What is Emerging Adulthood (EA)?

• Late teens through 20's 
• Frequent changes and exploration
• Independene from social roles and normative expectations
• Little about future has been decided for sure

Definiton of Adulthood

Accepting respoinsibility for oneself

Make independent decisions

Establishing an equal relationship with parents

Financial independence (holding a full time job)

Identity Exploarations in EA

• Love explorations become more intimate and serious
• Dating is more likely takes place as couples
• Focus less on recreation and more on potential for emotional and physical intimacy
• Relationships last longer and more likely to include intercourse

Deeper level of intimacy 

5 Features of EA

1. Identity exploration
2. Instability
3. Self-focused
4. Feeling in-between
5. Age of possibilites

Instability in EA

Frequent changes in:

• # of romantic partners
• # of job
• School status
• Moving
• Roommates 

Role of Friends

VIP

• Increases even more than adolescence
• Especiall for EA not in romantic relaionships and living away from home
• EA more intimate with friends than with parents

Substance Use

EA are exceptionally free from daily obligations: freer to tend to themselces 

- Finances

- Groceries

- Geographic location

More self-focues so they are more free to do what they want...less rules to follow

Successful transition from adolescence to EA

Life satisfaction generally increases from adolescence to EA

1. Intellectual (Academic success, ability to plan and good decision making skills)
2. Psychologial (mental health, mastery motication, confidence in one's competence, identity, values and community contributions)
3. Social (connectedness to others through friendships, and positive peer relations)

Cross Gender Friendships

• More common among adulths than children and teens
• Learning more about common feelings and interests
• Acquiting knowledge and understanding of beliefes and activites of the other gender

• Different expectations
• Unclear sexual boundaries

Consensual Validation

Our own attitudes and values are supported when someone else's are similar to ours

Matching Hypothesis

We tend to choose partners wh match our own level of attractiveness

What we find attractive changes over time and across cultures

Major Criticism with EA

doesn’t happen to everyone across the world (Africa? China?)…not a universal thing

Udry's Filter Theory of Attraction (1971)

• Potential partners must pass throuh series of filters during process of mate selection
• Filters screen out unacceptable partners at various stages of intimate relationships

Propinquity - Screened by georgraphic location

Attractiveness 

Social Background - religion, politics, education etc

Consensus - Specific attitudes and values

Complementarity - complement or complete me?

Readiness for marriage

Ideal Standards Model (ISM)

Proposes consistency between ideal standards and perceptions of current parter/relationship determines the answer

1. Ideals --> predate and influence decision making in relationships
2. Perception of self, partner and relationship --> who to date, what to expect from the relationship

3 Functions of Ideals

Evaluate

Explain

Regulate

--> your current partner/relationship

Middle Adulthood (MA)

Begins 40-45 years of age and extends to about 60-65 years of age

• Declining physical skills and increasing responsibility
• An awareness of the young-old polarity
• Transmitting something meaningful to the next generation
• reaching and maintaing career satisfaction
• A reassessment of life's priorities

Middle Adulthood 2

Middle Adulthood is the age period in which gains (growth) and losses (decline) balance each other

"MA is a time of evaluation, assessment and relfection"

Physical Changes in MA

• Usually gradual; rates of aging vary
• Wrinkling and sagging of skin
• Appearance of aging sports
• Hair beccomes thinner and grayer
• Nails become thicker and more brittle
• Yellowing of teeth

Height tends to shrink in middle age due to bone loss in the vertebrae

Many gain weight, which is a critical health problem in MA

Sarcopenia

Age related loss of muscle mass and strength

- common in the back and legs

- exercise can reduce these declines

Cushions for bone movement become less efficient, often leading to joint stiffness and more difficulty in movement

Progressive bone loss

Accommodation of the eyes

Experience sharp declines between 40-59 years

• Difficulty viewing close objects
• Reducded blood supply decreases visual field

Physical Changes - Hearing

• Hearing can start to decline by the age of 40

- Hearing loss occurs in up to 50% of individuals over the age of 50

- High-pitched sounds are typically lost first

Physical Changes (3)

• High blood pressue, cholesterol and cardiovascular diesase
• Lung tissue becomes less elastic at about age 55

- decreases lung capacity

- nonsmokers have much better lung capacity

Wakeful periods become more frequent in the 40s 

Metabolic Syndrome

A condition characterized by hypertension, obesity and diabetes

Expertise  in MA

Expertise appears more in MA

-experts are more likely to rely on accumulated experience

-experts often process info automatically and analyze it more efficiently

- experts have better strategies and shortcuts to solving problems

-experts are more creative and flexible in solving problems 

Life Span

The maximum number of years an indicidual can live; has remained between 120-125 years

Life Expextancy 

The number of years that the average person born in a particulat year and place will probably live

Average life expectancy for US

77.6 years

Gender Differences

Females outlive males - widens beginning in the mid-30's

Females = 80.7   vs. Men = 75.4

Oldest-Old

85 plus

• Mostly female, widowed and living lone
• Are usually hospitalized at some time in last years of life 
• 1/4 die alone in a hospital or institution

Primary Aging 

Refers to normal and intrinsic processes of biological aging that are genetically progrmmed and take place despite good health and disease

• Inevitable 
• Universal
• Irreversible  ---Grey hair

Secondary Aging

Refers to age-related declines that are pathological and result from extrinsic factors

• Effect of isease
• Effect of environment
• Effect of behaivor
• Specific to individual
• Reversible 
• ----Diabetes

The Aging Brain

Brain shrinks 5-10% between 20 and 90

General slowing of function in the brain and spinal cord begin in MA and accelerates in LA

Older adults die from

Nearly 75% of older adults die from hear disease, cancer, or cerebrovascular disease (stroke)

Probability of having some disease or illnes increases with age - Arthritis being the most common

Erikson's Theory - Late Adulthood 

Integrity vs. Despair 

Reflecting on the past and either piecing together a positive review or sonsluding that one's life has not been well spent

Reminiscence Therapy

Discussing past activites and experiences with another individual or group

Activity Theory

The more active and invloved older adults are, the greater satisfaction with their lives

Active + energetic + productive = successful aging

Death 

Death is the termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism

Clinical Death - Hear and lungs stop working

Biological Death - 4-6 mins after clinical death

Death - The sepation of the sound and the body

Brain Death - all electrical activity of the brain has ceased for a specified period of time 

Basic Types of Death

Natural Death

Intentional Death

Accidental Death

Causes of death over lifespan

Prenatal - Miscarriage

Birth - During or shortly after

Childhood - Accidents or Illness

Adolescents - Suicide, homicide or car accidents

MA and older adult - Chronic Diseases

Conceptions of death over lifespan

• Infancy - no concept - brief sepaions (idea of loss)
• 3-5= little to no idea of what is - sleep, rarely upset...somethin can be brought back, only bad people die
• Late childhood -more realistic. understand age 9
• Adolescnece - Remote, avoided, glossed over, kidded, do show concern
• Adulthood - increase in consciousness of death - Reflection. Think and talk about death most

Hospice

A program committed to making the end of life as free from pain, anxiet, and depression as possible

• 6 months or less/no more treatment
• Include family members - better adujustem to death
• Home based programs

Communication with a dying person

• Open communication 

They can close their lives with their own ideas about proper dying

May be able to complete plans and projects and make arrangements and decisions

The opportunity to reminice and convers

They have more understanding of what is happening to them

Grief

Emotional numbness, disbeliefe, sepatation anxiety, despair, sadness and loneliness that accompany the loss of someone we love.

Anticipatory grief: grieving while person is still alive

Grieving patters

1. Mourner proveeds from high distress to low
2. Mourner does not experience intense distress
3. Mourner remains distressed for a long period of time

4 signs that death is near

1. Changes in appetite
2. Changes in mental status - Presence of dead loved ones - burst of energy
3. Changes in Cirulation - conserve circulation for brain and heart...head and feet may appear blue or red splotchy
4. Changes in Breathing - shallows, stops, returns...death rattle