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Chapter 14 Social & Personality Development

in Middle Adulthood

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• There are 3 major controversies involving personality development in middle age Midlife crisis Normative-crisis versus life events

Stability versus change in personality

I. Personality Development in Middle Age

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A. Two Perspectives on Adult Personality Development

1. Normative-crisis models Traditional view – fixed stages Specific crises lead to growth; related to age

Erickson – contributions to family, community, work, and society; leaving a legacy

Critics suggest outdated (gender roles were more rigid). Look for biases in research!

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Stagnation: focus on the triviality of life; people feel they have made only a limited contribution to the world

Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages of Adulthood

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Levinson’s Seasons of Life

• Results of extensive interviews with middle-aged men

• 20s -- novice phase of experimentation and testing

• 28 to 33 years -- transition and adoption of goals

• 30s -- BOOM -- becoming one’s own man phase

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Levinson’s Seasons of Life

• Early 40’s are marked by transition and crisis

• Midlife crisis.

May 16, 2005:

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Levinson

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Two Perspectives on Adult Personality Development, continued

2. Life events models (Helson)

• Events in life determine personality development (not age). Childbirth, divorce

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“How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you was?”

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The “Big Five”

• The five major clusters of relatively stable personality characteristics: Neuroticism Extraversion Openness Agreeableness Conscientiousness

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• Societal norms change over time [how?]

II. Relationships: Marriage and Divorce in Middle Age

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The Phases of Marital Satisfaction

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Remarriage

• 75% of white women remarry less than half of black women

• Harder for a middle-aged woman to remarry

90% of women under 25. Less than one-third over the

age of 40. The marriage gradient

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Second marriages are different.

• Roles are more flexible. • Less romantic, more cautious. • The divorce rate is higher for

second marriages. More stress.

• But, many remarried people report satisfaction rates as high as those is successful first marriages.

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B. Family Evolution

• 1. Empty Nest Syndrome• 2. Boomerang Children• 3. Sandwich Generation

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C. Becoming a Grandparent

• Grandparents tend to fall into 3 categories:

Involved Companionate Remote

• Changing roles Legal visitation rights Parental roles

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D. Spousal Abuse

The 1985 National Family Violence Survey in the U.S.; 1987 study of Alberta, Canada: 11.3 percent of U.S. women; 11.2 percent of Canadian women

WHO 2002: 12-month rates of 1.3 percent (overall prevalence rate of 22.1%), Statistics Canada (Trainor and Mihorean 2001) reported that both the 1993 Violence Against Women Survey and the 1999 General Social Survey found twelve-month wife abuse rates of 3 percent.

Worse in cultures where women are seen as inferior

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Three stages:

1) Tension-building stage 2) Acute battering incident3) Honeymoon Phase (Loving

contrition)

Lenore Walker (The Battered Woman, 1980)

[Next]

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The Cultural Roots of Violence

Text: Original English law allowed husbands to beat their wives by the “rule of thumb.”

MYTH

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III. Work and Leisure in Middle-age

• Often greatest productivity, success, and earning power.

• Tend to stay unemployed longer

Associated with: anx, dep’n, irritability

• The older you are, the more job satisfaction you are likely to experience