After reading this chapter, students should understand that:
- Developmental tasks that mark early adulthood include: psychological separation from parents, accepting responsibility for one's own body, becoming aware of one's personal history and time limitation, etc.
- Components of happiness during early adulthood tend to be related to psychological needs and not material ones; culture impacts what psychological needs are most important—in the United States satisfaction with experiences related to the self hold primary importance
- Each person has a psychological timepiece which records the major milestones of one's life; social clocks used to be relatively uniform across people; in today's society social clocks are more heterogeneous—the clocks of women have changed dramatically
- There are patterns of development in the female personality—women become increasingly more self-disciplined and committed to duties as they age and feel more independent and confident and are better able to cope with stress and adversity; traditional feminine behavior increases during the third decade of life but tends to decrease between the late twenties and early forties (the increase and decrease was found to be related to level of involvement with children during certain periods of life); as long as a woman selects a social clock that is socially acceptable, her personality is not adversely impacted
- Erikson explains that during early adulthood, individuals are in the stage of intimacy-versus-isolation during which individuals focus on intimate relationships with others; individuals are confronted with issues related to degrees of selflessness, sexuality, and devotion; those who are unsuccessful resolving the crisis of this stage are often lonely, isolated, and fearful of relationships; those who are successful resolving the crisis are able to form intimate relationships with others on a physical, intellectual, and emotional level
- During early adulthood, friendships are formed based on proximity, similarity, and the degree of trust, loyalty, warmth and affection shared
- The stimulus-value-role theory explains that there is a similar progression to most relationships and that progression goes through three stages: the stimulus stage is when relationships are built on surface, physical characteristics; the value stage occurs between the second and seventh encounter and is characterized by increasing similarities of values and beliefs; the role stage is when specific roles are adopted by each individual; this theory has had some critics who believe that not all relationships follow this very specific pattern
- Feelings of love typically involve intense physiological arousal, fantasizing, mood swings, etc.; passionate love is marked by an absorption in someone that motivates intense physiological interest and arousal and feelings of care for the other's needs; companionate love is affection we feel for those close to us
- According to the labeling theory of passionate love, people tend to feel passion when there is a physiological arousal and when "love" is the appropriate label to describe the situation
- Sternberg explains that love is made up of three components—intimacy (encompassing feelings of closeness, affection, and connectedness), passion (comprising the motivational drives relating to sex, physical closeness, and romance), and decision/commitment (involving cognition that one loves another and the commitment to maintain that love on a long term basis); by considering these three components, eight combinations of love can be formed (e.g., when all three components are absent, nonlove is displayed; when all three components are present, consummate love is displayed)
- Some of the characteristics that make for a potential spouse differ according to culture; for example, in the United States love and mutual attraction are significant characteristics whereas in China, good health is an important characteristic for men in their future wives; there are however cultural commonalities in the most desired characteristics and, internationally, women tend to agree with other women about important traits and men with other men; reasons for the cross-cultural similarities in gender differences have been explained as being due to evolution or due to social gender stereotyping
- People put potential mates through filters, first looking for factors relating to broad determinants of attractiveness and eventually looking for more specific and defined determinants of compatibility; compatibility is often determined by homogamy (less so now than in previous decades); the marriage gradient also impacts perceived compatibility
- The influence of one's attachment style during infancy affects romantic relationships later in life; for example, infants with a secure attachment status tend to grow up to be adults who readily enter into relationships and feel positive about the future of the relationship; infants who display an avoidant attachment status tend to grow up to be adults who are less invested in their relationships, break up with mates more often and often feel lonely
- Homosexuals and heterosexuals identify similar characteristics of a successful relationship and seek out the same qualities in their relationships (e.g., long term, loving relationships)
- During adulthood, couples can cohabit, get married, or remain committed while not sharing a living space; cohabitation is becoming more common with young adults who choose cohabitation over marriage because they are not ready for a lifelong commitment, because they are "practicing" for marriage, because they reject the institution of marriage, and/or because they think spending one's life with one person is unrealistic; chances for divorce are somewhat higher in those that cohabit
- Marriage is the preferred way to share a relationship during early adulthood; couples decide to marry because it is the logical step in a loving relationship, because it is the "right thing to do" after reaching a particular age, because of the roles the spouse can fill, and/or because it is the only widely accepted way of having children in our culture; fewer people are married now than in the last century due to increase in divorce rates and decisions to postpone marriage
- Partners in successful marriages show visible affection for one another, communicate with little negativity, think of themselves as part of an interdependent couple, and experience social homogamy
- Perceptions of marital quality decline over the first 10 years of marriage; conflict is often related to difficulties in making transition to adulthood, difficulty having a separate identity from one's spouse, difficulty finding time to spend with one's spouse
- Couples decide to have children for many reason including psychological reasons related to the pleasure received from watching children grow and developing close relationships with them; couples decide for more selfish reasons to have children so that there will be someone around to take care of them and be their companion when they are old; some (mostly the socially and economically disadvantaged) have children inadvertently
- There has been a decline in the birth rate as a result of availability of birth control, a desire for fewer children in decades past, an increase in the number of women entering the workforce, less attractive incentives for having more children, the cost of raising children, and fear of the work involved in raising children
- When both members of a couple work, there is a definite economic benefit from two salaries; women however tend to spend more time taking care of the children than males (who do spend more time with their children than they did in past generations); husbands tend to take on roles and duties that can be prescheduled while wives take on activities that need immediate attention, causing stress and anxiety
- Homosexual couples that have children experience similar pressures to those experienced by heterosexual couples
- Vailliant explains that, during early adulthood, becoming centered on a career becomes very important; he describes the stage as the career consolidation stage and proposed it should be added on to Erikson's conception of identity development and, in fact, supplant one's focus on intimacy; critics question Vaillant's sample and generalizability of his findings
- According to Ginzberg, people typically move through a series of stages when choosing a career: during the fantasy stage, which lasts until about age 11, career choices are made and discarded without thought to skills or opportunities but, rather, are based on what sounds appealing; during the tentative period, which occurs during adolescence, people begin to think more practically and consider their own values and goals when deciding upon a career; during the realistic period, which occurs in early adulthood, people have actual experience with different careers by taking on jobs and/or internship/volunteer experiences which enables them to narrow their career choices and make a commitment to a career
- Holland explains that an individual's personality affects the choices that are made in regard to committing to a career; he proposes that there are six personality types that are important in career choice; however, not all people fit neatly into one personality type and people often have to choose a career for which their personalities do not fit
- Traditionally, men have been considered appropriate for agentic professions and women for communal professions; there is a significant wage gap between men and women in the workforce; 55% of the workforce is made up of women; there are significantly more opportunities available to women of today's generation than of generations past; and yet, women in high status jobs often hit the glass ceiling
- People are motivated to work for extrinsic and intrinsic reasons; work brings a sense of personal identity, adds to one's social life, and brings a certain sense of status to one's identity
- Job satisfaction is partly determined by the status of one's job, control of management over workers, level of input workers have into the nature of their jobs, and the amount of influence employees have over others
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