2. • 20 year old Male
• Starting his fourth year of College, towards a
degree in Digital Media; Web Design
• In a relationship for 4 months
• Has a summer job at a theme park
• Average Height and slightly below average
weight
• Clean shaven
• Well groomed
• While he seemed happy to answer the
questions, he wasn’t as focused as the other
interviewees
3. • He feels that he is fairly physically fit, mostly due to working out at the gym every so often at his
college. While he may work out often, he doesn’t watch what he eats very well, mostly due to being a
very picky eater. He feels as though working out for him is very important because it is the only thing
that keeps him healthy
• He feels fairly okay about his looks and appearance, but doesn’t put a big emphasis on it in his
everyday life
• In the future he sees himself staying almost, if not as, physically active as he is right now. He feels as
though once he reaches the late adulthood stage of his life that he will most likely exercise less than
he does at the moment and plans to do in the middle adulthood stage of his life or the young-old
portion of his life (Wright, 2013, p. 252)
4. • He feels as though he is fairly intelligent, especially in certain areas like computers, music and
psychology. He also feels fairly intelligent in almost all of the general school related subjects like
science, geography and writing. He does mention that his comprehension of math is most likely his
weakest. While he says his crystallized intelligence is fairly good, he also believes that his fluid
intelligence is fairly good as well (Wright, 2013, p. 206)
• While he feels fairly intelligent in most school subjects he mentions that he does have to apply
himself in college to make sure to he stays on top of his grades and gets the most out of his time in
college. Since he is in his last year of college and realizes what his future career should be like in a
realistic way, he would be considered to be at the Tentative choice stage (Wright, 2013, p. 209)
• As he ages he sees himself growing more as a person, maturing, gaining knowledge and becoming a
well rounded person
5. • He describes himself as a laid back, caring, respectful person with strong options and who sometimes
is unnecessarily hard on himself and has changed a lot since he was younger. When using the big five
factors of personalities he would most likely be considered neuroticism. (Wright, 2013, p. 252)
• He describes his relationship with his parents as alright, sometimes getting into arguments, but ever
since moving out they have worked better together.
• He says that his friends are a lot like him. They all have very similar interests in things like sports,
sense of humor and music and they reflect one another. He describes his relationship with his
girlfriend as really good and considers being with each as the high point, but doesn’t have any plans
towards marriage at the moment.
• He has a summer job at a theme park and considers it to be stressful, mostly due to how hectic it all
is.
6. • He says that the most important things in life at the moment are friends, family, relationships and
being happy
• He mentions that the good thing about being his age is that you are still young and healthy, while the
bad thing about being his age is trying to figure out what you are doing/going to do with your life or
pragmatic thought (Wright, 2013, p. 206)
• He says that his age at the moment is better than being a teenager, but can be stressful do to still
trying to figure everything out
7. PRIME (MIDDLE) ADULT YEARS
• 46 year old Female
• Mother of two with children aged 18, 20
• Has Associates of Art and Business Degree
• District Manager of Fast Food Chain
• Average Height and average weight
• Has Type 1 Diabetes
• Well groomed
• Delighted to be interviewed and happy to
answer every question
8. PRIME (MIDDLE) ADULT YEARS
Health and Exercise
• She is a Type 1 Diabetic, diagnosed at the age of
30. Her disease forces her to very carefully watch
what she eats always
• She smokes often
• She exercises infrequently, but considers her job
a workout because of all of the constant motion,
lifting and carrying
• She mentions the importance of being healthy
has increased with aged, partially due to
Diabetes
Aging and Appearance
• She has noticed grey hair has is started to appear
and feels the need to dye her hair, but doesn’t care
or dress to impress anyone other than herself.,
which is an outcome of the Integrity vs. Despair
stage of the psychosocial stages of development
(Wright, 2013, p. 30).
• She feels okay about her looks, while also
identifying some physical development changes like
her neck that she says look like an old person, crows
feet and bags under her eyes (Wright, 2013, p. 227).
• She notices that with age has come more aching of
the body and becoming more prone to injury, for
instance her Sciatic Nerve and tension/pain in her
neck and jaw
Health in the Future
She expects to not have a glooming future, but instead have a comfortable future where she is
working with her diabetes, which will help control her health, to a certain degree. While
mentioning that obviously the aging process and it’s effects will occur.
9. PRIME (MIDDLE) ADULT YEARS
• She considers herself to be an intelligent person with a good analytical mind and a strong vocabulary.
She also believes that with aging she has become more intelligent because of life experience, reading
and discovering new information or ideas
• She reads not only for entertainment, but for knowledge, like new vocabulary/ideas
• She mentions that in the future she hopes to keep gaining more knowledge and grow her vocabulary
even more, while hoping that once she is much older that she will keep all of her marbles and
knowledge
• She believes that at her age most people have becoming more intelligent because they learned
through life experiences and picked up ideas or information throughout their life and realized that
they really didn’t know everything when they were younger and will then try to expand your
knowledge.
• She also believes that the older generations have more knowledge or wisdom of things that apply
more in a life sense, while younger generations might be more book smart. While some of people in
older generations might be afraid of computers they can get around that by using technology from
their time like phones/library. This idea of knowledge or wisdom that is seen in the older generations
is an outcome of the Integrity vs. Despair stage of the psychosocial stages of development (Wright,
2013, p. 30).
10. PRIME (MIDDLE) ADULT YEARS
• She considers herself a nice person, who tries to always consider other peoples feeling, is fair, doesn’t want
to do or hurt other people, which would be the agreeableness factor of the big five factors of personality
(Wright, 2013, p. 235) , is optimistic [which she says can be a good and bad thing because of being
blindsided by things that you aren’t expecting] and she sometimes avoids confrontations/keep the peace
[which can be good or bad]
• She believes that she hasn’t changed very much since her youth and isn’t sure if she will change much with
age either
• She has been married for more than 20 years and when thinking about the past, in relation to her partner
and her, would say it was young and carefree. When she then started to have kids they became the focus,
which is generally an outcome of the Generativity vs. Stagnation stage of the psychosocial stages of
development (Wright, 2013, p. 30,235). Then we one of her children went off to college she mentioned that
she feels more lonely because someone who was such a big focus of her life is now out of the house and not
around as much and once she becomes an empty nester it will cause more dependence on each other [her
husband and her] (Wright, 2013, p. 240) and with age they will not be as flexible/adept to change which
may causes arguments.
• She says parenthood was the best thing ever, especially the oral to phallic stages of the psychosexual stages
of development (Wright, 2013, p. 29). She also said that she always wanted to be a parent and was
surprised by how much personality babies have right at birth, instead of the personality that is learned. The
personality of babies right at birth represents the biological and genetic factors that would be considered
nature, while the personality of babies that is learned from environmental influences is considered nurture
(Wright, 2013, p. 27).
• Her relationship with my parents is good, seeing them frequently. Since her Dad was the disciplinarian she
didn’t care for him a ton in the younger years, but has realized it had a purpose and respect has been gained
due to this, considers her mom one of her best friends and can always trust her. (Wright, 2013, p. 241)
11. PRIME (MIDDLE) ADULT YEARS
• She feels that at her age the important things in life are taking care of her family, being a good person,
helping others when you can and taking care of yourself.
• She feels as though there are good and bad things that have come with her age. The good things are
that she is more maturity, which helps to handle situations better and she is established in life. The
bad things are having an empty nest (Wright, 2013, p. 240), physical and body related aging, worrying
about her parents aging, worrying about her children aging/adulthood and she thinks more about the
mortality of everyone that she is close with.
• She says the best time of her life so far was her 20s and 30s when her kids were growing up because
she saw life through the eyes of a toddler.
12. OLDER ADULT
• 69 year old Female
• Mother of three aged 46,47,44
• Grandmother of Six
• Great Grandmother of two aged 2,3
• Has High School Degree and Beauty School
Graduate
• Healthcare Provider
• Enthusiastic, very interactive during the
interview and happy to answer all of the
questions
• Well groomed
13. OLDER ADULT
Health and Exercise
• She feels as though she is very healthy and
physically active.
• Her exercise includes walking, being on her feet
often and free-weights.
• She watches what see eats very much, to the
point of making most of the meals she eats.
• Her only health-related worry at the moment is
a heart condition, only because it runs in her
family or it is genetically inherited from her
ancestors possibly (Wright, 2013, p. 35). She
hasn’t had any serious issues yet.
Aging and Appearance
• She feels as though she looks good for her
age and considers looking/feeling good with
her appearance is important
• She has noticed that with age has come some
physical development changes and a
common chronic disorder like Arthritis,
wrinkles and stomach problems (Wright,
2013, p. 227,229,255).
• She has funeral arrangements planned and
assisted living is planned, if she cannot live
on her own at some point.
14. OLDER ADULT
• She feels as though she is fairly intelligent and can keep up with people her age. She isn’t very good
with technology, but does use it some a certain point. Other than technology, which for her age she is
alright with, she tries to stay current
• She does engage in several activities to keep herself intelligent like reading, crossword puzzles,
cooking/baking or taking courses to maintain her position as a healthcare provider. Some of the
courses she takes are Behavioral based safety, First Aid, CPR, Blood Borne Pathogens, AIDs/HIV,
Behavior of Children with Autism, and several other HIPAA certification course
• She has noticed over the years that her working memory or prospective memory aren’t as strong as it
used to be (Wright, 2013, p. 232,260). While she does have moments of forgetfulness, which she
blames on aging/ decrease of the volume in a person’s brain (Ackerman, 2007), she says that staying
intelligent and memory are a number one priority for her and she feels that most people her age
either have their number one priority as staying intelligent or their health
15. OLDER ADULT
• She considers herself as a kind, mothering, loving person, who is easy to get along with or in technical terms
an extraversion (Wright, 2013, p. 235). She also feels that she has matured greatly since her younger years
• Since growing older she thinks she has put her family before herself, while when she was younger she put
herself first, which can be seen as an outcome of the Generativity and Stagnation stage of the psychosocial
stages of development (Wright, 2013, p. 30)
• She has been married for more than 35 years and feels that as in time passed they grew together as
partners, became more alike/connected, looked towards the future more and are more like 1 person than 2
separate people.
• She feels like she has been an easy person to get along with/ not combative and that causes her to
sometimes be taken advantage of because she is so nice. She gets along with almost everyone and doesn’t
have a big problem with relationships in general
• Since she has become a grandparent and great grandparent she feels as though she has seen the word
through different eyes and has seen the future/past before her, while they also keep her young and happy.
She also mentions that the joy of that comes from being a parent/grandparent/great grandparent is that
you know now and being able to possibly pass it down, which can be considered scaffolding and
generativity (Wright, 2013, p. 34,235). She also says that being a great grandparent is the best thing ever
16. OLDER ADULT
• She feels that her favorite part of life so far is right now, even though she frequently thinks about the
past or engages in life reviews (Wright, 2013, p. 262)
• She is also very hopeful for the years to come
• She believes that the good points of being her age is the wisdom gained from life experience, which is
an outcome of the Integrity vs. Despair stage of the psychosocial stages of development (Wright,
2013, p. 30)
• She believes that the bad points of being her age is not being able to keep up as much as you used to.
17. COMPARE AND CONTRAST
Compare
Physical functioning and body concerns:
•They all say that they exercise frequently
because of the health risks that may come form
not exercising
•They all are confident with how they look, while
not focusing on what other people think
Intelligence:
•They all said that they believed they were fairly
intelligent for their age and could gain more
knowledge and life experience
•They all believe that most of the emerging adults
have better crystallized intelligence (Wright,
2013, p. 205)
Personality and relationships:
•Both interviewees that have children,
grandchildren or great grandchildren consider
that to be the best thing ever
Contrast
Physical functioning and body concerns:
•The Middle adult and older adult both watched
what they eat very much, while the emerging
adult ate more unhealthy food. Most likely due
to the scare of chronic disorders or health
problems that come with aging (Wright, 2013, p.
229)
Intelligence:
•The emerging adult considered computers as a
strong point, while both the middle adult and
older adult considered it something they could
work with, but aren’t fully up to date with. This
is probably due to the decrease in the volume of
the brain that comes from again and not growing
up with computers (Ackerman, 2007)
Personality and relationships:
•They are all apart of different factors of the big
five factors of personality (Wright, 2013, p. 235)
18. REFERENCES
Ackerman, S. J. (2007). The Brain in Adult Life and Normal Aging— The Dana Guide. Retrieved from
https://www.dana.org/news/brain health/detail.aspx?id=10058
Wright, C. (2013). Puzzle Pieces: Theories in Developmental Psychology. In Mysteries of Human
Development: A Lifespan Perspective (2nd ed.). Kendall Hunt Publishing Company.
Wright, C. (2013). Prime Adulthood: Beginning the Journey. In Mysteries of Human Development: A
Lifespan Perspective (2nd ed.). Kendall Hunt Publishing Company.
Wright, C. (2013). Middle Adulthood: Sandwich Anyone? In Mysteries of Human Development: A
Lifespan Perspective (2nd ed.). Kendall Hunt Publishing Company.
Wright, C. (2013). Late Adulthood: Crossing the Finish Line. In Mysteries of Human Development: A
Lifespan Perspective (2nd ed.). Kendall Hunt Publishing Company.
