Adolescent/Adult Development Early Adulthood: Psychosocial Development - Ch. 19 Mar 11-13, 2009 Classes #24-25

Theories of Adulthood Many theories describe, analyze, and predict the transformations that occur during adulthood Different theories about psychological needs reach similar conclusions

Two basic needs: affiliation and achievement or affection and instrumentality Maslow: hierarchy of needs Erikson: intimacy vs. isolation Love and Work

Ages and Stages Patterns of the Past by 20s: identity by 30s: intimacy by 40s: generativity Adult lives today “are less orderly and predictable than stage models suggest”

The Social Clock Culturally set timetable that establishes when various events and endeavors in life are appropriate What are some of the appropriate timetables in the United States?

Choosing Young-Adult Friends Physical attractiveness Apparent availability (willingness to chat) Absence of exclusion criteria Frequent exposure to each other

Perspectives on Attraction We are attracted to others with whom a relationship is directly or indirectly rewarding All humans exhibit patterns of attraction and mate selection that favor the conception, birth, and survival of their offspring Evolutionary perspective

Familiarity: Being There Who are we most likely to become attracted to? Two basic and necessary factors in the attraction process: Proximity Exposure

The Proximity Effect The single best predictor of attraction is physical proximity, or nearness Where we live influences the friends we make College students tend to date those who live either nearby or in the same type of housing as they do

The Mere Exposure Effect Contrary to folk wisdom, familiarity does not breed contempt The more often we are exposed to a stimulus, the more we come to like that stimulus Familiarity can influence our self- evaluations

Physical Attractiveness We react more favorably to others who are physically attractive than to those who are not Bias for beauty is pervasive

Is Beauty an Objective Quality? Some argue that certain faces are inherently more attractive than others High levels of agreement for facial ratings across ages and cultures Physical features of the face are reliably associated with judgments of attractiveness Babies prefer faces considered attractive by adults

The Physical Attractiveness (beautiful- is-good) Stereotype People within a culture, assume that attractive people have the traits that are valued by that culture Adults and children are biased toward attractive people Even infants stare at attractive people longer than unattractive people! Lessons begin early – how many ugly heroes are there in children’s tales vs. the number of ugly villains?

The Benefits and Costs of Beauty Being good-looking does not guarantee health, happiness, or high self-esteem Attributional problems with being good- looking: Is the attention and praise one receives due to one’s talents or just one’s good looks?

Other Costs of Beauty Pressure to maintain one’s appearance In American society, pressures are particularly strong when it comes to the body Women are more likely than men to suffer from the “modern mania for slenderness” Overall, being beautiful is a mixed blessing Little relationship between appearance in youth and later happiness

This appears to be conflicting research… Simpson, Gangestad, & Lerma (1990) People involved in serious relationships rate beautiful models as less attractive Kendrick et al. (1989) Men viewing ravishing nude models in magazines gave lower ratings to average- looking women including their own wives Appears contrast effect is in place here

How important is intelligence? Men and women differ in this criterion for sexual partners But not for long-term partners

Kenrick, Sadalla, Groth, & Trost (1990) Kenrick, Groth, Trost & Sadalla (1993) Students in these series of studies were asked: Students in these series of studies were asked: What is the minimum percentile of intelligence you would accept in considering someone for: What is the minimum percentile of intelligence you would accept in considering someone for: A DATE A DATE A SEXUAL PARTNER A SEXUAL PARTNER A ONE NIGHT STAND A ONE NIGHT STAND A STEADY DATING PARTNER A STEADY DATING PARTNER A MARRIAGE PARTNER A MARRIAGE PARTNER

Women desire slightly above average for a single date Minimum Intelligence Desired DATE AVERAGE 50th%ile 

DATESEXMARRIAGE And want more with increasing commitment STEADY 50th%ile 

DATESEXMARRIAGE Men have similar criteria for dates STEADY 

DATESEX STEADY MARRIAGE And for long-term mates 

DATESEX STEADY MARRIAGE But men’s criteria are considerably lower for sexual partners 

DATESEX STEADY MARRIAGE The differences are even more pronounced for one- night stands 

First Encounters: Liking Others Who Are Similar We tend to associate with others who are similar to ourselves… Byrne (1971): We like people who we perceive as having similar attitudes to our own Rosenbaum (1986): Similarity does not spark attraction; rather dissimilarity triggers repulsion, the desire to avoid someone

The Evolutionary Perspective Revisited: Mate Selection Men and women by nature must differ in their optimal mating behaviors Women must be highly selective because they are biologically limited in the number of children they can bear and raise in a lifetime Men can father an unlimited number of children and ensure their reproductive success by inseminating many women

The Burger King Study Townsend & Levy (1990) Who would you prefer: a well-dressed unattractive person or a good-looking person in a Burger King outfit???

Burger King study: Townsend and Levy (1990) looked at the effects of male status and ornamentation. First, males were pre-rated into 2 groups: Handsome versus homely Each were put into 1 of 3 costumes: Armani suit with Rolex (high status), white t-shirt (medium status), or Burger King uniform (low status) They then did the same for females

Gender Differences in Friendship Conversations and Expectations women  self-disclosure men  external matters—sports, politics, work female-female pattern may better reduce loneliness and self-absorption male-male pattern may be more effective and efficient, especially in work situations

Gender Differences in Friendship Friendships Between Men and Women cross-sex friendships allow learning about common humanity and let people help each other gain skills problems may arise when a platonic relationship is sexualized or there are conflicts of expectations Same sex friendships may be most effective and efficient especially in the workplace

Defining Features of Love Beverly Fehr (1988) asked Canadian students to list as many features of love as they could in 3 minutes. Lets do this…

Sternberg (1986): This researcher believes that the long list presented earlier could be reduced to three essential components: physiological arousal, longing to be with willing to define as love, commitment to long term close bond, sharing, support PASSION INTIMACY COMMITMENT

Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love

Throughout history marriages commonly arranged still common today in many nations and certain cultures Typical U.S. pattern today—initiated and sustained by the two people involved duration and seriousness increase until, couples marry, typically 10 years after their first love affair Courtship follows predicable pattern—from passion to intimacy Contact and Courtship

Would You Marry Someone if You Were Not in Love?

Cultural Variations in Willingness to Marry Without Love

Living Together Cohabitation A couple’s living together in a committed sexual relationship without being formally married increasingly common cohabitation not just for young adults slightly more than half of all women aged years have cohabited

Living Together Cohabitation does not necessarily benefit the participants Stack and Eshleman (1998) Found people who cohabitate much less happy and healthy, and less satisfied with financial status than are married couples Maydol et al. (1998) Cohabiting relationships were 3 times as likely to be abusive than marriages Horwitz and White (1998) Compared to single adults, cohabitants are likelier to have alcohol problems

Marriage: Not like it used to be? Proportion of unmarried adults is higher than at any time in the past century 10 percent of brides are virgins Nearly one-half of all births are to single mothers who are increasingly unlikely to marry the fathers of their babies

Marriage: Not like it used to be? 20 percent of first births conceived before marriage Divorce rate is 49 percent of marriage rate The rate of first marriages in young adulthood lowest in 50 years (Bachu, 1999; Zavodny, 1999)

Marriage: Still the same? Marriage, still most enduring evidence of couple commitment, is celebrated in every culture in the world by a wedding hoped-for-results: a love that deepens over the years, as bond cemented by birth of children weathering economic and emotional turbulence surviving serious illness or other setbacks sharing social and financial commitments

Marriage: Still the same? Worldwide research says married people are happier, healthier, and richer

How Do Intimate Relationships Change? Most researchers reject idea that intimate relationships progress through a fixed sequence of stages For reward theories of love, quantity counts There are qualitative differences between liking and loving, as well as different forms of love

The Intimate Marketplace: Social Exchange Theory People are motivated to maximize benefits and minimize costs in their relationships with others Relationships that provide more rewards and fewer costs will be more satisfying and endure longer The development of an intimate relationship is associated with the overall level of rewards

Social Exchange Theory Most content with a relationship when the ratio between the benefits and contributions is similar for both partners… In modern marriages, what matters most is perception of fairness, not absolute equality

Long-term homosexual partnerships are more common and open today 2-5 percent of all U.S.adults spend some part of adulthood in such relationships Homosexuals generally have same relationship issues as heterosexuals Same-Sex Partners

Divorce Influenced by social and political context affects many lives for years United States has highest divorce rate almost 1 in 2 first marriages end in divorce Historically, an increase, but stabilizing one reason: lower marriage rate

Marital Satisfaction over Time Kurdek (1999)

Do Relationships Change Our Personalities? Caspi & Herbener (1990) People married to dissimilar partners change their personalities more over the years

Violence in intimate relationships has multiple causes social pressures that create stress, cultural values, personality pathologies, and drug and alcohol addiction common couple violence—1 or both partners engage in verbal and physical attack intimate terrorism—1 partner systematically isolates, degrades, and punishes the other Domestic Violence

Intimate terrorism less prevalent than common couple violence Perpetrator usually anti-social and violent in many ways Leads to battered-wife syndrome, with woman not simply physically beaten but broken socially and psychologically Domestic Violence

Similarities Between 2 Types of Domestic Violence Jealous male partner doesn’t want female partner to talk to other men Male partner tries to limit female partner’s contact with family and friends Male partner insists on knowing who female partner is with and where she is at all times Difference Between 2 Types of Domestic Violence But in intimate terrorism, partner seeks to exert violent control over the other

Defined as the motivation to achieve or the drive to be generative Generativity

Importance of Work Develops and uses personal skills and talents Provides structure for daily life Work can help a person to develop and use personal skills express unique creative energy aid and advise coworkers, as a mentor or friend contribute to larger community via product or service

Parenthood Adult Development having children, nurturing them, and launching them into the world has a major impact on the parent’s development birth of a child brings conflict and challenges and begins the lifelong process of interdependence

Benefits and Problems role overload – multiple obligations of being for example wife, mother, and executive role buffering – achievement in one of the above roles can sometimes offset disappointment in another Logistics in Everyday Life Planning is essential now maybe more than ever to prevent overload Employed Parents

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