform almost identically
on standardized math tests in
elementary and middle school, but this
changes from high school through
college
 When African-Americans start school,
their standardized test scores are only
slightly lower than those of EuropeanAmericans, but a 2-year gap emerges
by 6th grade
– WHY??
Psychologist Claude Steele found that
the reason both women and African
Americans perform less well in college
is academic disidentification - a lack
of personal identification with an
academic domain
~More understanding of this effect is needed!
~May be connected to high school drop out rates as
well!
Dropping out of college
 Half of all students drop out of
college.




Why?
Marriage, children, or death of parent
requires students to drop out
Academic difficulties
College is expensive
Some students need time off to
mature
Dropping out of college, continued
 The FIRST-YEAR ADJUSTMENT REACTION is a
group of psychological symptoms relating to the
college experience.
 Most likely to occur among students who were
especially successful academically or socially
in high school (sudden change in status often
causes distress)
 Surveys show that almost half of all college
students have a least one significant
psychological issue.
When should college students consider getting professional
help with their problems?
~There are no strict rules about who can benefit from
professional counseling
Some common signals include the presence of the following
Psychological distress that lingers and interferes with a
persons sense of well-being and ability to function
Feelings that one is unable to cope effectively with the
stress
Hopelessness or depressed feelings
The inability to build close relationships with others
Physical symptoms that have no apparent underlying
cause
Almost everyone can benefit from talking to
someone if things are bothering them!
 Consider the college counseling center—
can be very helpful to have support!
 Career Services on campus
Both have lots of resources available
including support groups, individual
counseling, and help with career planning
(AND most services are already paid for
by your student fees!)
Remember to keep
up with your reading!