Psychology Adulthood and Aging Course Lecture note from Psychology Department, University of Gondar

1. UNIT THREE
3. MIDDLE ADULTHOOD

2. Middle Adulthood
• As Middle Adulthood is a long period in the life span, it is
customarily subdivided into Early Middle Adulthood,
which extends from age forty to age fifty, & Advanced
Middle Adulthood, which extends from age fifty to age
sixty, physical and psychological changes that first began
during the early forties become far more apparent.
Characteristics of middle age
1. Middle Adulthood is a Time of Stress
2. Middle Adulthood is a "Dangerous Age“
3. Middle Adulthood is an "Awkward Age“
4. Middle Adulthood is a Time of Achievement
5. Middle Adulthood is a Time of Evaluation
6. Middle Adulthood is the Time of the Empty Nest
7. Middle Adulthood is a Time of Boredom

3. 1. Middle Adulthood is a Time of Stress
• Radical adjustments to changed roles and patterns of life,
especially when accompanied by physical changes, always
tend to disrupt the individual's physical and psychological
homeostasis and lead to a period of stress-a time when a
number of major adjustments must be made in the home,
business, and social aspects of their lives.
Categories of Stress in Middle Adulthood are:-
• Somatic stress, which is due to physical evidences of aging
• Cultural stress, stemming from the high value placed on
youth, vigor, and success by the cultural group
• Economic stress, resulting from the financial burden of
educating children and providing status symbols for all
family members
• Psychological stress, which may be the result of the death
of a spouse, the departure of children from the home,
boredom with marriage, or a sense of lost youth and
approaching death.

4. 2. Middle Adulthood is a "Dangerous Age"
• It is a time when individuals break down physically as a
result of overwork, over worry, or careless living. The
incidence of mental illness rises rapidly in Middle
Adulthood among both men and women, and it is also
a peak age for suicides, especially among men.
3. Middle Adulthood is an "Awkward Age"
• Just as adolescents are neither children nor adults, so
middle-aged men and women are no longer "young" nor
are they yet "old."
• The middle-aged person "stands between the younger
'Rebel Generation' and the 'Senior Citizen Generation'-
both of which is continuously in the spotlight and suffers
from the discomforts and embarrassments associated
with both age groups.

5. 4. Middle Adulthood is a Time of Achievement
• According to Erikson, it is a crisis age in which
either "Generativity" -the tendency to produce-
or "stagnation" -the tendency to stand still-will
dominate.
• People either become more and more successful
or they stand still and accomplish nothing more.
• If middle-aged people have a strong desire to
succeed, they will reach their peak at this time
and reap the benefits of the years of preparation
and hard work that preceded it.
• Women, like men, who have worked throughout
the years of early adulthood, generally reach
their peak during Middle Adulthood. However,
this peak, until very recently, was far below that
of male workers.

6. 6. Middle Adulthood is a Time of Evaluation
• As it is the peak age of achievement, it is logical
that it also would be the time when they would
evaluate their accomplishments in light of their
earlier aspirations and the expectations of others,
especially family members and friends.
• As a result of this self-evaluation, Archer has
pointed out, "The mid-years seem to require the
development of a different, generally more
realistic sense of who one is. . . .
• In growing up, everyone nurtures fantasies or
illusions about what one is, and what one will do.
• A major task of the mid-life decade involves
coming to terms with those fantasies and
illusions".

7. 7. Middle Adulthood is the Time of the Empty Nest
• The time when the children no longer want to live under the
parental roof. Middle Adulthood is the "empty nest" stage in
marital lives. Except in cases where
– men and women marry later than the average age, or
– postpone having their children until they are well
established in careers,
– have large families spread out over a decade or more of
time.
• After years of living in a family-centered home, most
adults find it difficult to adjust to a pair-centered home.
This is because, during the child rearing years, husbands
and wives often grew apart and developed individual
interests.
• As a result, they have little in common after mutual
interests in their children wane and when they are thrown
together to adjust to each other the best they can.

8. • Unquestionably, the empty-nest period of Middle
Adulthood is far more traumatic for women than for men.
This is especially true of women who have devoted their
adult years to homemaking and who have few interests or
resources to fill their time when their homemaking jobs
lessen or come to an end.
• Many experience a "retirement shock" similar to that
experienced by men when they retire.
8. Middle Adulthood is a Time of Boredom
• Many, if not most, men and women experience boredom
during the late thirties and forties.
• Men become bored with the daily routine of work and
with a family life that offers little excitement.
• Women, who have spent most of their adulthood caring for
the home and raising children, wonder what they will do
for the next twenty or thirty years.
• The unmarried woman who has devoted her life to a job
or career is bored for the same reason men are.

9. 3.2 Developmental Tasks of Middle Age
• The strains of middle adulthood result largely from
difficulties in balancing many roles and striving to
navigate through predictable as well as sudden role
transitions.
1. Adjusting to physical and physiological changes
2. Adjusting to the reality of the work situation
3. Assuring economic security for old age
4. Maintaining contact with children & grandchildren
5. Reorganizing living arrangements
6. Adjusting to being a couple again
7. Participating in the community
8. Ensuring adequate medical supervision for old age
9. Looking after aging parents

10. 1. Adjusting to physical and physiological changes
• In mid-life, people start or increase their doctors’ visits for
injuries that take longer to heal or for recurrent or
worrisome symptoms. Many of these symptoms are
reminders of the aging process, including
– facial wrinkles,
– graying or loss of hair,
– reading glasses, and sleep disorders.
• There may be weight management issues, especially
when obesity is linked with food intolerances and
diseases, such as
– coronary artery disease,
– hypertension,
– diabetes,
– dyslipidemias, and joint degeneration.

11. 2. Adjusting to the reality of the work situation
• Mid-life is often a period for vocational evaluation.
• There may be sadness about not having advanced far
enough in career objectives.
• There may be fear of being replaced by a younger,
more capable person.
• Middle-agers may feel regret about the emphasis on
vocation instead of family.
• Retirement issues will be evaluated. For women who
combined motherhood with their career, there may be
a fatigue factor derived from a hectic “superwoman”
lifestyle.
• In contrast, for women who deferred their career until
later in life, there may be a desire to work harder in
order to catch up to friends and colleagues.

12. 3. Assuring economic security for old age
• There is an accentuated focus on financial
planning.
• Middle-- agers are anxious about planning for
future living expenses. They are worried about
– inflation eroding their life savings and
– about possible future illness in themselves or family
members (with expenses for medication, home care,
paramedical services, specialized housing needs, etc.).
• Changing taxation structures may affect disposable
income, and pensions may not be adequate to
meet the need.
• Premature or forced retirement, job closures or
lay-offs may limit personal goals, financial security
or desired lifestyle.

13. 4. Maintaining contact with children & grandchildren
• The reality of grandchildren touches grandparents differently and
affects their comfort in their role as grandparents and the style
and depth of their involvement in this role.
• Grandchildren growing up in other locales may have less
contact with their grandparents - who in turn may find this
situation difficult to accept. Irrespective of where each child
lives, there may be friction between a grandparent and his or
her own adult child over common issues in child rearing.
5. Reorganizing living arrangements
• The departure of grown children from the family home may
eliminate the need for existing space.
• Parents may need to move into a smaller home. These changes
may elicit emotional loss of property or moments reflective of
past family life together.

14. 6. Adjusting to being a couple again
• Emotional and physical intimacies are commonly found
in newlyweds (a recently married person). This intimacy
may decrease over years of marriage, as children,
recreational activities and vocational obligations
compete for time.
• Consequently, the “empty nest” situation may challenge
the couple’s relationship since the absence of children
as diversions may reveal changes in one or both
members of the couple.
• A loss of intimacy may also be accentuated. A challenge
exists to re-establish a relationship as a “twosome” by
exploring communication and lifestyle needs and
patterns.
• Failure to take on this challenge may lead to quarrels,
sexual dysfunction, and extramarital affairs and, in
some cases, divorce.

15. 7. Participating in the community
• In the middle age period, women, especially
homemakers, appear to be more involved in
community activities than men.
• With the recent trend towards both men and
women working outside home, there is a concern
that community voluntarism will suffer.
8. Ensuring adequate medical supervision for old age
• In mid-life, there may be new or growing anxieties
about health and aging. The extent of this concern
may be related to whether one is a realist,
pessimist or optimist.
• There is generally an increase in doctor visits as a
reassurance that there is a medical system in place
that can respond to their medical problems.

16. 9. Looking after aging parents
• Healthier lifestyles, more efficient drugs and improved
technology have extended lifespan. However, Middle-aged
people are often torn between the needs of their children
and their elderly parents. They assist the latter(elders)
with food shopping, housekeeping, banking and finance,
laundry, bathing and hygiene, transportation, and
provide accompaniment to medical appointments, and
medication supervision or administration.
• Adult children of aging parents may feel burdened and
experience negative feelings. For example, caregivers
may deny the existence of a physical, mental or social
problem. They may be angry about
– the situation, at the parent for being ill,
– at themselves for not handling the situation well,
– at a sibling for not helping out, and
– at the reversal of the parent child relationship.

17. • Caregivers often bargain
– with the health and social service system for more
care,
– with family members for help,
– with spouse and children for understanding, and
– with themselves over their coping abilities.
• Middle adults may be depressed about the
– deteriorating health and quality of life of a parent,
– at the failure to find solutions, and
– about fatigue and burnout.
• Eventually, they may be able to accept their
situation on emotional and intellectual levels.

18. 3.3 Major Adjustment in Middle age
3.3.1 Adjustment to physical changes & changed
interests
• It has been found that the body organ of most persons show a 0.8 to 1
percent decline per year in the functional ability after the age of 30.
• Part of this decline is normal, some is disease-related, and some is caused by
factors such as stress, occupational status, nutritional status and many other
environmental factors.
• Middle-aged adults still report good health and physical functioning. However,
as a result of the passage of time, middle adults undergo various physical
changes. Decades of exposure and use take their toll on the body as wrinkles
develop, organs no longer function as efficiently as they once did, and lung
and heart capacities decrease.
• Other changes include
– decreases in strength, coordination, reaction time,
– sensation (sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch), and
– fine motor skills.
– the conditions of presbyopia (farsightedness or difficulty reading) and
– presbycusis (difficulty hearing high-pitched sounds).

19. • Still, none of these changes is usually so dramatic that the
middle adult cannot compensate by wearing glasses to
read, taking greater care when engaging in complex motor
tasks, driving more carefully, or slowing down at the gym.
• Of course, people age at different rates, so some 40 year
olds may feel middle-aged long before their 50-year-old
counterparts. Most people, however, describe feeling that
they have reached midlife by their mid-50s.
• The bio-psychosocial changes that accompany midlife
appear to be major turning points in terms of the decline
that eventually typifies older adulthood. specifically,
– menopause (the cessation of menstruation) in women
– male climacteric (male menopause) in men
• None of the biological declines of middle and late
adulthood needs to be an obstacle to enjoying all aspects
of life, including sex.

20. Sexuality in Middle Adulthood
• As people age, they may experience physical changes, illnesses,
or emotional upheavals, such as the loss of a partner, that can
lead to a decline in sexual interest and behavior.
• In women, there is a gradual decline in the function of the
ovaries and in the production of estrogen. The average age at
which menopause (the end of the menstrual cycle) occurs is
about 50.
– Decreased estrogen leads to thinning of the vaginal walls, shrinking
of the vagina and labia majora, and decreased vaginal lubrication.
These conditions can be severe enough to cause the woman pain
during intercourse.
• Women who were sexually active either through intercourse
or through masturbation before menopause and who continue
sexual activity after menopause are less likely to experience
vaginal problems.
• Women can use hormone-replacement therapy or hormone-
containing creams to help maintain vaginal health.

21. • In men, testosterone production declines over the
years, and the testes become smaller.
– The volume and force of ejaculation decrease and
– sperm count is reduced, but viable sperm may still be
produced in elderly men.
– Erection takes longer to attain, and
– the time after orgasm during which erection cannot
occur (the refractory period) increases.
• Medications and vascular disease, diabetes, and
other medical conditions can cause erectile
dysfunction.
• The middle years can often lead to problems for
marital couples who do not understand some of
the changes they are going through during the
middle years.

22. • Maggie Scarf (1992), notes the different physical changes that men
and women go through during the middle years.
– A man’s aging crisis can be related to the pressure he feels “to make it”
– a woman’s aging crisis can be related to concerns and anxiety she feels
about her physical appearance.
• These changes have direct implications for their sexual
relationship.
• Scarf describes how such changes affect the sexual response
cycle, which includes three phases: desire, excitement, & orgasm
• Desire, being sexually motivated, can be affected by aging.
• For example, the side effects of
– diseases (such as diabetes or hyperthyroidism),
– psychological difficulties, (such as depression) or
– medical concerns (such as hypertension) that require drug
treatment can all negatively affect desire.
• In general overtime, the sex drive declines, particularly for men.
The male sex drive is also affected by a drop in testosterone, the
male hormone.

23. • Excitement of sexual response cycle is the first physiological reaction
to stimulations and results in blood engorgement of the genitals.
• Orgasm, also changes dramatically, with age primarily in the area
known as the refractory period-the time between one orgasm and the
physical capability to achieve another orgasm.
• For the middle life woman, the sexual profile is quite different.
Indeed, erotic interest often increases in the desire phase, primarily
in response to changes to her biological makeup. When estrogen, the
female hormone, declines, it allows her testosterone to have more of
an influence.
• During menopause, the ovaries continue to produce small amounts of
testosterone, and given the decline of estrogen, the effect of the
testosterone is greater, leading to increased sexual desire. However,
in the excitement phase, lack of estrogen often leads to problems
with vaginal dryness.
• There is a strong psychological meaning behind sexual activity-
– it reaffirms self-esteem,
– attractiveness, and
– gender identity.

24. Menopause
• It is permanent ending of menstruation in women.
Menopause marks the end of a woman’s natural ability
to bear children.
• It is usually preceded by 10 to 15 years during which
the ovaries gradually stop producing eggs and sex
hormones, a period called the climacteric.
• Perimenopause compasses this period of changing
ovarian activity and also the first few years without
menstrual cycling, typically characterized by hormonal
and physical changes and sometimes emotional and
psychological changes as well.
• Menopause before age 35 is called premature
menopause and may occur because of certain diseases,
autoimmune reactions (in which the body’s immune
defenses attack the body’s own cells, tissues, or
organs), surgery, medical

25. • Menopause occurs when a woman has not
experienced a menstrual cycle for one year.
• Attitudes towards this event vary depending on
cultural connotations and women’s individual
expectations.
• In societies where women’s role is mostly reproductive
inability to bear any more children is a loss of status.
• In cultures in which the wisdom and experience of
older women is valued, menopause is seen as a
positive life event.
• In general, young women and men view menopause
more negatively whereas women who have gone
through the experience view it more positively.
• Individually, some women view the cessation of their
monthly period as a sign of impending old age and
mourn the loss of youth and beauty. Other women, are
glad to be rid of it.

26. Signs and Symptoms Menopause
• The experience of menopause differs among women, depending on
differences in diet and nutrition, general health and health care, and even
how women are taught to think about menopause. Not all women experience
symptoms.
Physical symptoms:- For a number of years before menopause women may notice
– longer menstrual periods,
– heavier menstrual flow,
– spotting, or irregularity.
• Hormone pills or low-dose birth control pills may be prescribed to control
bleeding problems.
• Hot flashes or hot flushes range from a passing feeling of warmth in the face
and upper body to extreme sweating and visible redness of the skin followed
by chills.
• Heart palpitations and feelings of suffocation can also occur.
• As estrogen levels decline, the vaginal walls become less elastic and thinner.
• Vaginal secretions are reduced and are less acidic, increasing the chances for
vaginal infections.
• Insufficient vaginal lubrication during sexual activity can make intercourse
uncomfortable or painful.
• Some women report a decreased interest in sex and a decline in sexual
activity with menopause that are not due to vaginal problems.

27. Psychological symptoms may include
– depression,
– mood swings,
– weepiness, and other emotional flare-ups, as well as
– memory lapses.
• Although declining levels of estrogen may play a role in these
symptoms, a number of other factors and stresses need to be
considered as well.
Other factors
• Excess alcohol, caffeine, or sugar may stress the adrenal glands and
decrease the amount of adrenal androgens available for conversion
to estrogen, thereby lowering estrogen and making menopausal
symptoms worse.
• Smoking decreases estrogen production by the ovaries, leading to
earlier menopause and osteoporosis
• (Osteoporosis:- a medical condition in which the bones become brittle
and fragile from loss of tissue, typically as a result of hormonal
changes, or deficiency of calcium or vitamin D)
• Stressful life events that may contribute to the emotional symptoms at
the time of menopause include children leaving home and caring for
aging

28. Adjustment to Mental Changes
• Middle-age adult thinking differs significantly from that of adolescents
and young adults. Adults are typically
– more focused in specific directions,
– having gained insight and
– understanding from life events that adolescents and young adults
have not yet experienced.
• No longer viewing the world from an absolute and fixed perspective,
middle adults have learned how to make
– compromises,
– question the establishment, and
– work through disputes.
• Younger people, on the hand, may still look for definitive answers.
• Many middle-age adults have attained Piaget’s stage of formal
operations, which is characterized by the ability to think abstractly,
reason logically, and solve theoretical problems. Many of the
situations facing adults today require something more than formal
operations.

29. • Middle adults may develop and employ post-formal
thinking, which is characterized by the objective use of
practical common sense to deal with unclear problems.
• An example of post-formal thinking is the middle adult
who knows from experience how to maneuver through
rules and regulations and play the system at the office.
• Another example is the middle adult who accepts the
reality of contradictions in his or her religion, as
opposed to the adolescent who expects a concrete
truth in an infallible set of religious doctrines and rules.
• Post-formal thinking begins late in adolescence and
culminates in the practical wisdom so often associated
with older adulthood.

30. Post formal thought
• During the formal operational stage, teens use their
considerable reasoning abilities to solve problems, but they
are very likely to generate a single solution as opposed to
multiple solutions. Disagreement with their solution is
usually interpreted by teens to mean that their solution is
somehow incorrect.
• Formal-operational thinking is absolute, and involves
making decisions based on personal experience and logic.
• Post-formal thinking is more complex, and involves
– making decisions based on situational constraints and
circumstances, and
– integrating emotion with logic to form context-dependent
principles.
• The distinction is a useful thing to understand when dealing
with emerging adults.

31. Criticisms of Formal Operations
• FO overemphasizes the power of pure logic in problem solving
• FO underemphasizes the pragmatic quality of real life
cognitive activity
– cannot sever cognition from affective, social, and pragmatic
ties
• Formal thinking is only suited for the problems that call for
scientific thinking and logical mathematical analyses
– Piaget assumed - goal of mature adult to think like a scientist
– Does not apply to real-life social or interpersonal problems
• FOs is geared for the solution of closed system, well-defined
problems - needs controllable, specific variables
– implies single correct solutions but
– real life - unlimited number of uncontrollable, changeable,
and ill-defined variables
• Formal operations does not recognize the relative nature of
knowledge and the need to adopt multiple frames of
reference

32. Characteristics of Post Formal Thought
• Post formal thinkers possess an understanding of the
relative, non-absolute nature of knowledge
• Relativistic thinking
• Accept contradiction as a basic aspect of reality
• Post formal thinkers capable of dialectic reasoning
• able to synthesize contradictory thoughts, emotions,
and experiences
• A contextual approach to problem solving
• solve problems by continuously creating new principles
based on changing circumstance
• instead of set principles applied to all contexts
• Post formal thinking tends to be domain-specific
• people use in some but not all areas

33. Factors affecting Mental health
• A multitude of social, demographic, psychological, and biological
– Poverty, social isolation, loss of independence, loneliness & losses of
different kinds
– Bereavements or physical disability that affect emotional well-being and
can result in poorer mental health.
– Maltreatment at home and in care institutions.
• On the other hand, social support and family interactions can boost the
dignity of adults, and are likely to have a protective role in the mental health
outcomes of this population.
• There are older women worldwide than older men. This d/ce increases with
advancing age & called “feminization of ageing”.
• Older men and women have different health & morbidity patterns & women
generally have lower income but better family support networks. On the
other hand depression, Alzheimer’s disease and dementia are more prevalent
among women than men. Early symptoms of these mental problems are
shown in middle adulthood period.

34. Social Adjustments
• In all age groups, friends are a healthy alternative to family
and acquaintances.
• Friends offer support, direction, guidance, and a change of
pace from usual routines.
• Many young adults manage to maintain at least some
friendships in spite of the time constraints caused by family,
school, and work; however, finding time to maintain
friendships becomes more difficult for middle adults.
• During this period, life responsibilities are at an all-time high,
so having extra time for socializing is usually rare.
• For this reason, middle adults may have less friends than
their newlywed and retired counterparts. Yet where quantity
of friendships may be lacking, quality predominates.
• Some of the closest ties between friends are formed and
nourished during middle adulthood.

35. 3.4. Personality Theories and Development
Adult Stages Theories
• Adult stage theories have been plentiful, and they have contributed to
the view that midlife brings a crisis in development. Two prominent
theories that define stages of adult development are Erik Erikson’s life-
span view and Daniel Levinson’s seasons of a man’s life.
1. Erikson’s Stage of Generativity Versus Stagnation
• Erikson (1968) proposed that middle-aged adults face a significant
issue—generativity versus stagnation,
• Middle-aged adults can develop generativity in a number of ways.
– Biological generativity, adults have offspring.
– Parental generativity, adults nurture and guide children.
– Work generativity, adults develop skills that are passed down to
others.
– Cultural generativity, adults create, renovate, or conserve some
aspect of culture that ultimately survives.

36. • Adults promote and guide the next generation by parenting,
teaching, leading, and doing things that benefit the
community.
– Individuals from 20 to 30 they learned how to get along with their
wife.
– From thirty to forty they learned how to be successful at their job,
– At forty to fifty they worried less about themselves & more about
their children.
• Generative adults commit themselves to the continuation
and improvement of society as a whole through their
connection to the next generation.
• The middle adult who fails to develop generativity experiences
stagnation, or self-absorption, with its associated self-
indulgence and invalidism.
• Stagnation- suggests a lack of psychological movement or
growth. Those unable to cope with managing a household,
raising children, or managing their career are likely to feel
psychological stagnation at the end of middle adulthood

37. 2. Levinson’s Seasons of a Man’s Life
• Although Levinson’s major interest focused on midlife change,
he described a number of stages and transitions during the
period from 17 to 65 years of age.
• Levinson emphasizes that developmental tasks must be
mastered at each stage.
• At the end of one’s teens, a transition from dependence to
independence should occur. This transition is marked by the
formation of a dream—an image of the kind of life the youth
wants to have, especially in terms of a career and marriage.
• Levinson sees the twenties as a novice phase of adult
development. It is a time of reasonably free experimentation
and of testing the dream in the real world. In early
adulthood, the two major tasks to be mastered are
– exploring the possibilities for adult living and
– developing a stable life structure.

38. Age Season Descriptions
0–16 years Childhood & adolescence
17–45 years Early adulthood
settling down
Entering the adult world, becoming
independent in a way which links the self and
the adult world; which
concept, together with ideas for the future is
called the Dream
40–65 years Middle adulthood Settling down, consolidating goals,
commitments, etc., evaluating the Dream
so far
60 years + Older adulthood Evaluating the pursuit
and realization of the
Dream, accepting reality

39. • From about the ages of 28 to 33, a man goes through a
transition period in which he must face the more serious
question of determining his goals.
• During the thirties, he usually focuses on family & career
development. In the later years of this period, he enters a
phase of Becoming One’s Own Man.
• By age 40, he has reached a stable location in his career, has
outgrown his earlier, more tenuous attempts at learning to
become an adult, and now must look forward to the kind of life
he will lead as a middle-aged adult.
• According to Levinson, the transition to middle adulthood lasts
about five years (ages 40 to 45) and requires the adult male to
come to grips with four major conflicts that have existed in his
life since adolescence:
1) being young versus being old,
2) being destructive versus being constructive,
3) being masculine versus being feminine, and
4) being attached to others versus being separated from them

40. • Seventy to 80 percent of the men Levinson interviewed found the
midlife transition tumultuous and psychologically painful, as many
aspects of their lives came into question.
• According to Levinson, the success of the midlife transition rests on
how effectively the individual reduces the polarities and accepts each
of them as an integral part of his being.
• Because Levinson interviewed middle-aged men, we can consider the
data about middle adulthood more valid than the data about early
adulthood. When individuals are asked to remember information
about earlier parts of their lives, they may distort and forget things.
• Levinson (1978) views midlife as a crisis, arguing that the middle-aged
adult is suspended between the past and the future, trying to cope
with this gap that threatens life’s continuity.
• The stage theories place too much emphasis on crises in development,
especially midlife crises.
• Stage theories focus on the universals of adult personality
development as they try to pin down stages that all individuals go
through in their adult lives.
• These theories do not adequately address individual variations in adult
development.

41. The Life-Events Approach
• A second major way to conceptualize adult personality
development is to focus on life events.
• In the early version of the life-events approach, life events
were viewed as taxing circumstances for individuals, forcing
them to change their personality. Such events as the death of
a spouse, divorce, marriage, and so on were believed to
involve varying degrees of stress, and therefore likely to
influence the individual’s development.
• Today’s life-events approach is more sophisticated. In the
contemporary life-events approach, how life events influence
the individual’s development depends not only on the life
event itself but also on :
– mediating factors (such as physical health and family
supports),
– the individual’s adaptation to the life event (such as
appraisal of the threat and coping strategies),
– the life-stage context, and the socio-historical context.

42. • For example, if individuals are in poor health and have
little family support, life events are likely to be more
stressful. And a divorce may be more stressful after many
years of marriage when adults are in their fifties than
when they have been married only several years and are
in their twenties, a finding indicating that the life-stage
context of an event makes a difference.
• The socio-historical context also makes a difference. For
example, adults may be able to cope more effectively
with divorce today than in the 1950s because divorce has
become more commonplace and accepted in today’s
society.
• Whatever the context or mediating variables, however,
one individual may perceive a life event as highly
stressful, whereas another individual may perceive the
same event as a challenge.