1. PSYC 2314 Lifespan Development
Chapter 22
Middle Adulthood:
Psychosocial Development

2. Changes During Middle Age
Awareness that one is beginning to grow old
Need to make adjustments in parental roles
Reaching of a plateau in one’s career
Question choices about intimacy and generativity
Midlife is often thought of as a time of crisis and upheaval. Few developmentalists today believe that the challenges of midlife inevitably bring on a midlife crisis. How people react to midlife has more to do with their overall developmental history than with age.

3. Changes During Middle Age
Sandwich Generation
Almost half of all middle-aged adults have grown children living with them, largely because of higher unemployment and more single parenthood.
Increasingly, middle-aged adults are also called upon to provide care for an elderly relative.
Social scientists note that although stressful caregiving relationships can disrupt established family patterns, most men and women welcome their continuing responsibilities. These demands are usu. not overwhelming during middle age because the adult children’s independence reduces their burden, disabled adult usu. require less care than when they were children, and major caregiving of the very oldest is often borned by other older adults.

4. Personality Throughout Adulthood
Big Five: extroversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, conscientiousness, and openness.
Relatively stable due to genes, culture, early child rearing, and the experiences and choices made during late adolescence and early adulthood.
The stability of the Big Five personality traits does not mean there are no developmental changes in personality. Certain traits, such as warmth toward others and self-confidence, are particularly likely to reveal interindividual differences.
Age-related shifts in adult personality generally reflect whatever traits are valued in one’s culture at the time. These include a tendency toward self-improvement and greater generativity.

5. Personality Throughout Adulthood
Ecological niche: the particular lifestyle and social context adults settle into that are compatible with their individual personality needs and interests.
Vocations
Mates
Neighborhood
Daily routines

6. Personality Throughout Adulthood
Gender-Role Crossover: the idea that each sex takes on the other’s sex roles and traits in later life.
Historical shift
Biosocial
Carl Jung’s psychoanalytic
Historical shift: In many cultures, rigid gender-role demands loosen during middle adulthood.
Biosocial: gender convergence may be caused by reduced levels of sex hormones, which may allow men and women to express previously suppressed traits.
Jung, each individual has both a masculine and feminine side of his or her personality. During early adulthood, the side that conforms to social expectations is dominant; in middle age, both sexes explore the shadow side of their personality.

7. Family Dynamics Middle-aged adults are the cohort bridges.
The middle generation, particularly women, tend to be the kinkeepers.
Relationship between most middle-aged adults and their parents improves with time.
Familism: the idea that family members should support each other because family unity is more important than individual freedom and success.
Cohort bridges: “generation in the middle.”
Kinkeepers: maintaining the links between the generations.
Relationship improves due to the fact that, as adult children mature, they develop a more balanced view of the relationship. In addition, today’s elderly are generally healthy, active, and independence, enhancing the relationship between themselves and their grown families.
Familism is stronger among ethnic minority groups than among the white majority.

8. Family Dynamics Three Forms of Grandparent-Grandchild Relationship
Remote grandparents
Involved grandparents
Companionate grandparents
Remote: distant but esteemed elders who are obeyed by younger grandchildren
Involved: active in the day-to-day life of the grandchildren, typically living in or nearby the grandchildren’s household. This pattern, which was especially prevalent among grandmothers for most of the 20th century, is relatively rare today.
Companionate: choosing when and how they will interact with grandchildren while maintaining their autonomy and independence.

9. Family Dynamics Grandparent-grandchild relationships are diverse
Grandparents as surrogate parents
More than one in three grandparents witness the divorce of their adult child.
Diverse: depending on differences in personality, ethnic traditions, and national background, and on the developmental stage of all three generations.
Surrogate parents: taking over the work of raising their children’s children. This esp. likely when the parents are poor, young, unemployed, addicted, single or newly divorce. Grandparents are most likely to provide surrogate care for children who need intensive involvement, such as infants who are drug-affected or rebellious. If the relationship is the result of a legal decision that the parents were abusive or neglectful, it becomes kinship care.
Witness the divorce: as a result, the parents of the non custodial ex-spouse are often shut out of their grandchildren’s lives.

10. Family Dynamics Marital Relationships
Most closely linked to personal happiness, health, and companionship
After a dip in the first decade or so, marital happiness increases
Greater financial security
Increasing sense of equity
Increased time for shared activities

11. Family Dynamics Divorce Generally more difficult
Remarry within 5 years of divorced
Following remarriage, women typically become financially secure and men become healthier and more social
Middle-aged women are disadvantaged
Difficult because it is more likely to occur after years of marriage or after a second marriage.
Remarried people are more likely to describe their marriage as either very happy or unhappy, with less middle ground.
In general, the more often a person has married, the more likely his or her current marriage is to end in divorce.
Middle-aged women are disadvantaged because middle-aged men tend to marry younger women, men die at younger ages, and few marriages take place between a younger man and an older woman.
As a result of social changes, more women now go to college, have careers, and raise children—without being wives. Marriage rates are down, and single-parenthood rates are up.

12. Work
There is often a shift in the balance among work, family, and self.
Early adulthood: workaholics
Establishment stage of a dual-earner marriage: scaling back
Middle aged: mentor
Scaling back of their employment effort in order to combine work and family. One spouse may choose to work part time. Or, both partners may work full time, one at a “job” to earn money and the other at a lower paying “career.” In another scaling-back strategy, the partners take turns pursuing work and housework and child care.