young adulthood

• Acceptability of homosexual unions is growing, especially in younger cohorts and in women
• Emerging adults tend to have more sexual partners than in older age groups, but they have sex less frequently
• Reflective Thinking


  Active, persistent, and careful consideration of information or beliefs
• Reflective Thinking


  1. Continually question facts

  2. Draw inferences

  3. Make connections
• Emerging adults frequently engage in critical thinking
• At approx. 20-25 years of age, the brain forms new neurons, synapses, and dendritic connections, and the cortical regions that handle higher-level thinking become fully myelinated
• Postformal Thought


  Characterized by the ability to deal with inconsistency, contradiction, and compromise
• Postformal Thought


  • Draws on intuition and emotion as well as logic to help people cope with situations such as social dilemmas
  • Acknowledges that there may be more than one valid way of viewing an issue and that the world is made up of shades of gray
• Traditionally, adulthood was defined by markers such as moving out of the family home, marriage, children, full-time employment, or establishment of career
• Early marriage and family formation

  Associated with poverty and substance use
• Emerging adults with the highest well-being were those who were not yet married, had no children, attend college, and lived away from their childhood home