ADULTHOOD & AGING

FSBA III – CORE 09 – UNIT 4

Experiencing Middle Age
Middle Age: A Social Construct
• The concept of middle age is a social construct. It came into use in industrial
societies as an increasing life span led to new roles at midlife.
• The span of middle adulthood is often subjective.
• Middle adulthood is a time of both gains and losses.
• Most middle-aged people are in good physical, cognitive, and emotional
condition. They have heavy responsibilities and multiple roles and feel competent to
handle them.
• Middle age is a time for taking stock and making decisions about the remaining
years.
New Developmental Tasks
• Margie Lachman (2004) provides a comprehensive overview of the challenges
facing midlife adults, outlining the roles and responsibilities of those entering the
“afternoon of life” (Jung). These include:

1. Losing parents and experiencing associated grief.

2. Launching children into their own lives.
3. Adjusting to home life without children (often called the empty nest).
4. Dealing with adult children who return to live at home (known as boomerang
children in the United States).
5. Becoming grandparents.
6. Preparing for late adulthood.
7. Acting as caregivers for aging parents or spouses.
Normative-Stage Models
• Erikson (1985) believed that the years around age 40 were a time when people
entered their seventh psychosocial stage: generativity versus stagnation.
• Generativity, as Erikson defined it, involved finding meaning through contributing
to society and leaving a legacy for future generations.
• Overall, highly generative people tend to report greater well-being and
satisfaction in midlife and in later adulthood (Sheldon & Kasser, 2001; Adams-
Price et al., 2018).
• People who do not find an outlet for generativity run the risk of becoming self-
absorbed, self-indulgent, and stagnant.
• Adults who slide into stagnation may find themselves disconnected from their
communities because of their failure to find a way to contribute.
Trait Model
• The best-known trait model of personality describes the individual differences
between people as consisting of five factors: openness to experience,
conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism (Costa &
McCrae, 1980).
• Studies show there are normative developmental trends in personality.
• Specifically, in adulthood, people generally show increases in agreeableness,
conscientiousness, and emotional stability and decreases in extraversion,
neuroticism, and openness to experience (Roberts et al., 2006; Milojev & Sibley,
2017).
• This is important because subjective well-being (how happy a person feels) is
related to personality traits, especially neuroticism.
• However, research shows that culture also plays an important role in determining
the outcome of the trait model.
Timing of Events Models
• Timing of events models suggest that rather than being based on years lived,
development is more affected by when events occur in a person’s life.
• In other words, what matters is not that a person turns 65 but that the person
retires.
• Research has shown a number of factors affect people’s subjective sense of aging
and their entry into middle age.
• Ethnic minority group members, people who have lower levels of education or
socioeconomic status, young parents, divorced people, or people whose parents
have died tend to report an earlier age of entry into middle age (Toothman &
Barrett, 2011; Barrett & Toothman, 2017).
Marriage And Family Life
• Research on marriage satisfaction indicates there is generally an initial rapid
decline, followed by a plateau, and then further, slower declines over the long term.
The birth of a child is associated with steep declines, whereas sexual satisfaction is
associated with marital satisfaction.
• Cohabitation is increasing in midlife but may negatively affect men’s well-being.
• Divorce at midlife can be stressful and life-changing. Marital capital (Financial and
emotional benefits built up during a long-standing marriage, which tends to hold a
couple together) tends to discourage midlife divorce.
• Divorce today may be less threatening to well-being in middle age than in young
adulthood.
• Married people tend to be healthier in middle age than people with any other
marital status.
Marriage And Family Life
• Because some gays and lesbians delayed coming out, at midlife they may be just
establishing intimate relationships.
• Middle-aged people tend to invest less time in friendships than younger adults do
but depend on friends for emotional support and practical guidance.
Relationships with Maturing Children
• Parents of adolescents have to come to terms with a loss of control over their
children’s lives.
• The emptying of the nest is liberating for many women but may be stressful for
couples whose identity is dependent on the parental role or those who now must
face previously submerged marital problems.
• Middle-aged parents tend to remain involved with their adult children, and most
are generally happy with the way their children turned out. Conflict may arise over
grown children’s need to be treated as adults and parents’ continuing concern about
them.
• Today, more young adults are delaying departure from their childhood home or
are returning to it. Adjustment tends to be smoother if the parents see the adult
child as moving toward autonomy.
 Identity And Interpersonal Behavior
• The way that an individual characteristically responds to life’s changes and challenges
and to success and failure affects his/her sense of identity.
• As individuals move into middle adulthood, they are likely to feel that they have
changed greatly over the years, but studies shows that large changes are uncommon.
• The sense of self-control and confidence that grows in the twenties and thirties
continues to increase during forties.
• Men in their forties tend to use more mature strategies in coping with personal
problems.
• One study found that individuals who have positive self-concepts and who see
themselves as active, optimistic, and autonomous feel that they are in control of their
lives.
• People start to focus on thoughts and feelings instead of on actions and events.
Identity And Interpersonal Behavior
• Key psychosocial issues and themes during middle adulthood concern the
existence of a midlife crisis, identity development (including gender identity), and
psychological well-being.
• Research does not support a normative midlife crisis. It is more accurate to refer to
a transition that may be a psychological turning point.
• According to Whitbourne’s identity process theory, people continually confirm or
revise their perceptions about themselves on the basis of experience and feedback
from others. Identity processes typical of an individual can predict adaptation to
aging.
• Generativity is an aspect of identity development.
Identity And Interpersonal Behavior
The Stage-Crisis View and Midlife Crisis
• Levinson’s theory is known as the stage-crisis view. Levinson (1986) identified five
main stages or “seasons” of a man’s life as follows:
1. Pre-adulthood: Ages 0-22 (with 17 – 22 being the Early Adult Transition years)
2. Early Adulthood: Ages 17-45 (with 40 – 45 being the Midlife Transition years)
3. Middle Adulthood: Ages 40-65 (with 60-65 being the Late Adult Transition years)
4. Late Adulthood: Ages 60-85
5. Late Late Adulthood: Ages 85+
• Carl Jung believed that our personality actually matures as we get older.
• Levy (2009) found that older individuals who can adapt to and accept changes in
their appearance and physical capacity in a positive way report higher well-being,
have better health, and live longer.
Identity And Interpersonal Behavior
• Narrative psychology describes identity development as a continuous process of
constructing a life story. Highly generative people tend to focus on a theme of
redemption.
• Emotionality and personality are related to psychological well-being.
• Research based on Ryff’s six-dimensional scale (autonomy, environmental
mastery, personal growth, positive relations with others, purpose in life and self-
acceptance) has found that midlife is generally a period of positive mental health
and well-being, though socioeconomic status is a factor.
Physical Changes
• Although some physiological changes result from aging and genetic makeup,
behavior and lifestyle can affect their timing and extent.
• Most middle-aged adults compensate well for gradual, minor declines in sensory
and psychomotor abilities. Losses in bone density and vital capacity are common.
• Symptoms of menopause and attitudes toward it may depend on cultural factors
and natural changes of aging.
• Although men can continue to father children until late in life, many middle-aged
men experience a decline in fertility and frequency of orgasm.
• A large proportion of middle-aged men experience erectile dysfunction. Erectile
dysfunction can have physical causes but also may be related to health, lifestyle,
and emotional well-being.
• Sexual activity generally diminishes gradually in middle age.
Physical and Mental Health
• Most middle-aged people are healthy and have no functional limitations.
• Hypertension is a major health problem beginning in midlife. Cancer has passed heart
disease as the number one cause of death in midlife. The prevalence of diabetes has
doubled.
• Diet, exercise, alcohol use, and smoking affect present and future health. Preventive care
is important.
• Low income is associated with poorer health.
• Racial and ethnic disparities in health and health care have decreased but still persist.
• Postmenopausal women become more susceptible to heart disease as well as to bone loss
leading to osteoporosis. The chances of developing breast cancer also increase with age.
Physical and Mental Health
• Hormone therapy is highly effective for treating some of the symptoms of
menopause but has a complex pattern of risks and benefits.
• Stress occurs when the body’s ability to cope is not equal to the demands on it.
Stress is related to a variety of practical problems. Severe stress can affect
immune functioning.
• Role and career changes and other experiences typical of middle age can be
stressful, but resilience is common.
• Personality and negative emotionality can affect health. Positive emotions tend to
be associated with good health.
• Psychological distress is prevalent in middle age.
• There is now an increasing acceptance of the view within developmental
psychology that an uncritical reliance on chronological age may be inappropriate.
• People have certain expectations about getting older, their own idiosyncratic
views, and internalized societal beliefs.
• Taken together they constitute a tacit knowledge of the aging process.
• A negative perception of how we are aging can have real results in terms of life
expectancy and poor health.
• Levy et al. (2002) estimated that those with positive feelings about aging lived 7.5
years longer than those who did not.
• Subjective aging encompasses a wide range of psychological perspectives and
empirical research.
• However, there is now a growing body of work centered around a construct
referred to as Awareness of Age-Related Change (AARC) (Diehl et al., 2015), which
examines the effects of our subjective perceptions of age and their consequential,
and very real, effects.
• Neuport & Bellingtier (2017) report that this subjective awareness can change on a
daily basis, and that negative events or comments can disproportionately affect
those with the most positive outlook on aging.