Middle and Emerging Adulthood

• a pathway in young adulthood wherein individual begin families early and do not go to college

  first group
• a pathway in young adulthood wherein delay children until young adulthood but who, rather than investing in college, move into full-time work. these young adults bear more children by their thirties, work more hours, reach an income plateau, and depend more on government aid

  second group
• emerging adults of both sexes who delay parenthood and other traditional markers of adulthood in pursuit of educational or career goals

  third group
• is a name for the process that underlies the shift to an adult identity. IT IS THE PRIMARY TASK FOR EMERGING ADULTHOOD 

  Recentering
• refers to those young adults who remain dependent on their parents rather than establishing a separate and independent life as self-sufficient adults.

  failure to launch
• theoretical view of personality development where adults follow a basic sequence of age-related psychosocial changes that is COMMON most members of a population at a particular time

  Normative-stage Models
• Theoretical model of personality development that describes adult psychosocial development as a response to the expected or unexpected occurrence and timing of important life events.

  Timing-of-events
• Society’s norms or expectations for the appropriate timing of life events

  Social clock
• psychological models of personality development that focus on the measurement and examination of these different traits. one example is Big Five

  Trait models
• Theoretical approach that identifies broad personality types, or styles such as ego-resilinet, overcontrolled, and undercontrolled

  Typological Approach
• people are well-adjusted: self-confident, independent, articulate, attentive, helpful, cooperative, and task-focused.

  Ego-reselient
• people are shy, quiet, anxious, and dependable; they tend to keep their thoughts to themselves and to withdraw from conflict, and they are the most subject to depression

  overcontrolled
• people are active, energetic, impulsive, stubborn, and easily distracted.

  undercontrolled
• individual treat other as family members despite a lack of blood relationship

  fictive kin
• emotional element of sternberg's triangular theory of love that involves self-disclosure, which leads to connection, warmth, and trust.

  intimacy
• motivational element of Sternberg's theory of love that based on inner drives that translate physiological arousal into sexual desire. It involves feelings of sexual attraction, intrusive thoughts of the romantic partner, or sexual activity itself.

  Passion
• cognitive element of sternberg's theory of love that refers to decision to love and to stay with the beloved

  Commitment
• Intimacy + Passion

  Romantic Love
• Intimacy + Commitment

  Companionate Love
• Passion + Commitment

  Fatuous Love
• Intimacy + Passion + Commitment

  Consummate Love
• In some normative-crisis models, stressful life periods precipitated by the review and reevaluation of one’s past, typically occurring in the early to middle forties.

  midlife crisis
• Psychological transitions that involve significant change or transformation in the perceived meaning, purpose, or direction of a person’s life

  Turning point
• Whitbourne’s theory of identity development based on processes of assimilation and accommodation

  Identity process theory
• involves holding onto a consistent sense of self in the face of new experiences that do not fit the current understanding of the self.

  identity assimilation
• views the development of the self as a continuous process of constructing one’s life story—a dramatic narrative to help make sense of one’s life and connect the past and present with the future

  narrative psychology
• maintain a stable sense of self while adjusting their self-schemas to incorporate new information, such as the effects of aging.

  identity balance
• tendency to resist assimilation and cling to familiar values and practices that give meaning to life

  ethnic conservatism
• According to carstensen, it is the main goal for selecting friends during childhood and young adulthood

  source of information
• According to carstensen, it is the main goal for selecting friends during Infancy

  source of emotional wellbeing
• Tendency for young adults who have left home to return to their parents’ household in times of financial, marital, or other trouble

  Revolving door syndrome (boomerang phenomenon)
• Middle-aged adults squeezed by competing needs to raise or launch children and to care for elderly parents.

  Sandwich Generation