Dev Psych CH10

• Emerging adulthood


  A relatively new term referring to the period when people are not adolescents but are not fully adults, encompassing the years between late adolescence and early 30s
• Role transitions


  • New responsibilities and duties that mark movement into the next developmental stages (e.g., marriage)
• Rites of passage


  • Important rituals marking initiation into adulthood (e.g., college graduation or marriage ceremonies)
• Rituals in non-Western cultures change little with time and provide continuity, some involve pain or mutilation
• Many cultures employ religious rituals (e.g., confirmation, bar/bat mitzvahs, quinceanera)
• Role transitions in Western cultures

  • Involve assuming new responsibilities and duties (voting, completing education, beginning full-time employment)
  • Western society has no clear age-constant rituals that clearly mark the transition to adulthood
• Neuroscience and emerging adulthood

  • The prefrontal cortex is not fully developed until the mid-20s
  • Higher level reasoning is not possible prior to early adulthood
  • Young adults are more able than adolescents to take different points of view
• Edgework


  Living on the boundary between life and death in physically or psychologically risky situations
• Gender differences in dealing with edgework

  • Men do not rehearse these; are highly confident
  • Women rehearse to ease their initially lower confidence
• Nearly 70% of all high school graduates go to college, with higher rates in upper-income groups
• Research has documented how students develop while in college, including advances in intellectual development
• College campuses are changing, with increasing numbers of returning adult students (over age 25)
• Intimacy versus isolation


  A major task for adults to deal with, as described by Erikson's sixth stage
• Solving identity and intimacy issues

  • Men and career-oriented women solve identity issues before intimacy issues, while some women resolve intimacy issues before identity issues
  • Some women deal with both identity and intimacy issues simultaneously
• Quarter-life-crisis


  The struggle of finding one's way into the "real world", including the locked-out form of feeling unable to enter adult roles and the locked-in form of feeling trapped in adult roles
• Achieving adulthood takes longer today, and the shedding of formal rites of passage leaves less clarity, so defining oneself as an adult rests on one's perception of whether personally relevant key criteria have been met
• Physical development in young adulthood

  • Height is at its tallest, and several physical abilities peak including strength, muscle development, coordination, dexterity, and sensory acuity, most of which begin to decline in middle age
• Death from disease is relatively rare in the 20s, with the leading cause being accidents
• Gender and ethnic differences in mortality rates

  • Young adult men (age 25–34) 2.5 times more likely to die than women of the same age
  • African American and Latino young adult males: 2–2.5 times more likely to die than European American men
  • Asian or Pacific Islander young adult males only half as likely to die as European American men
• Smoking


  Nicotine is a known potent teratogen, and smoking is the leading contributor to health problems in smokers, while nonsmokers are also at high risk from secondhand smoke exposure
• Occasional drinking


  1–2 glasses of wine or beer/day is not known to seriously affect health
• Binge drinking


  Consuming 5 or more (men) or 4 or more (women) drinks in a row within 2 weeks, a major international health concern especially among college students
• Alcohol Use Disorder


  An addiction involving physical dependence on alcohol and withdrawal symptoms when not drinking, with long-term effects on the brain
• Metabolism


  How much energy the body needs, slowing down with age
• Obesity


  A growing health problem, measured by body mass index (BMI) with a healthy range under 25
• LDL and HDL cholesterol

  LDL cholesterol impedes blood flow by causing fatty deposits, while HDL cholesterol keeps arteries clear and breaks down LDLs
• The three most important social factors in health are socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and education, with being poor a major predictor of health challenges
• In the United States, ethnic differences exist in the quality of health care received, and the risk of dying increases as education level decreases
• African American men in large urban areas have lower life expectancies even than men in developing countries, with poverty playing a major role and lesser likelihood of being treated for chronic diseases
• The three most important social factors in health

  • Socioeconomic status
  • Ethnicity
  • Education
• Being poor


  A major predictor of health challenges
• In the United States, ethnic differences exist in the quality of health care received
• The risk of dying increases as education level decreases
• In the United States, the residents of inner-city neighborhoods have the poorest health conditions
• African American men in large urban areas have lower life expectancies even than men in developing countries
• Poverty


  Plays a major role in lower life expectancies for African American men
• African American men in large urban areas have a lesser likelihood of being treated for chronic diseases
• Intelligence in adulthood


  Most theories are multidimensional, though there is disagreement as to the dimensions
• Baltes et al.'s three dimensions of intelligence in adulthood

  • Multidirectionality: some aspects improve while others decline during adulthood
  • Interindividual variability: patterns of change vary between people
  • Plasticity: abilities can be modified under the right conditions
• Psychometric approach


  Studies how interrelationships among intellectual abilities are organized