Chapter 12: Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years) Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years) • Chapter Objectives – To identify and define selected concepts.
Download ReportTranscript Chapter 12: Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years) Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years) • Chapter Objectives – To identify and define selected concepts.
Slide 1
Chapter 12:
Early Adulthood
(24 – 34 Years)
Slide 2
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Chapter Objectives
– To identify and define selected concepts that
are especially relevant for understanding
development during adulthood, including
social roles, the life course, and fulfillment
theories
– To analyze the process of forming intimate
relationships, including identifying and
committing to a long-term relationship, the
role of cohabitation in forming close
relationships, and the challenges one faces in
adjusting to the early years of marriage
Slide 3
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Chapter Objectives (cont.)
– To describe the factors associated with the
decision to have children, the impact of
childbearing on the intimate, parental
relationship, and the contribution of
childbearing to the growth in adulthood
– To explore the concept of work as a stimulus
for psychological development in early
adulthood with a special focus on the
technical skills, authority relations, demands
and hazards, and the interpersonal relations
in the work environment
Slide 4
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Chapter Objectives (cont.)
– To examine the concept of lifestyle as the
expression of individual identity, with
consideration for the pace of life, balancing
competing role demands, building a
supportive social network, and adopting
practices to promote health and fitness
– To define and describe the psychosocial crisis
of intimacy versus isolation; the central
process through which the crisis is resolved,
mutuality among peers; the prime adaptive
ego quality of love; and the core pathology of
exclusivity
Slide 5
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Chapter Objectives (cont.)
– To analyze divorce as a life stressor in early
adulthood, including factors contributing to it
and the coping process
Slide 6
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Major Concepts in the Study of Adulthood
– Social roles are a set of behaviors that have
some socially agreed-upon functions and for
which there exists an accepted code of
norms, such as the role of teacher, child, or
minister
Slide 7
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
Slide 8
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Major Concepts in the Study of Adulthood (cont.)
– Life course refers to the integration and
sequencing of phases of work and family life
over time
– A trajectory is the path of one’s life
experiences in a specific domain, particularly
work and family life
– A transition is the beginning or ending of an
event or relationship
Slide 9
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Major Concepts in the Study of Adulthood (cont.)
– Social clock or the age norms and age
expectation that operate as prods and brakes
upon behavior, in some instances hastening
behavior and in some instances delaying it
Slide 10
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
Figure 12.1 A Hypothetical life Course
Slide 11
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Major Concepts in the Study of Adulthood
– Fulfillment Theories
• Competence – the exercise of skill and intelligence
in the completion of tasks; the sense that one is
capable of exercising mastery over one’s
environment
• Self-Acceptance – an essential component of
continued growth is to experience and accept the
authentic self
• Self-Actualization – a motive that urges the person
to make optimal use of his or her full potential, to
become a more effective, creative participant in
daily life
Slide 12
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
Figure 12.2 Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Slide 13
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Exploring Intimate Relationships: Readiness to
Marry & Selection of a Partner
– The period of early adulthood is a time when
men and women explore the possibility of
forming relationships that combine emotional
closeness, shared interests, a shared vision
of the future, and sexual intimacy
Slide 14
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Exploring Intimate Relationships: Readiness to
Marry & Selection of a Partner (cont.)
– It is important to recognize that many forms of
intimate relationships in addition to marriage
are being established during early adulthood,
including serious dating, cohabitation with or
without the intention of marriage, and
commitments between gay and lesbian
couples
Slide 15
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Exploring Intimate Relationships: Readiness to
Marry & Selection of a Partner (cont.)
– Roughly 100 years of social science research
has established that satisfaction in the
relationship of marriage contributes
significantly to psychological well-being,
including a greater sense of social integration,
and protection from other life stressors
– The main change in the marriage pattern has
been that more young adults postpone
marriage until the end of their 20s
Slide 16
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Exploring Intimate Relationships: Readiness to
Marry & Selection of a Partner (cont.)
– Delaying the age at marriage is related to
several other social trends, including having
children at a later age, smaller projected
family size, and therefore fewer years devoted
to childrearing
Slide 17
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Exploring Intimate Relationships: Readiness to
Marry & Selection of a Partner (cont.)
– Beyond the desire to marry, an important
factor is the readiness of the two individuals
for a long-term commitment
– Work on identity must be far enough along so
that the possibility of a deep, emotional
involvement with another person will be
regarded as exciting rather than frightening
– Recent studies find that early and later
adolescents are likely to be thinking about
intimacy issues long before their work on
identity is completed
Slide 18
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Exploring Intimate Relationships: Readiness to
Marry & Selection of a Partner (cont.)
– School enrollment as well as educational
attainment have important links to relationship
commitment
– In the U.S. and other individualistic cultures,
most people believe that romantic love is the
central reason for choosing a marriage
partner
– Men tend to value youth and physical
appearance in a partner more than do
women; women value earning potential and
job stability in a partner more than do men
Slide 19
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
Figure 12.3 The Mate Selection Process in the United States
Slide 20
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Case Study: How Love Makes Its Way into a
Relationship
– Thought Questions
• What does love mean for Dick and Gail? In what
ways might love be different from liking?
• How is the relationship between Dick and Gail
transformed when love is mentioned?
• What are the qualities of an intimate relationship
that you see illustrated in the case of Dick and
Gail? What elements of an intimate relationship
appear to be missing in this relationship?
• How does the case illustrate the concept of
homogamy? How does the case illustrate the
concepts from social evolutionary theory?
Slide 21
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Case Study: How Love Makes Its Way into a
Relationship (cont.)
– Thought Questions (cont.)
• What challenges do you imagine Dick and Gail
might face in the first few years of marriage? What
resources might help them cope with these
challenges?
Slide 22
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Exploring Intimate Relationships: Cohabitation
– Cohabitation rather than marriage has
become a common expression of a committed
relationship
– Research shows that those couples who have
cohabited before marriage are more likely to
divorce than those who have not
– In recent cohorts, couples who have married
after cohabitation and those who never
cohabitated before marriage are equally
stable, or, perhaps one might say, equally
unstable
Slide 23
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Exploring Intimate Relationships: Cohabitation
(cont.)
– Six types of cohabitating relationships
•
•
•
•
•
•
Marginal
Prelude to marriage
Stages in the marriage process
Alternative to being single
Alternative to marriage
Indistinguishable from marriage
Slide 24
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Exploring Intimate Relationships: Partners of the
Same Sex
– Gay men and lesbians are a diverse group
with respect to their interests, talents,
educational backgrounds, family
backgrounds, careers, and other important
aspects of adult roles
– Research has addressed the impact of
coming out to parents or other family
members
Slide 25
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Exploring Intimate Relationships: Partners of the
Same Sex (cont.)
– Homosexual relationships are often
established within a climate of secrecy and
social stigma, especially fears about parental
rejection
– Gay and lesbian couples often perceive less
social support from family members and seek
other members of the gay or lesbian
community to validate and encourage their
relationship
Slide 26
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Exploring Intimate Relationships: Partners of the
Same Sex (cont.)
– Lesbian and gay couples who are in a
committed relationship tend to give great
priority to maintaining and enhancing their
relationship for several reasons
Slide 27
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Exploring Intimate Relationships: Adjustment
during the Early Years of Marriage
– Communication and Marital Adjustment
• There are many sources of tension in a new
marriage. As part of the adjustment to marriage,
the partners must achieve a sense of
psychological commitment to each other
• It is reasonable to expect that intimacy and a high
level of marital satisfaction require effective
communication and the capacity to cope effectively
with conflict
Slide 28
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Exploring Intimate Relationships: Adjustment
during the Early Years of Marriage (cont.)
– Communication and Marital Adjustment
(cont.)
• Three dimensions of conflict seem especially
important in differentiating happy and distressed
marital relationships: amount of negative
communication; coercive escalation; and
perceptions of partner’s conflict resolution style
Slide 29
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Exploring Intimate Relationships: Adjustment
during the Early Years of Marriage (cont.)
– Communication styles of men and women
• Men and women communicate differently and have
different perceptions of the process, but this may
be overstated. Men and women prefer contactful
interactions, rather than controlling interactions
• Men tend to be more ambivalent than women
about expressing emotions and withdraw to avoid
escalating conflict more than women
Slide 30
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Exploring Intimate Relationships: Adjustment in
Dual-Earner Marriages
– One of the greatest changes in U.S. families
in the second half of the 20th century was the
increase in the number of married women
who were employed
– It is now normative for married women,
including those with young children, to be in
the labor market
– The involvement of both husband and wife in
the labor market requires a redefinition of
traditional family roles and the division of
labor
Slide 31
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Exploring Intimate Relationships: Adjustment in
Dual-Earner Marriages (cont.)
– A potential conflict for dual-earner couples is
the relative balance of power and demands
for household labor for the two partners
– There are many benefits to the dual earner
arrangement, but the advantages of the dualearner, multiple-role lifestyle can be offset
when one or both partners experience role
overload
Slide 32
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Childbearing: Fertility Rate & Decisions about
Childbearing
– The average number of births required for the
natural replacement of a population is
estimated at 2.1 per adult woman
– Fertility rates in the United States vary
race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status
– Decisions about childbearing are made in the
context of other personal and family goals and
commitments
Slide 33
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Childbearing: Fertility Rate & Decisions about
Childbearing (cont.)
– Cultures differ in the norms and expectations
they convey about the value of having
children as well as the appropriate timing and
frequency of pregnancies
– Decisions to postpone childbearing are
constrained by the biological clock
Slide 34
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Childbearing: Dual Roles of Intimate Partner and
Parent & The Decision Not To Have Children
– In contrast to the elation that usually
accompanies the anticipation of and
preparation for the newborn, the arrival of the
first child often brings a period of stress to the
relationship
– The quality of marital adjustment over the
transition to parenthood is closely related to
marital quality before the child was born.
Having children did have impact on marital
companionship
Slide 35
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Childbearing: Dual Roles of Intimate Partner and
Parent & The Decision Not To Have Children
(cont.)
– As the roles of mother and father are added to
the adults’ repertoire of relationships, their
own expectations concerning the raising of a
child are aroused
– Not all couples choose to have children
– Much like attitudes toward remaining single,
attitudes toward a lifestyle in which a couple
chooses not to have children are becoming
more accepting
Slide 36
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Childbearing: Dual Roles of Intimate Partner and
Parent & The Decision Not To Have Children
(cont.)
– The U.S. culture continues to be pronatalistic,
placing a high value on having children
Slide 37
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
Figure 12.4 Duration of Joint Husband-Wife Leisure Without Child for
Parents and Nonparents
Slide 38
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Work: The World of Work
– Within the life-course framework, the
occupational career is a major structural facto
in each person’s life story, in combination with
intimate relationships and parenting
Slide 39
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Work: The World of Work (cont.)
– The training period involves a process of
socialization of the new worker. During this
time, the individual must evaluate the match
between his or her personal characteristics
and goals. Four central components of the
work situation are:
•
•
•
•
Technical skills
Authority relations
Demands and hazards
Interpersonal relationships with co-workers
Slide 40
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Work: Poverty and Career Opportunities
– Factors limit the range of occupations open to
a given person during the work-search phase,
including educational attainment, ability, and
location
– Recent policy changes in the U.S. welfare
system have led to a renewed interest in the
process of supporting the transition from
welfare to work
– The biggest challenge facing individuals in
this transition in the lack of jobs that will
provide the salary and benefits necessary to
raise workers out of the poverty level
Slide 41
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Case Study: Jaye Crowe
– Thought Questions
•
•
•
•
•
What do you do?
What kinds of people do well in this business?
What do you really like about your job?
What do you dislike?
How can someone get a job like yours?
Slide 42
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Career Phases and Individual Development
– Three phases of career development
• Early, middle, and late career development
– In each phase career development reflects
• Concerns about self
• Concerns about career
• Concerns about family
Slide 43
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Lifestyle: Pace of Life & Social Network
– Lifestyle is a social psychological construct
that integrates personality characteristics,
goals, convictions, and inner conflicts with
social opportunities and resources into an
organizing pattern of actions and choices
– Pace of life, or the business of life, is shaped
by work, family, personality, and
environmental context
– As a result of participation in multiple roles,
most people expand their social network
during early adulthood
Slide 44
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Lifestyle: Pace of Life & Social Network (cont.)
– The contribution of friendships to personal
satisfaction and lifestyle differs widely during
this time with single adults and couples
without children typically having more time for
adult friendships than do parents
Slide 45
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Lifestyle: Competing Role Demands & Health
and Fitness
– A source of tension in adulthood is the
competition of role demands
– One part of role learning involves a widening
circle of competencies and relationships.
Another part involves balancing the conflicting
expectations of simultaneous role
responsibilities
– The more involved one is in the competitive
demands of work, the less likely one is to feel
comfortable about spending time away from it
Slide 46
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Lifestyle: Competing Role Demands & Health
and Fitness (cont.)
– The contemporary emphasis on health and
fitness indicates the importance of lifestyle
decisions for illness prevention and longevity
Slide 47
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• The Psychosocial Crisis: Intimacy
– Intimacy is the ability to experience an open,
supportive, tender relationship with another
person without fear of losing one’s own
identity in the process of growing close. The
sense of intimacy is usually acquired toward
the end of early adulthood
– Men’s interaction styles very from that of
women in that men are less intimate than
women
– A common context for the establishment of
intimacy is the work setting
Slide 48
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
Slide 49
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• The Psychosocial Crisis: Isolation
– Isolation is a crisis resolution in which
situational factors or a fragile sense of self
leads a person to remain psychologically
distant from others; the state of being alone
– Feelings of loneliness can be separated into
three categories: transient, situational, and
chronic
– Isolation may be a cause as well as a
consequence of depression
– For some people, the possibility of closeness
with another person seriously threatens the
sense of self
Slide 50
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• The Psychosocial Crisis: Isolation (cont.)
– Isolation can also result from situation factors
such as moving to a new town, educational or
career decisions, etc.
– Isolation can also be a product of diverging
spheres of interest and activity
– Enmeshed relationships, are characterized by
overinvolvement in one another’s lives, to the
extent that any change in one family member
is met by strong resistance by the others;
individuality is viewed as a threat to the
relationship
Slide 51
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• The Central Process: Mutuality Among Peers
– Mutuality refers to empathetic awareness of
one another, understanding of self and other,
and the ability and willingness to regulate
one’s needs in order to respond to the needs
of one’s partner
– Mutuality is strengthened as the two
individuals learn to rely on each other and as
they discover that their combined efforts are
more effective than their individual efforts
would be
Slide 52
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• The Prime Adaptive Ego Quality and Core
Pathology
– Love is an emotion characterized by a
capacity for mutuality that transcends
childhood dependency
– Exclusivity is a shutting out of others for elitist
reasons
Slide 53
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
Figure 12.5 Sternberg’s Triangle of Types of Love
Slide 54
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Applied Topic: Divorce
– Factors contributing to divorce
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Age at marriage
Socioeconomic level
Socioemotional development of the partners
Family history of divorce
Coping with divorce
Attachment to former spouse
Coping strategies
Slide 55
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
Figure 12.6 Probability of First-Marriage Disruption by Duration of
marriage and Wife’s Age at Marriage: United States, 1995
Chapter 12:
Early Adulthood
(24 – 34 Years)
Slide 2
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Chapter Objectives
– To identify and define selected concepts that
are especially relevant for understanding
development during adulthood, including
social roles, the life course, and fulfillment
theories
– To analyze the process of forming intimate
relationships, including identifying and
committing to a long-term relationship, the
role of cohabitation in forming close
relationships, and the challenges one faces in
adjusting to the early years of marriage
Slide 3
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Chapter Objectives (cont.)
– To describe the factors associated with the
decision to have children, the impact of
childbearing on the intimate, parental
relationship, and the contribution of
childbearing to the growth in adulthood
– To explore the concept of work as a stimulus
for psychological development in early
adulthood with a special focus on the
technical skills, authority relations, demands
and hazards, and the interpersonal relations
in the work environment
Slide 4
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Chapter Objectives (cont.)
– To examine the concept of lifestyle as the
expression of individual identity, with
consideration for the pace of life, balancing
competing role demands, building a
supportive social network, and adopting
practices to promote health and fitness
– To define and describe the psychosocial crisis
of intimacy versus isolation; the central
process through which the crisis is resolved,
mutuality among peers; the prime adaptive
ego quality of love; and the core pathology of
exclusivity
Slide 5
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Chapter Objectives (cont.)
– To analyze divorce as a life stressor in early
adulthood, including factors contributing to it
and the coping process
Slide 6
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Major Concepts in the Study of Adulthood
– Social roles are a set of behaviors that have
some socially agreed-upon functions and for
which there exists an accepted code of
norms, such as the role of teacher, child, or
minister
Slide 7
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
Slide 8
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Major Concepts in the Study of Adulthood (cont.)
– Life course refers to the integration and
sequencing of phases of work and family life
over time
– A trajectory is the path of one’s life
experiences in a specific domain, particularly
work and family life
– A transition is the beginning or ending of an
event or relationship
Slide 9
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Major Concepts in the Study of Adulthood (cont.)
– Social clock or the age norms and age
expectation that operate as prods and brakes
upon behavior, in some instances hastening
behavior and in some instances delaying it
Slide 10
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
Figure 12.1 A Hypothetical life Course
Slide 11
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Major Concepts in the Study of Adulthood
– Fulfillment Theories
• Competence – the exercise of skill and intelligence
in the completion of tasks; the sense that one is
capable of exercising mastery over one’s
environment
• Self-Acceptance – an essential component of
continued growth is to experience and accept the
authentic self
• Self-Actualization – a motive that urges the person
to make optimal use of his or her full potential, to
become a more effective, creative participant in
daily life
Slide 12
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
Figure 12.2 Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Slide 13
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Exploring Intimate Relationships: Readiness to
Marry & Selection of a Partner
– The period of early adulthood is a time when
men and women explore the possibility of
forming relationships that combine emotional
closeness, shared interests, a shared vision
of the future, and sexual intimacy
Slide 14
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Exploring Intimate Relationships: Readiness to
Marry & Selection of a Partner (cont.)
– It is important to recognize that many forms of
intimate relationships in addition to marriage
are being established during early adulthood,
including serious dating, cohabitation with or
without the intention of marriage, and
commitments between gay and lesbian
couples
Slide 15
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Exploring Intimate Relationships: Readiness to
Marry & Selection of a Partner (cont.)
– Roughly 100 years of social science research
has established that satisfaction in the
relationship of marriage contributes
significantly to psychological well-being,
including a greater sense of social integration,
and protection from other life stressors
– The main change in the marriage pattern has
been that more young adults postpone
marriage until the end of their 20s
Slide 16
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Exploring Intimate Relationships: Readiness to
Marry & Selection of a Partner (cont.)
– Delaying the age at marriage is related to
several other social trends, including having
children at a later age, smaller projected
family size, and therefore fewer years devoted
to childrearing
Slide 17
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Exploring Intimate Relationships: Readiness to
Marry & Selection of a Partner (cont.)
– Beyond the desire to marry, an important
factor is the readiness of the two individuals
for a long-term commitment
– Work on identity must be far enough along so
that the possibility of a deep, emotional
involvement with another person will be
regarded as exciting rather than frightening
– Recent studies find that early and later
adolescents are likely to be thinking about
intimacy issues long before their work on
identity is completed
Slide 18
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Exploring Intimate Relationships: Readiness to
Marry & Selection of a Partner (cont.)
– School enrollment as well as educational
attainment have important links to relationship
commitment
– In the U.S. and other individualistic cultures,
most people believe that romantic love is the
central reason for choosing a marriage
partner
– Men tend to value youth and physical
appearance in a partner more than do
women; women value earning potential and
job stability in a partner more than do men
Slide 19
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
Figure 12.3 The Mate Selection Process in the United States
Slide 20
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Case Study: How Love Makes Its Way into a
Relationship
– Thought Questions
• What does love mean for Dick and Gail? In what
ways might love be different from liking?
• How is the relationship between Dick and Gail
transformed when love is mentioned?
• What are the qualities of an intimate relationship
that you see illustrated in the case of Dick and
Gail? What elements of an intimate relationship
appear to be missing in this relationship?
• How does the case illustrate the concept of
homogamy? How does the case illustrate the
concepts from social evolutionary theory?
Slide 21
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Case Study: How Love Makes Its Way into a
Relationship (cont.)
– Thought Questions (cont.)
• What challenges do you imagine Dick and Gail
might face in the first few years of marriage? What
resources might help them cope with these
challenges?
Slide 22
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Exploring Intimate Relationships: Cohabitation
– Cohabitation rather than marriage has
become a common expression of a committed
relationship
– Research shows that those couples who have
cohabited before marriage are more likely to
divorce than those who have not
– In recent cohorts, couples who have married
after cohabitation and those who never
cohabitated before marriage are equally
stable, or, perhaps one might say, equally
unstable
Slide 23
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Exploring Intimate Relationships: Cohabitation
(cont.)
– Six types of cohabitating relationships
•
•
•
•
•
•
Marginal
Prelude to marriage
Stages in the marriage process
Alternative to being single
Alternative to marriage
Indistinguishable from marriage
Slide 24
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Exploring Intimate Relationships: Partners of the
Same Sex
– Gay men and lesbians are a diverse group
with respect to their interests, talents,
educational backgrounds, family
backgrounds, careers, and other important
aspects of adult roles
– Research has addressed the impact of
coming out to parents or other family
members
Slide 25
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Exploring Intimate Relationships: Partners of the
Same Sex (cont.)
– Homosexual relationships are often
established within a climate of secrecy and
social stigma, especially fears about parental
rejection
– Gay and lesbian couples often perceive less
social support from family members and seek
other members of the gay or lesbian
community to validate and encourage their
relationship
Slide 26
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Exploring Intimate Relationships: Partners of the
Same Sex (cont.)
– Lesbian and gay couples who are in a
committed relationship tend to give great
priority to maintaining and enhancing their
relationship for several reasons
Slide 27
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Exploring Intimate Relationships: Adjustment
during the Early Years of Marriage
– Communication and Marital Adjustment
• There are many sources of tension in a new
marriage. As part of the adjustment to marriage,
the partners must achieve a sense of
psychological commitment to each other
• It is reasonable to expect that intimacy and a high
level of marital satisfaction require effective
communication and the capacity to cope effectively
with conflict
Slide 28
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Exploring Intimate Relationships: Adjustment
during the Early Years of Marriage (cont.)
– Communication and Marital Adjustment
(cont.)
• Three dimensions of conflict seem especially
important in differentiating happy and distressed
marital relationships: amount of negative
communication; coercive escalation; and
perceptions of partner’s conflict resolution style
Slide 29
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Exploring Intimate Relationships: Adjustment
during the Early Years of Marriage (cont.)
– Communication styles of men and women
• Men and women communicate differently and have
different perceptions of the process, but this may
be overstated. Men and women prefer contactful
interactions, rather than controlling interactions
• Men tend to be more ambivalent than women
about expressing emotions and withdraw to avoid
escalating conflict more than women
Slide 30
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Exploring Intimate Relationships: Adjustment in
Dual-Earner Marriages
– One of the greatest changes in U.S. families
in the second half of the 20th century was the
increase in the number of married women
who were employed
– It is now normative for married women,
including those with young children, to be in
the labor market
– The involvement of both husband and wife in
the labor market requires a redefinition of
traditional family roles and the division of
labor
Slide 31
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Exploring Intimate Relationships: Adjustment in
Dual-Earner Marriages (cont.)
– A potential conflict for dual-earner couples is
the relative balance of power and demands
for household labor for the two partners
– There are many benefits to the dual earner
arrangement, but the advantages of the dualearner, multiple-role lifestyle can be offset
when one or both partners experience role
overload
Slide 32
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Childbearing: Fertility Rate & Decisions about
Childbearing
– The average number of births required for the
natural replacement of a population is
estimated at 2.1 per adult woman
– Fertility rates in the United States vary
race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status
– Decisions about childbearing are made in the
context of other personal and family goals and
commitments
Slide 33
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Childbearing: Fertility Rate & Decisions about
Childbearing (cont.)
– Cultures differ in the norms and expectations
they convey about the value of having
children as well as the appropriate timing and
frequency of pregnancies
– Decisions to postpone childbearing are
constrained by the biological clock
Slide 34
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Childbearing: Dual Roles of Intimate Partner and
Parent & The Decision Not To Have Children
– In contrast to the elation that usually
accompanies the anticipation of and
preparation for the newborn, the arrival of the
first child often brings a period of stress to the
relationship
– The quality of marital adjustment over the
transition to parenthood is closely related to
marital quality before the child was born.
Having children did have impact on marital
companionship
Slide 35
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Childbearing: Dual Roles of Intimate Partner and
Parent & The Decision Not To Have Children
(cont.)
– As the roles of mother and father are added to
the adults’ repertoire of relationships, their
own expectations concerning the raising of a
child are aroused
– Not all couples choose to have children
– Much like attitudes toward remaining single,
attitudes toward a lifestyle in which a couple
chooses not to have children are becoming
more accepting
Slide 36
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Childbearing: Dual Roles of Intimate Partner and
Parent & The Decision Not To Have Children
(cont.)
– The U.S. culture continues to be pronatalistic,
placing a high value on having children
Slide 37
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
Figure 12.4 Duration of Joint Husband-Wife Leisure Without Child for
Parents and Nonparents
Slide 38
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Work: The World of Work
– Within the life-course framework, the
occupational career is a major structural facto
in each person’s life story, in combination with
intimate relationships and parenting
Slide 39
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Work: The World of Work (cont.)
– The training period involves a process of
socialization of the new worker. During this
time, the individual must evaluate the match
between his or her personal characteristics
and goals. Four central components of the
work situation are:
•
•
•
•
Technical skills
Authority relations
Demands and hazards
Interpersonal relationships with co-workers
Slide 40
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Work: Poverty and Career Opportunities
– Factors limit the range of occupations open to
a given person during the work-search phase,
including educational attainment, ability, and
location
– Recent policy changes in the U.S. welfare
system have led to a renewed interest in the
process of supporting the transition from
welfare to work
– The biggest challenge facing individuals in
this transition in the lack of jobs that will
provide the salary and benefits necessary to
raise workers out of the poverty level
Slide 41
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Case Study: Jaye Crowe
– Thought Questions
•
•
•
•
•
What do you do?
What kinds of people do well in this business?
What do you really like about your job?
What do you dislike?
How can someone get a job like yours?
Slide 42
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Career Phases and Individual Development
– Three phases of career development
• Early, middle, and late career development
– In each phase career development reflects
• Concerns about self
• Concerns about career
• Concerns about family
Slide 43
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Lifestyle: Pace of Life & Social Network
– Lifestyle is a social psychological construct
that integrates personality characteristics,
goals, convictions, and inner conflicts with
social opportunities and resources into an
organizing pattern of actions and choices
– Pace of life, or the business of life, is shaped
by work, family, personality, and
environmental context
– As a result of participation in multiple roles,
most people expand their social network
during early adulthood
Slide 44
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Lifestyle: Pace of Life & Social Network (cont.)
– The contribution of friendships to personal
satisfaction and lifestyle differs widely during
this time with single adults and couples
without children typically having more time for
adult friendships than do parents
Slide 45
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Lifestyle: Competing Role Demands & Health
and Fitness
– A source of tension in adulthood is the
competition of role demands
– One part of role learning involves a widening
circle of competencies and relationships.
Another part involves balancing the conflicting
expectations of simultaneous role
responsibilities
– The more involved one is in the competitive
demands of work, the less likely one is to feel
comfortable about spending time away from it
Slide 46
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Lifestyle: Competing Role Demands & Health
and Fitness (cont.)
– The contemporary emphasis on health and
fitness indicates the importance of lifestyle
decisions for illness prevention and longevity
Slide 47
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• The Psychosocial Crisis: Intimacy
– Intimacy is the ability to experience an open,
supportive, tender relationship with another
person without fear of losing one’s own
identity in the process of growing close. The
sense of intimacy is usually acquired toward
the end of early adulthood
– Men’s interaction styles very from that of
women in that men are less intimate than
women
– A common context for the establishment of
intimacy is the work setting
Slide 48
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
Slide 49
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• The Psychosocial Crisis: Isolation
– Isolation is a crisis resolution in which
situational factors or a fragile sense of self
leads a person to remain psychologically
distant from others; the state of being alone
– Feelings of loneliness can be separated into
three categories: transient, situational, and
chronic
– Isolation may be a cause as well as a
consequence of depression
– For some people, the possibility of closeness
with another person seriously threatens the
sense of self
Slide 50
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• The Psychosocial Crisis: Isolation (cont.)
– Isolation can also result from situation factors
such as moving to a new town, educational or
career decisions, etc.
– Isolation can also be a product of diverging
spheres of interest and activity
– Enmeshed relationships, are characterized by
overinvolvement in one another’s lives, to the
extent that any change in one family member
is met by strong resistance by the others;
individuality is viewed as a threat to the
relationship
Slide 51
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• The Central Process: Mutuality Among Peers
– Mutuality refers to empathetic awareness of
one another, understanding of self and other,
and the ability and willingness to regulate
one’s needs in order to respond to the needs
of one’s partner
– Mutuality is strengthened as the two
individuals learn to rely on each other and as
they discover that their combined efforts are
more effective than their individual efforts
would be
Slide 52
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• The Prime Adaptive Ego Quality and Core
Pathology
– Love is an emotion characterized by a
capacity for mutuality that transcends
childhood dependency
– Exclusivity is a shutting out of others for elitist
reasons
Slide 53
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
Figure 12.5 Sternberg’s Triangle of Types of Love
Slide 54
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
• Applied Topic: Divorce
– Factors contributing to divorce
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Age at marriage
Socioeconomic level
Socioemotional development of the partners
Family history of divorce
Coping with divorce
Attachment to former spouse
Coping strategies
Slide 55
Early Adulthood (24 – 34 Years)
Figure 12.6 Probability of First-Marriage Disruption by Duration of
marriage and Wife’s Age at Marriage: United States, 1995