EARLY ADULTHOOD: Emotional and social development

1. Chapter 14 EARLY ADULTHOOD: Emotional and social development

2. Theories of Emotional-Social Development

3. Emotional-Social Development • Social Relationships: Relationships with other people. • Expressive tie: social link formed when we invest ourselves in and commit ourselves to another person. • Primary relationships: friends, family, lovers.

4. Instrumental Tie • Social link formed when we cooperate with another person to achieve a limited goal • Secondary relationships; Social interactions that rest on instrumental ties

5. Erikson • Psychosocial Stages • Sixth stage: Intimacy versus isolation: task is to reach out and make connections with other people. • Cultural dislocation: feeling of homeless ness and alienation from a traditional way of life: Immigrants.

6. Levinson • Phases in Adult Male Development 1. Leaving the Family 2. Getting into the Adult World 3. Settling Down 4. Becoming One’s Own Man

7. Levinson • Stages in a Woman’s Life • Entry into adulthood similar for men and women • Differences: Age-30 transition

8. Levinson • Men see themselves tied to a future in terms of their job. • Women find ways to combine work and family. • Women have to sacrifice one or the other in struggle to maintain both. • Women reprioritize goals.

9. Social Definitions • Role conflict: women experience pressures within one role that are incompatible with the pressures from another role. • Role overload: too many role demands and too little time to fulfill them.

10. Reentering the Paid Labor Force • Women find mentors who guide them through • Stocktaking • Time of reassessment and transitions

11. Differing Adult Experiences • Gilligan • Girls are socialized toward cooperation, mutuality and consensus rather than competition.

12. Criticism • Comparison with non-Western cultures • Not all persons go through a crisis and move to a next stage of development.

13. Establishing Intimacy in Relationships

14. Friendships • Major source of socializing and support during adult years

15. Love • Romantic love: what we think when we say we are “in love.” • Companionate love: love for a very close friend.

17. Sternberg • Triangular Theory of Love • Three elements: 1. Passion 2. Intimacy 3. Commitment

18. Relationships • Lacking one element: • Infatuation • Fatuous Love • Companionate Love • Romantic Love • Nonlove • Liking someone • Empty Love

20. Consummate Love • All three elements • Willi • Special relationship, distinguished from other kinds, but not necessarily leading to what was expected. • Marriage to one’s great love does not guarantee happiness and satisfaction in relationship.

21. Diversity In Lifestyle Options

22. Lifestyle and Intimacy • Lifestyle: The overall patter of living whereby we attempt to meet our biological, social, and emotional needs. • Intimacy: ability to experience a trusting, supportive, and tender relationship with another person.

23. Leaving Home • Between 15-23; 18 (majority) • Parents use resources to influence children to go or to stay. • Emphasis on autonomy • Delaying marriage

24. Other factors • Postponed careers, recurrent recessions, low beginning salaries, rising housing costs, high divorce rates, high levels of non-marital childbearing and damaged lives from drug abuse

26. Living at Home • Economic factors • Negative: loss of privacy • Best scenario: ample space and open, trusting communication

27. Staying Single • One fourth of U.S. households: single • Many kinds of singles: never married, divorced, widowed • No social stigma

28. Cohabiting • 4.1 million couples (1995) • More permissive morality • New step between dating and marriage • Higher incidence of violence • Break-up just as painful as divorce

29. Lesbian or Gay Couples • Heterosexual and Homosexual orientation: opposites in a continuum with bisexual somewhere in center

30. Lesbian or Gay Couples • 1 to 2 % of adults exclusively homosexual throughout entire lives. • Western world regards behavior as deviant. • Lesbians form more lasting ties than gay men; are less detected and harassed. • Relationships resemble heterosexual.

31. Getting Married • Marriage: a socially and/or religiously sanctioned union between a woman and a man with the expectation that they will perform the mutually supportive roles of wife and husband. • Monogamy dominant lifestyle in U.S. • Americans and Europeans: marriages psychological well-being

33. Family Transitions • Family Life Cycle: the sequential changes and realignments that occur in the structure and relationships of family life between the time of marriage and the death of one or both spouses.

34. Family Life Cycle 1. Establishment 2. New Parents 3. Preschool Family 4. School-age Family 5. Family With Adolescents 6. Family with Young adult 7. Family as Launching Center 8. Postparental family 9. Aging family

35. Pregnancy • Compels a woman to reflect on her long-term life plans, particularly as they relate to marriage and a career; also to reconsider her sense of identity • Period of adjustment for couple

36. Developmental Tasks for Women • Accept her pregnancy • Differentiate from fetus • Reevaluate relationship with mother • Come to terms with dependency

38. Transition to Parenthood • Shift from two-person to three-person system • Decline in overall quality of couple’s life • Couples with most problems: most unrealistic expectations of parenthood • Problems with division of labor • Children stabilize marriages

39. Lesbian Parenthood • 1-5 million lesbians have had children in heterosexual relationships. • No evidence of mental instability • Lesbian parents face social stigma

40. Tasker and Golombok • Not likely to have gay or lesbian orientation • Not likely to experience anxiety or depression • Fear of group stigmatization

41. Employed Mothers • 77% of mothers with children under 6 years of age are working • Do children miss out in terms of supervision, love and cognitive enrichment? • Findings from research: • Working mothers provide positive role model for children; little difference in development for children

43. Happy Working Mothers • Report having happiest children • Time spent with children not as important as attitudes and behaviors of parents

44. Separation and Divorce • Increased psychiatric disorders • Children: Decreased intimacy in relationships • Increased risk of offspring divorce • Women: major decline in standard of living; men increase

45. Well-Being • Level of life satisfaction depends on level of conflict in remarried or single parent household. • Higher incidence of child abuse and homicide in remarried families for children under 3. • Extended family and social networks provide support.

46. Single-Parent Mothers • Increase of households headed by single mothers. • Lower incomes and lower levels of social support: more stress • Lower sense of self-esteem, effectiveness and optimism • Half of women awarded child support receive it. • Children: likely one year behind peers in school

48. Single-Parent Fathers • 2.1 million father-child families (1998). • Most fathers successful. • Fathers make more money; have more job flexibility. • Better prepared for physical aspects of parenting • Ill-equipped for children’s emotions • Anxiety over sexual behavior of daughters

49. Work

50. Work • American work-week: 47 hours • College provides better opportunities • Number of non-traditional students in colleges: half of all college students