Young Adulthood

• Young adulthood


  Transitional period during the life course when young people are traditionally expected to become financially independent, to establish romantic relationships and become parents, and to assume responsible roles as productive and engaged members of the community
• Markers of young adulthood


  • Reaching a particular birthday
  • Gaining the vote
  • Becoming eligible to join the military services
• Developmental tasks of early adulthood


  • Achieving autonomy
  • Establishing identity
  • Developing emotional stability
  • Establishing a career
  • Finding intimacy
  • Becoming part of a group or community
  • Establishing a residence and learning how to manage a household
  • Becoming a parent and rearing children
  • Making marital or relationship adjustments and learning to parent
• Young adulthood is the peak of physical processes and health
• Young adulthood marks the peak of some cognitive abilities and the continued development of others
• Emerging adulthood


  The age of possibilities: (1) many emerging adults are optimistic about their future; and (2) for emerging adults who have experienced difficult times while growing up, emerging adulthood presents an opportunity to chart their life course in a more positive direction
• In earlier generations, individuals in their mid-twenties at the latest were expected to have finished college, obtained a full-time job, and established their own household, most often with a spouse and a child
• Today's emerging and young adults are better educated than their counterparts in the 1970s
• More young adults are working today than in 1975, mainly due to the significant rise of young women in the workforce
• Even many adolescents who have gotten good grades and then as emerging adults continued to achieve academic success in college later find themselves in their mid-twenties not having a clue about how to find a meaningful job, manage their finances, or live independently
• Intimacy


  Requires being able to share parts of yourself with others, as well as the ability to listen to and support other people. These relationships are reciprocal—you are sharing parts of yourself, and others are sharing with you
• When intimacy happens successfully


  You gain the support, intimacy, and companionship of another person
• When intimacy doesn't go smoothly

  You might experience rejection or other responses that cause you to withdraw, harming your confidence and self-esteem, making you warier of putting yourself out there again in the future
• Struggling with intimacy vs. isolation


  Adults experience few or no friendships, lack of intimacy and relationships, poor romantic relationships and weak social support. They might never share deep intimacy with their partners or might even struggle to develop any relationships at all
• The body reaches full height by the late teens, and physical strength increases into the late 20s and early 30s. Manual agility and coordination, and sensory capacities such as vision and hearing, are also at their peak
• Some decline in the perception of high-pitched tones is found by the late 20s, and manual dexterity begins to reduce in the mid-30s
• People in early adulthood feel robust and energetic, although it is not unusual to see fluctuations around deadlines and exam periods
• Young adults are legally able to use damaging substances, such as alcohol and tobacco, and many can obtain access to illegal stimulants or narcotics
• Young adults have increasing responsibility for organizing their own eating habits and exercise regimes
• The health status and prospects of young adults are dependent more than ever before on their own behavioral choices
• In emerging and early adulthood, many individuals develop unhealthy patterns such as not eating breakfast, not eating regular meals, relying on snacks, overeating, smoking, drinking, failing to exercise, getting by with only a few hours of sleep, and engaging in risky sexual behavior
• Extreme binge drinking


  Individuals who had 10 or more drinks in a row or 15 or more drinks in a row in the last two weeks
• Pregaming


  Getting generally intoxicated or drunk before going out and socializing or attending an event
• Smoking is linked to 30 percent of cancer deaths, 21 percent of heart disease deaths, and 82 percent of chronic pulmonary disease deaths. Secondhand smoke is implicated in as many as 9,000 lung cancer deaths a year. Children of smokers are at risk for a number of health problems, especially asthma
• Alcohol use disorder (AUD)


  A medical condition characterized by an impaired ability to stop or control alcohol use despite adverse social, occupational, or health consequences
• Alcohol intoxication


  Results as the amount of alcohol in your bloodstream increases. The higher the blood alcohol concentration is, the more likely you are to have bad effects. Alcohol intoxication causes behavior problems and mental changes
• Alcohol withdrawal


  Can occur when alcohol use has been heavy and prolonged and is then stopped or greatly reduced. It can occur within several hours to 4 to 5 days later
• At the beginning of emerging adulthood (age 18), slightly more than 60 percent of individuals have experienced sexual intercourse, but by the end of emerging adulthood (age 25), most individuals have had sexual intercourse
• Sexual script


  A stereotyped pattern of role prescriptions for how individuals should behave sexually
• Casual sex


  A way of enjoying the physical intimacy of sex without the emotional, practical, or romantic components of love or a committed relationship
• Casual sex means different things to different people. Generally, though, the term refers to consensual sex outside of a romantic relationship or marriage, usually without any strings of attachment or expectation of commitment or exclusivity
• Emerging adulthood


  A time frame during which most individuals are both sexually active and unmarried
• A casual sex encounter or arrangement is also known as a hookup, one-night-stand, tryst, booty call, friends-with-benefits relationship, or any number of other euphemisms
• Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs)


  • Herpes
  • Gonorrhoea
  • Syphilis
  • HIV
  • HPV
  • Hepatitis B
• Consequences of STIs


  • Increase the risk of HIV acquisition
  • Mother-to-child transmission can result in stillbirth, neonatal death, low-birth weight and prematurity, sepsis, neonatal conjunctivitis and congenital deformities
  • HPV infection causes cervical and other cancers
  • Hepatitis B resulted in an estimated 820 000 deaths in 2019, mostly from cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma
• Rape is forcible sexual intercourse with a person who does not give consent
• Legal definitions of rape differ from state to state. For example, in some states husbands are not prohibited from forcing their wives to have intercourse, although this has been challenged in several of those states
• Although most victims of rape are women, rape of men does occur. Men in prisons are especially vulnerable to rape, usually by heterosexual males who use rape as a means of establishing their dominance and power
• Sexual harassment


  Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature in the workplace or learning environment
• Forms of sexual harassment

  • Making conditions of employment or advancement dependent on sexual favors, either explicitly or implicitly
  • Physical acts of sexual assault
  • Requests for sexual favors
  • Verbal harassment of a sexual nature, including jokes referring to sexual acts or sexual orientation
  • Unwanted touching or physical contact