Developmental Psychology For The Health Care Professions, Part Ii

Young Adult Through Late Aging

Howard. S. Feldman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9780429716065
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Educational Psychology

First published in 1982. Since the 1960s, there has been growing interest in and research on the adult years of the life cycle. Previously, developmental studies had focused on childhood and adolescence, in which an orderly relationship between age and growth was assumed. This volume looks at three periods of adulthood identified on the basis of chronological age: young adulthood, from 18 to 40; middle adulthood, from 40 to 65; and later adulthood, from 65 until death.

The authors of the series volumes are behavioral scientists with considerable experience in the education of health care professionals. Most of them are also clinicians, and their varied experience enables them to present their topics in a readable fashion. The content of the texts presumes only a very basic knowledge of the behavioral sciences, and emphasis is placed on the practical implications of research findings for health care delivery.

1
A Developmental Perspective on Adulthood

Introduction

Since the 1960s, there has been growing interest in and research on the adult years of the life cycle. Previously, developmental studies had focused on childhood and adolescence, in which an orderly relationship between age and growth was assumed. Adulthood had been looked at as a time of stability, the end point of earlier developmental processes. The changes presumed to occur during adulthood were typically seen as centering around issues of deterioration that take place gradually, universally, and in an age-related pattern. These assumptions are now being challenged, and the span of time between early adulthood and ultimate death has become an area of great research activity. The new orientation looks at human development as a life-long process with change taking place throughout every phase, and its goal is to identify which changes take place at which points in the life course and to establish the nature of the patterns and interrelationships of these changes. Throughout adulthood, individuals experience growth, stability, stagnation, and deterioration in many aspects of their lives. These processes are subject to an intricate interaction between biological, psychological, and socioenvironmental factors.

We will be looking at three periods of adulthood identified on the basis of chronological age: young adulthood, from 18 to 40; middle adulthood, from 40 to 65; and later adulthood, from 65 until death. This division is somewhat arbitrary, although it has heuristic value; issues and events actually overlap these periods and may occur repeatedly throughout adulthood. The first chapter provides a general overview of adult developmental psychology and explores physiological changes in young and middle adulthood. The second and third chapters explore young and middle adulthood, respectively, and examine psychological issues that are dealt with during those periods, as well as the adult's involvement in relationships and work. The next three chapters focus on later adulthood, with the fourth looking at the relationship between health and aging and the fifth examining the research on cognitive changes that take place in later adulthood. The last chapter explores psychosocial processes such as coping, adaptation, retirement, and death in old age.

Life-Cycle Theories

A variety of theories have delineated either stages or tasks of development that take place at various ages. The more comprehensive theories describe a series of steps that take place throughout the life cycle; the others tend to focus on delineating processes within a specific age period. Theories focusing on the complete life cycle present general outlines of the process of development but explain neither why the proposed patterns occur nor what the nature of the interaction of the biological, social, and psychological spheres is. They do, however, provide a framework for understanding the human life cycle as a sequential progression. We will review several of these life-span theories, but our focus will be on development in the adult years.

Havighurst

Havighurst (1972) proposed a series of life stages, each represented by unique developmental tasks. The tasks arise at certain periods of the individual's life, and successful completion leads to happiness at that period; later success is dependent on the completion of earlier tasks. Havighurst divided the life span into six periods, three of which pertain to adulthood: early adulthood, between 18 and 35; middle adulthood, between 35 and 60; and later maturity, beyond that age. The specific developmental tasks for each age include:

Early Adulthood– selecting a mate
learning to live with a marriage partner
starting a family
rearing children
managing a home
beginning an occupation
assuming civic responsibility
finding social groups

Middle Adulthood–achieving adult civic and social responsibility establishing and maintaining an economic standard of living
helping teenage children to become responsible, happy adults
developing adult leisure activities
relating to the spouse as a person
accepting and adapting to physiological changes
adjusting to aging parents

Later Maturity– adjusting to declining physical strength and health
adjusting to retirement and reduced income
adjusting to the death of a spouse
establishing relationships within one's age group
meeting social and civic responsibilities
establishing satisfactory physical living arrangements

Jung

Although many psychoanalytic theorists emphasize development during childhood, Jung (1960) stressed and identified stages of adult development as well. Jung's first developmental stage actually begins after puberty and extends through ages 35 to 40. He labeled this phase "youth" and saw it as marked by individual development, investment in the outer world, and producing and caring for children. During this period the individual must confront giving up the dreams of childhood while generally broadening horizons and actively engaging the world in a concrete, task- and achievement-oriented manner. Sometime between 35 and 40 the next stage is reached, which includes the second half of life. Jung saw this stage as developing slowly through the unconscious rather than in any direct, dramatic way. During this period there is a shift toward contraction, which is characterized by a reduction of outer-directed behavior and an increase in introversion and self-reflection. Throughout the life cycle, but markedly in this phase, the individual attempts to balance opposing life forces (e.g., feminine and masculine traits and behaviors), ultimately reaching for the primary goal of life, "self-actualization." Self-actualization cannot be reached through the outer-directed energy of youth but must be developed through the accumulation of experience tempered with self-reflection. As a person lives the second half of life, a new purpose must unfold for that life to continue to have meaning. Jung saw continued striving for the goals of youth as counterproductive to the development of future-oriented goals. He believed that it is psychologically positive to accept death as a personally meaningful event and to find within it a goal to strive toward that allows for its acceptance. Thus, jung saw the nature of man's striving, the development of goals, and the direction of energy as changing throughout the life cycle and ultimately leading to self-actualization, marked by a balancing of life's polarities.

Buhler

Charlotte Buhler (1968) was probably the earliest theorist to systematically examine the complete life cycle. Her method involved collecting biographies, letters, diaries, and later, clinical interviews from about 400 people of varying social classes, occupations, and national origins. This information was classified into three categories: (1) activities, such as profession, friends, etc.; (2) subjective responses to activities and events; and (3) accomplishments during the life cycle. Analysis of this information resulted in the identification of five psychosocial stages:

1. birth to 15–goals are not self-determined
2. 15 to 25–experimental selection of goals with associated preparation
3. 25 to 45–definite and specific self-determination of goals
4. 45 to 65–assessment of the results of striving for goals
5. 65 on–acknowledgment of degree of fulfillment with recognition of success or failure

These psychosocial stages were also compared to five biological phases: (1) progressive growth, continuing to age 15; (2) continued growth (15 to 25), including the ability to reproduce sexually; (3) stability of growth, between 25 and 45; (4) loss of sexual reproductive ability, between 45 and 65; and (5) biological decline, from 65 on.

"In general, Buhler's theory reflects the ongoing parallel between the biological process of growth, stability and decline and the psychosocial process of expansion, culmination and contraction in activities and accomplishments" (Kimmel 1980, p. 10). On the whole this parallel is maintained, but there is a great deal of room for the two curves to diverge, allowing for a good many individual differences. For example, it is quite possible to experience psychosocial productivity during the phase of biological decline. Buhler viewed life as primarily goal-directed, with the formulation of goals being the central unifying principle in the individual's life. According to her theory, goals are gradually set during the first 20 years of life, culminating in a sense of self-fulfillment in later years. Although some individuals may set new goals during the later life phases, people generally begin focusing on retirement and stability at that time.

Kuhlert (1964) has expanded Buhlek's theory, especially in the area of the process of growth, culmination, and contraction. He proposed that the growth expansion motives (e.g., achievement, creativity, power) dominate behavior in the first half of life and that as the individual ages, there is a shift to achieving gratification through less active, more indirect ways. From this perspective the life cycle is marked by the two basic tendencies of growth-expansion and contraction. At some point in midlife, there would seem to be a shift between the two. For Buhler it occurs in the period of self-assessment (ages 45 to 50); for Kuhlen the time of transition is not clearly defined and may be related to a variety of social/psychological/physical events.

Erikson

Erik Erikson (1963, 1968, 1976) divided the life cycle into eight ages or phases. The first four relate to childhood, the fifth to adolescence, and the last three to adulthood. Erikson outlined a series of psychosocial crises crucial to an individual's development. These crises present the potential for continued growth or maladjustment, depending on how they are resolved. As each crisis is faced, a specific psychosocial strength is developed that contributes to further development. Erikson saw each phase as marked by a predominant crisis, and believed that sequential resolution is crucial, but he stated clearly that resolution of one stage does not invariably lead to resolution of the next and that elements of each crisis are present in some form throughout each of the phases.

As the phases of childhood and adolescence have been described in the first developmental volume in this series (Billingham 1981), only the stages that occur during the adult life cycle will be reviewed. Each crisis is marked by a pair of opposite qualities that must be integrated and resolved in order to result in necessary ego development. The resolution ends in the development of a particular human strength, such as hope, will, purpose, competence, fidelity, love, care, or wisdom. Erikson's sixth stage, young adulthood (ages 20 to 40), involves the struggle between intimacy and isolation, with the capacity for love as the desired resolution. True intimacy cannot be achieved until the earlier identity crisis of adolescence is resolved. In the stage of young adulthood, the individual either develops the capacity to make commitments to the self and others or avoids intimacy, which leads to isolation rather than love based on mutual devotion. Middle adulthood (ages 40 to 65) is marked by the struggle between "generativity" and "stagnation," with the resolution leading to "care." The individual must also deal with the issues of productivity and creativity as they relate to the opposites of the self and others. These polarities incorporate pride and pleasure, an enriched life, and guidance for later generations on the one side and an egocentric, nonproductive life approach marked by seif-indulgence and personal impoverishment on the other. This stage is the longest and is primarily concerned with the production of something that will outlive the self. The last stage, that of old age or maturity, is marked by the struggle between "integrity" and "despair" stimulated by the growing awareness of death and involving the evaluation of one's life and accomplishments. A sense of integrity develops from the understanding, appreciation, and acceptance of one's life as having had meaning; despair stems from the sense of one's life having been meaningless or wasted. Integrity allows the acceptance of death, the final stage of life; despair leads to fear of death and a loss of faith in the self and others.

While these stages take up a good many years of one's life and the crises are fairly general, Peck (1968) has attempted to define more precisely the issues of these ages. He proposed seven critical tasks, of which four are in the middle years and three in the later years:

1. Valuing wisdom rather than physical power.
2. Socialization rather than sexualization of human relationships, allowing greater depth of understanding and enhancing the marital relationship when children are leaving home.
3. Cathectic flexibility versus cathectic impoverishment, leading to emotional openness with a wider range of relationships that replace ties broken when children leave home and friends die.
4. Mental flexibility versus mental rigidity.
5. Ego differentiation versus work-role preoccupation, allowing for the development of a wider range of meaningful activities to replace the loss of a work role.
6. Body transcendence versus body preoccupation, allowing the enjoyment of life despite the inevitable physical decline or deterioration.
7. Ego transcendence versus ego preoccupation, resulting in finding meaning in life through more than one's current activities or actions.

Research on Stages of Adulthood

Recently a number of researchers have begun to explore the events that occur and the issues that are dealt with throughout the period of adulthood. The goal of these studies (which will be reviewed briefly below) has been to identify the sequence of psychosocial development between the ages of approximately 20 and 60. This research has resulted in a variety of perspectives on adult development that have not as yet been integrated. Questions raised concern the nature of development at these times and the relationship between change and time. It is possible that change through the adult life cycle takes place in several ways. It can be explained on the basis of individual events that occur idiosyncratically and trigger change and growth whenever they occur. It is possible, instead, that people progress through specific life stages in a fairly consistent, specific order that is standard or universal in some way. Finally, development may be linked to chronological age and may proceed in an invariable sequence. These perspectives highlight one of the central questions of development in adulthood. Does development proceed through an orderly, predictable sequence based on some kind of internal triggering mechanism, or is development contingent on external events and their impact on the individual? There is currently no direct answer to this question, but it is likely that Neugarten's (1979) view and Kimmel's (1980) conclusions may best represent the current state of knowledge. Adult development, in all likelihood, involves an interaction between internally triggered and controlled experiences and external events that appears to be linked in some way to age and social expectations; however, it can be greatly altered by external events and individual idiosyncrasies.

A study by Levinson (1978) involved a small sample (40 subjects) of men between the ages of 35 and 45. All were from the same geographical area, but the sample included both blue- and white-collar workers with some minor variation in ethnic background. The study itself was cross-sectional in design and included for each subject a total of 10-20 hours of taped interviews over a 2-3 month period as well as a 2-year follow-up interview. The data gathered included biographical material of the complete life span. The purpose of the study was to identify "relatively universal, genotypic, age linked adult developmental periods" (Levinson et al. 1977, p. 49). The researchers were surprised to find little variability in the age at which each period began. In their view, specific transitions are closely linked to chronological age, and the sequence was found to be consistent across individuals. For Levinson, early adulthood begins after a transition period from adolescence that occurs between the ages of 17 and 22. During this period the individual separates from his or her parents and begins functioning more independently. Following this are the periods of entering the adult world, the transition at age 30, and the settling-down period just prior to age 40. From the ages of 40 to 45 occurs the period of midlife transition that leads the entry into middle adulthood (age 40 to 60). Middle adulthood includes an entry period, a transition at age 50, and finally a culmination period leading to a late-adulthood transition period. In Levinson's scheme, periods of stability alternate with more stressful periods during which change occurs.

The Grant study, published by Vaillant (1977), is the only longitudinal study in this area. It was conducted with 94 male graduates of several elite northeastern colleges. The subjects were selected from a larger sample that had been studied earlier; at the time of this follow-up the average age of the subjects was 47. A variety of psychological, physical, physiological, and cognitive data was collected through a series of questionnaires and interviews. Information on childhood development was collected from families, and the participants were sent yearly follow-up questionnaires after graduating from college. Between 1950 and 1952 each subject was interviewed at home, and in 1969 Vaillant conducted an extensive follow-up interview with those in his sample. Vaillant had intended to be able to predict future success (in job, family, and so on) from the original data gathered during the college years; however, he was surprised at the degree of variability in outcome. He concluded that the life cycle for adults appears to be "more than an invariant sequence of stages with single predictable outcomes." He saw the early adulthood years (adolescence to age 40) concerned primarily with intimacy and career development. He did not find a distinct period of settling-down, as Levinson did. He did identify a period of midlife crisis at about age 40 but did not feel that it is generally a period of upheaval and drama. It is followed by a midlife period that is essentially concerned with issues of generativity, as in Erikson's framework.

Gould (1972, 1978) reported on a series of studies of two samples: 125 males and females who were participating in outpatient psychotherapy groups set up on the basis of age (16-18, 18-22, 22-28, 29-34, 35-43, 43-50, and 50 and above); and 524 middle-class individuals, ranging in age from 16 to 60, who were not in psychotherapy but were selected through personal contacts. The groups were observed and rated on the basis of their characteristics, and differences between the age groups were examined. The larger individual sample was evaluated with a questionnaire administered once, consisting of questions developed from the observed age characteristics delineated in the group study. Could saw adult development as an ongoing struggle against the constraints of childhood ideas and illusions. At each age a set of characteristic issues, composed of a series of assumptions that must be let go of, are worked on. These assumptions are based on childhood views of the world that are tied to issues of fair play, parental protection, ultimate dependence, self-acceptance, safety, reward, and others. Although the task of revealing and accepting these assumptions as illusory tends to occur at predictable times, Gould also acknowledged fluctuations in these patterns that are tied to individual differences in personality, life-style, and subculture.

Two other major books have dealt with the developmental process through adulthood. Sheehy (1976), in her book Passages, drew on much of the literature in this area and on interview data that she gathered independently to identify the sequence of the adult life cycle. Although this book was built around personal observations and reflections more than on research data, it served to popularize this area and stimulate interest in more rigorous research. A second book, by Lowenthal, Thurnher, Chiriboga, and Associates (1975), explored specific points of transition in people's lives rather than the entire adult life span. Four groups were studied (high school seniors, newlyweds, middle-aged parents, and preretirement couples). Each group was nearing a major transition period and an attempt was made to examine the process of change and adaptation and its impact on the subjects' lives. The emphasis in the next two chapters will be on the work of Levinson, Gould, and Vaillant, but these other studies will also be referred to, as they add to our understanding of young and middle adulthood. The majority of these studies have fairly severe limitations in terms of generalizability. On the whole, they include primarily white, middle-class adults from approximately the same historical period and do not include an e...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Dedication
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables and Figures
• 1 A DEVELOPMENTAL PERSPECTIVE ON ADULTHOOD
• 2 YOUNG ADULTHOOD: AGES 18 THROUGH 40
• 3 MIDDLE ADULTHOOD: AGES 40 THROUGH 65
• 4 HEALTH AND AGING
• 5 COGNITIVE PROCESSES IN LATER ADULTHOOD
• 6 PSYCHOSOCIAL ASPECTS OF LATER ADULTHOOD
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• INDEX