Emerging Adulthood

Column

Files

Unit/Module Chapter 9

Week Week 7

Section 1: Physical Development

Five Features
Most obvious indicator is the rise in ages entering marriage and parenthood

Why?

The technology revolution

The sexual revolution

The women's movement

The youth movement

Main features of emerging adulthood:

1. the age of identity explorations:

a. Trying out different possibilities

b. Erik Erikson was the first to develop the idea of identity

2. the age of instability;

a. Explore different possibilities in love and work

3. the self-focused age;

a. Between adolescents' reliance on parents and young adults' long-term

commitments in love and work

Emerging Adulthood 1
 4. the age of feeling in-between

a. Not fully an adult

b. A transitional period of life

5. the age of possibilities

a. Different futures remain possible

Cultural Context
Europe:

Longest and most leisurely

30 old age is median for marriage

Most affluent, generous, egalitarian societies

Asia:

Emphasize collectivism and family obligations

Narrower boundaries

Developing countries:

Split in rural and urban areas

Physical Changes
Peal physical functioning:

VO2 max: the ability of the body to take in oxygen and transport it to various
organs; also called maximum oxygen uptake

Cardiac output: quantity of blood flow from the heart

Reaction time faster

Bone mass grows

Less susceptibility to physical illnesses

Some conditions do undermine this

Emerging Adulthood 2
 Sleep:

College students are more than twice as likely to report delayed sleep phase
syndrome

Accumulate sleep debt

Risk behavior
The most serious threat comes from driving

graduated driver licensing (GDL): government program in which young

people obtain driving privileges gradually, contingent on a safe driving record,
rather than all at once

Substance abuse:

Peaks in the early 20s

binge drinking: consuming five or more drinks in a row for men, four in a row
for women

unstructured socializing: socializing with friends without any specific goal or

activity; includes behavior such as riding around in a car for fun, going to
parties, visiting friends informally, and going out with friends

Section 2: Cognitive Development

Pragmatism
postformal thought: according to some theorists, the stage of cognitive
development that follows formal operations and includes advances in pragmatism
and reflective judgment

pragmatism: theory of cognitive development proposing that postformal

thinking involves adapting logical thinking to the practical constraints of real-life
situations

Emerging adulthood brings a growing awareness of how social influences and

factors specific to a given situation must be taken into account in approaching
most of life’s problems.

Emerging Adulthood 3
 Basseches (1984) views cognitive development in emerging adulthood as involving
a recognition that formal logic can rarely be applied to the problems most people
face in their daily lives.

dialectical thought: according to Basseches, a kind of thinking in emerging

adulthood that involves a growing awareness that problems often have no clear
solution and two opposing strategies or points of view may each have some
merit

Education and Work

tertiary education: education or training beyond secondary school

Japan:

Grades matter little and performance is relaxed due to rigorously secondary

and work-life

Tuition is expensive

Multiple reasons why people graduate later or sooner

There are benefits to higher education

Work:

For most U.S. emerging adults the road to a stable, long-term job is long, with
many brief, low-paying, dreary jobs along the way.

unemployment: work status of adults who are not in school, are not working,
and are looking for a job

The unemployment rate for emerging adults is consistently twice as high as

for adults beyond 25

Emotional and Social Development

Emotional and Self-Development
For most people, self-esteem rises during emerging adulthood

Most have passed awkward phase

Emerging Adulthood 4
 Leaving social pressure of secondary school

More control over social contexts

Identity development:

Most move toward making definite, long term choices in love and work

identity versus identity confusion: in Erikson’s theory, the crisis of

adolescence, with two alternative paths, establishing a clear and definite
identity, or experiencing identity confusion, which is a failure to form a stable
and secure identity

identity status model: a model for researching Erikson’s theory of identity

development, classifying identity development into four categories: diffusion,
foreclosure, moratorium, or achievement

For emerging adults, ethnic identity issues are likely to take on greater
prominence as they enter new social contexts such as college and the
workplace, and as they meet a broader range of people from different ethnic
backgrounds

Emerging Adulthood 5
 Stereotype: belief that others possess certain characteristics simply as a result
of being a member of a particular group

Political:

Tends to be low among emerging adults

Tend to be skeptical of motivations of politicians

Emerging adults in many countries are more likely than older adults to be
involved in organizations devoted to particular issues, such as environmental
protection

Emerging adults have often been involved in movements at the political

extremes, including
protests, revolutionary movements, and terrorism.

Social and Cultural Contexts

Family:

Most are leaving home for multiple reasons

Relationships typically improve once they leave

But some stay home which does not improve the relationship

Friendships:

Especially important bc moving away and losing social support

Most socializing is unstructured

Love and Sexuality:

Emerging adulthood involves moving away from one’s family, not just
geographically but socially and emotionally, and toward a new love partner, in
marriage, or another long-term romantic partnership.

The Center of emotional life is transferred to a long-term partner

Wide variety of ideal qualities in a partner:

Intelligent, attractive, funny, kind, caring, loving, trustworthy

Emerging Adulthood 6
 Find someone who will treat them well and who will be capable of an
intimate, mutually loving, durable relationship.

Find a partner through dating apps

"The early and late adolescents both considered recreation to be the most
important function, followed by intimacy, and then status. In contrast, for the
college students intimacy ranked highest, followed by companionship, with
recreation a bit lower, and status much
lower"

Emerging adults...tend to have romantic relationships with people who are

similar to themselves in characteristics such as personality, intelligence, social
class, ethnic background, religious beliefs, and physical attractiveness

Next step is cohabitation: unmarried romantic partners

living together

Emerging Adulthood 7