Emerging Young and Adulthood

• Emerging adulthood


  Time during which young people are no longer adolescents but have not yet settled into adult roles, marked by identity exploration and a focus on the self
• Diet and nutrition


  • What people eat and how much they move their bodies affect how they look, how they feel, and how likely they are to get sick and even die
• Obesity and overweight


  • Research on overweight and obesity in emerging adulthood is an important area as people are most likely to become obese at this time
• Food insecurity


  • Associated with poor health, high blood pressure, obstructive airway disease, depression, anxiety, and sleep disorders
• Physical activity


  • Strongly related to cognitive functioning, a healthy body is related to a healthy mind
• Stress


  • High levels of chronic stress are related to physical and immunological impairments
• Sleep


  • Sleep deprivation affects physical health, cognitive, emotional, and social functioning
• Smoking


  • Causes cancer, stroke, lung disease, diabetes, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, as does second-hand smoke
• Alcohol use


  • Health risks include injuries and accidents, such as falls, car accidents, and drowning
• Socioeconomic status


  • Better-educated and more affluent people tend to have healthier lifestyles and better health care
• Race and ethnicity


  • There are still vast disparities in health and health care access as a function of race and ethnicity
• Health care access


  • Young people had the lowest levels of health insurance, as they age out of social service programs and live independently
• Relationships and health


  • Strong social ties can decrease stress levels and promote healthier behaviours
• Alcoholism


  Chronic disease involving dependence on use of alcohol, causing interference with normal functioning and fulfillment of obligations
• Drug use and abuse

  • The most common habit-forming drugs include marijuana, prescription painkillers, cocaine, and heroin
• Depression


  • Adolescence and emerging adulthood appear to be sensitive periods for the onset of depressive disorders
• Premarital sex is more likely to be considered acceptable in developed than developing countries
• Emerging adults tend to have more sexual partners than in older age groups, but they have sex less frequently
• People who become sexually active during emerging adulthood rather than adolescence tend to engage in fewer risky behaviors
• Sexually transmitted infections (STIs)


  Illnesses that are transmitted by having sex
• Premenstrual syndrome (PMS)


  Disorder producing symptoms of physical discomfort and emotional tension for up to 2 weeks before a menstrual period
• Postformal thought


  Mature type of thinking that relies on subjective experience and intuition as well as logic and allows room for ambiguity, uncertainty, inconsistency, contradiction, imperfection, and compromise
• Flexibility


  • Formal logical thought is appropriate for some problems, but experience can help understand ambiguous situations more effectively
• Relativistic thinking


  Immature thinking tends to be black and white, with one right answer and one wrong one
• Reflective thinking


  Type of logical thinking that becomes more prominent in adulthood, involving continuous, active evaluation of information and beliefs in light of evidence and implications
• Stages of reflective thinking

  • Dualism: Authorities have the answers, ambiguity not tolerated
  • Multiplicity: Different viewpoints seen as potentially valuable
  • Contextual relativism: Merits of different solutions considered with understanding that some may be better
  • Commitment: Using evidence to evaluate solutions, best answer depends on context and values
• Emotional intelligence


  Ability to perceive, use, understand, and manage emotions - one's own and others' - to achieve goals
• Emotional intelligence


  • Enables harnessing emotions to deal more effectively with the social environment, requires awareness of appropriate behaviour in a given situation
• Postconventional morality


  Final stage of moral reasoning where people make moral decisions based on universal principles of justice
• Three ethics


  • Ethic of autonomy: Focus on individual rights and justice
  • Ethic of community: Focus on social connections, duty, and group harmony
  • Ethic of divinity: Focus on attaining holiness and purity
• College education


  • Courses and degree/certificate programs now widely available through distance learning
• Substantive complexity


  Degree to which a person's work requires thought and independent judgment
• Identity moratorium


  Self-conscious crisis that ideally leads to identity achievement
• Sexual and gender identity formation

  Cognitive and emotional underpinnings of people's understanding and meaning of their sexuality
• Normative-stage models


  Theoretical approaches that hold adults follow a basic sequence of age-related psychosocial changes
• Intimacy vs isolation


  Erikson's stage where young adults either form strong bonds or face isolation and self-absorption
• Timing-of-events model


  Personality development as a response to expected or unexpected life events
• Social clock


  Cultural norms or expectations for when important life events should occur
• Trait models


  Focus on mental, emotional, temperamental, and behavioral traits or attributes
• Personality types


  • Ego-resilient: Well-adjusted
  • Overcontrolled: Shy, quiet, anxious, dependable
  • Undercontrolled: Active, energetic, impulsive, stubborn