Sex, Crime, Drugs, and Just Plain Stupid Behaviors

The New Face of Young Adulthood in America

Christopher Salvatore

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9783319727653
• eBook ISBN:
  9783319727660
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Policy
• Index: Social Sciences

Sex, Crime, Drugs, and Just Plain Stupid Behaviors: The New Face of Young Adulthood in America is written for students, parents, and practitioners to provide insight into how emerging adulthood impacts the lives and behaviors of young people. Salvatore provides an insightful examination of the evolution of emerging adulthood as a distinct stage of the life course, bridging the gap between macro-level social forces and micro-level life experiences and behavior. 

Chapters discuss the influence of social institutions such as marriage, the family, religion, and parenting on behavior during emerging adulthood. Exploration and sensation-seeking are examined in relation to the behaviors and identity of emerging adults alongside issues such as criminal offending, substance use, and other risky/dangerous behaviors. Finally, the book concludes with informed policy recommendations for social institutions such as educational establishments and the criminal justice system on how to work with emerging adults. 

© The Author(s) 2018

Christopher SalvatoreSex, Crime, Drugs, and Just Plain Stupid Behaviorshttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72766-0_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction to Emerging Adulthood

Christopher Salvatore¹

(1)

Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ, USA

Abstract

What is emerging adulthood ? How did it come about? How does it impact the behavior of young people in modern society ? Here we introduce these ideas: major concepts are introduced and emerging adulthood is explained in the context of other cohort-based generations. An outline plan of this book is presented by chapter.

Keywords

Emerging adulthoodCrimeSTDsGenerationCollegeParenting

End Abstract

“But mom you don’t understand, things are different from when you were my age,” “I just can’t understand how I am so far behind where my parents were at my age,” “Just because I’m over 18 doesn’t mean I’m not a kid, I’m a long way from being a grown up.” You’ve probably heard someone in your life say something along the lines of one of the sentences above, or perhaps said them yourself. I’ve done both, sometimes in the same conversation. The thing is, every generation faces challenges and issues. The ‘Greatest Generation’ faced World War II and the Depression, the ‘Me’ generation of the 1970s dealt with social and civil unrest and conflicts over the Vietnam War. ‘Generation X’ faced a plethora of plaid clothing and the dour prospect of downward mobility relative to their parents. Millennials cope with helicopter parents, spiking rates of STDs , and fascination with the modern-day mirror known as the selfie. These are just a few examples that demonstrate that every generation of young people faces a distinct set of challenges. Some challenges and changes overlap with generations: one such case is the development of emerging adulthood , a unique stage of the life course brought about by a set of social changes we will be exploring throughout this book.

What’s interesting about emerging adulthood is that it hasn’t just impacted one generation ; in fact emerging adulthood was most likely first experienced by those born in 1960 up to today. Emerging adulthood may be the reason it feels it took or is taking you so long to become a ‘real’ adult perhaps marked by getting married, purchasing your own home, getting your own apartment, finally finishing college , or having your first child. Emerging adulthood may help explain why so many of your friends are experimenting with their sexuality, trying drugs, or simply not doing much at all. Perhaps you are a parent of an emerging adult, wondering why it’s taking your child so long to get their act together and still living in your home well after they have graduated college and started working. You may even be wondering if you will ever have that ‘empty nest’ you always heard so much about on TV and in parenting magazines.

For most people in Western nations like the United States, the period of the late teen years through the early twenties has always been one of change and importance. For most, it was when they were completing their higher education , chose their professions, established romantic partnerships , and by the late twenties most were relatively established in these areas (Arnett , 2000).

You are probably wondering what is ‘emerging adulthood ’? How did it come about? What is it about being an ‘emerging adult’ that makes someone more likely to binge drink , experiment with drugs, have unsafe sex , and do generally stupid or dangerous things you think someone would have grown out of by the time they were 18? These are the questions we will be exploring in this book.

Emerging adulthood is a theory originally presented by Jeffrey Jenson Arnett in 1994 to describe the period between adolescence and young adulthood, between about 18 and 25, though some have argued it can extend far beyond the age of 25 (Salvatore , 2013). Arnett (2015) eventually expanded the age range of emerging adulthood from 18 until 29, though many still focus on the ‘classic’ 18- to 25-year-old age range. What is important to understand about emerging adulthood is that it is a unique developmental stage: it isn’t adolescence, and it’s not young adulthood. The theory of emerging adulthood focuses on the psychological and subjective experiences of those in emerging adulthood. There are specific factors that characterize emerging adulthood. First, is a feeling of being ‘in between,’ reflecting no longer being an adolescent, but not being a young adult. Next, is identity exploration in several areas including romantic and sexual relationships, employment , and substance use. Third, is instability: emerging adulthood is a time of a lot of vacillation and change, reflective of the identity exploration so common in emerging adults. Fourth, it’s a time of self-focus and self-interest, and finally, it is a period marked by possibility (Arnett , 2005, 2015; Tanner & Arnett , 2009).

So why does emerging adulthood lead to ‘bad’ behavior? This is a question we will be exploring throughout this book, examining the complex role of social controls , missed turning points, and social bonds. But the short answer is that during emerging adulthood individuals are no longer subjected to teacher or parental controls compared to childhood and the earlier years of adolescence, yet they have not established permanent romantic relationships or bonds with employers and coworkers that can act to inhibit antisocial behaviors. The increased freedom of emerging adulthood provides opportunities to engage in identity exploration through sexual and substance use experimentation (Arnett , 1998; Tucker , Ellickson, Orlando, Martino, & Klein, 2005; White & Jackson , 2004; White et al., 2006). In other words, unlike high school students, those in emerging adulthood do not have parents and teachers to prevent them from engaging in risky and dangerous behaviors.

Plan of this Book

As stated above, the purpose of this book is to provide the reader an understanding of emerging adulthood , how it has come about, how it is characterized, and why we see sexual experimentation, criminal offending, substance use, and other ‘stupid’ behaviors during this period. This is useful for students in classes in criminology , criminal justice , justice studies , sociology , social psychology , psychology , and other related fields. It will provide these students an insight into their own lives and the lives of their peers. This book is also a resource for parents, professors , and practitioners in the above fields, helping them to understand the unique experiences of emerging adults—hey, it may even provide them with a better understanding of their own emerging adulthood even if they didn’t know they were experiencing emerging adulthood at the time. Please note this book is not meant to be a complete and total resource for emerging adulthood. It is conceptualized as a reader, providing a summary of many of the key issues and behaviors most relevant to the disciplines and audiences mentioned above. For those of you seeking more info...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction to Emerging Adulthood
• 2. The Changing Path to Adulthood
• 3. Emerging Adulthood: A Time of Instability, Exploration, and Change
• 4. Emerging Adults and Changing Values: Religion and Morality During Emerging Adulthood
• 5. How Marriage/Romance, Parenting, Education, and Work Are Different for Emerging Adults
• 6. Emerging Adults and Risky and Dangerous Behaviors
• 7. Emerging Adults and Illegal Drugs/Substance Use
• 8. Emerging Adults and Criminal Offending
• 9. Implications for Policy and Change
• 10. Conclusions
• Back Matter