Developmental Psychology: Adulthood and Old Age

• This lecture pertains to developmental psychology in adulthood and old age, covering the winter semester of 2024/2025.

Lecture Topics

• Questions, concepts, and perspectives in developmental psychology.
• Methodological basics and prenatal development
• Initial years cognition
• Development in adulthood stages
• Old age plus adaptation and goals
• Social relationships plus cognition
• Ambulatory assessment and well-being
• Stress, related regulation, buffers, plus summary

Concepts of Adulthood

• Young and middle adulthood cover a large portion of the human lifespan, approximately from 20-35 years or 30/35 to 50/70 years.
• Perceptions of age limits are variable and young adults perceive the entry age to middle adulthood about five years earlier.
• The span of adulthood is historically understudied in developmental psychology.
• Changes within individuals are smaller than differences between individuals.
• An age standardization in adulthood is not useful here, because age is regarded as a shifting variable.
• Developmental tasks describe adulthood, instead of focusing on the age limits.

Typical Criteria of Adulthood

• Young adulthood includes full legal age, independence from parents financially and emotionally, moving out of the parental home, entering the job market, and starting a family.
• Middle adulthood includes being in the middle of life (half of life expectancy), establishing a career, retirement age, and the children grow up and leave house.
• Central developmental tasks from childhood through the middle age, involve selecting a life partner, cohabitating, starting a family, raising children, and focusing on the area community.
• Accepting bodily changes and maintaining satisfactory career is important.
• Building an appropriate relationship with parents, helping growing children become responsible, and relating to a spouse in the social area with adult responsibility is vital for well-being.
• This implies understanding various social expectations or norms, where being "off-time" is considered too late or early and is criticized.

Emerging Adulthood

• This is a concept for the "transitioning time" in industrialized countries to adulthood that is postponed to the late 20s, as described by Arnett in 2000.
• It can be understood as a type of psychosocial moratorium, or a delayed development, with the "emerging adulthood" stage.

Traits of Adulthood

• Includes exploration of one's own identity, optimism, self-focus/direction, instability, or feeling "in-between", as described by Arnett in the Early Adulthood paper
• Identity exploration starts in adolescence, and continues in the "emerging adulthood" phase through increased independence and more options.
• "Emerging adulthood" is the time for positive anticipation of the future and the feeling like your own choices and activities will be possible.
• Instability also defines "emerging adulthood" through revising own goals, interests and changing romantic partnerships.
• Studies have documented the rise in marriage age from early 20s to late 20s, as well increased college graduation rates.
• It is unknown if this new adulthood stage is a useful heuristic considering the experiences of various groups.
• Distinguishing those in this group can be challenging for mental health experts and social service providers

Critical Review

• Emerging adulthood can be considered as a useful construct of useful events in a lifespan, but must also not be too vague.
• It is associated with distinct characteristics that shape various social, contextual, and economic settings.

Adulthood Tasks

• Adult tasks can also be viewed as a complex shift of life events as well as changes in economic variables.

Middle Adulthood

• Middle adulthood is the period of high stability, with an increased ability of handling complex environments.
• The psychological awareness and desire to correct one's issues is not always realistic can come in.
• Midlife crisis is a product of missed opportunities and motivation.

Midlife Crisis

• It is a normative transition with a distinct timeline from young to middle age in men.
• A restrictive conceptualization of the issue consists of normative and time elements.
• A moderate construction means it just occurs through regular time.
• A wider concept is just on calendar, without social standard of timing from external sources.
• Empirically, no specific pattern is found, so it may be a poor concept for general well-being.

Sandwich Generation

• This consists of individuals who responsible for for both children and aging parents.
• There is a high likelihood that as their parents increase in age, they will require higher care.
• As a result, the majority of the senior population rely on their relatives for care assistance.
• Some of the major events in the "sandwich" era are the family's children moving out ("empty nest") which requires significant adjustments.
• The number of "acquired years" increases significantly through less stress, which is solved through less normative requirements .

Gains and Losses

• As persons age, goals increase which support maintenance to avoid losses.
• This transition is adaptive, because if the opportunities decline, adjustment increases.
• There are three components: selection, optimization and compensation

SOK Model

• The SOK model postulates specific goals that are restricted by time or energy
• Select occurs with optimization in which sources are used for certain goals.
• Compensate for those sources to counter their losses.
• Rubinstein would make selection for new pieces, for those he will optimize what he knew, and use compensation to ensure balance and reduce mistakes.

Career and Development

• Professional work is a significant component of the life routine in which people select a place.
• Social skills are vital for professional career plus overall advancement and growth as a person.
• To ensure the correct job and career, the candidate needs to match certain job aspects, which includes RIASEC.

RIASEC Model

• Realistic prefers job tasks involving concrete deliverables like tech
• Investigative loves problems and comes up with analytic solutions like those in a physics career
• Artistic enjoys self-employment like an artist or director
• Social types prefer to work with others like a teacher
• Enterprising candidates enjoy influence for managers
• Conventional prefers the role for administrators.
• A person's interest is more of an anticipation.
• Those types can grow over time by how the person context and experience.

Challenges

• A high set of new expectations can consist of physical or mental challenges or pressure.
• As the "cycle" goes on, more events emerge at the end in terms of new events or phases.

Work-Family Balance and Conflict

• Careers and objectives can clash, resulting in less hours and chances for a better balance
• It can be the setting for events in a career with the expectation to rise.
• A work-life clash can happen, but can also lead to mutual assistance and goals
• Transmission and events can overlap.

The End of one's Career

• This is influenced by beliefs and plans and is the transition within a time era for planning and change.
• The shift is the conclusion of being the professional with new circumstances and goals with a positive aspect.

Retirement

• There are a variety of causes for retirement such as events and experiences or from health.
• This transition can be seen as positive or negative and it is important to know that individuals are different.
• This allows people to change to certain conditions and events but may require a cost or tradeoff.
• These events can also lead to positive or negative results in health and finance.
• It must be handled on case by case basis, as some benefit due to social and financial certainty.

Review

• The transition to retirement can vary strongly between individuals and the tasks required.