3: Changes in social ecology across adulthood Flashcards
(36 cards)
Career mystique
Phyllis Moen (2009a) recently described the career mystique , ingrained cultural beliefs that engaging in hard work for long hours through adulthood will produce a path to status, security, and happiness. That is, many individuals have an ideal concept of a career path toward achieving the American dream of upward mobility through occupational ladders. However, the lockstep career mystique has never been a reality for many individuals, especially ethnic minority individuals, women, and poorly educated adults.
The impact of work
Work defi nes people in fundamental ways (Blustein, 2008). It is an important infl uence on their fi nancial standing, housing, the way they spend their time, where they live, their friendships, and their health (Hodson, 2009). Some people defi ne their identity through their work. Work also creates a structure and rhythm to life that is often missed when individuals do not work for an extended period. When unable to work, many individuals experience emotional dis-tress and low self-esteem.
Most individuals spend about one-third of their lives at work.
Unemployment
Unemployment produces stress regardless of whether the job loss is temporary, cyclical, or permanent. Researchers have found that unemployment is related to physical problems (such as heart attack and stroke), mental problems (such as depression and anxiety), marital diffi culties, and homicide. A 15-year longitudinal study of more than 24,000 adults found that life satisfaction dropped considerably following unemployment and increased after becoming reemployed but did not completely return to the life satisfaction level previous to being unemployed.
Single adults
Over a 30-year period, a dramatic rise in the percentage of single adults has occurred.
Advantages of being single include having time to make decisions about one’s life course, time to develop personal resources to meet goals, freedom to make autonomous decisions and pursue one’s own schedule and interests, opportunities to explore new places and try out new things, and privacy.
Common problems of single adults may include forming intimate relationships with other adults, confronting loneliness, and fi nding a niche in a society that is marriage-oriented.
Once adults reach the age of 30, there can be increasing pressure to settle down and get married. This is when many single adults make a conscious decision to marry or to remain single.
Cohabiting adults
Cohabitation refers to living together in a sexual relationship without being married. It has increased dramatically as well.
Couples who cohabit face certain problems. Disapproval by parents and other family members can place emotional strain on the cohabiting couple. Some cohabiting couples have diffi culty owning property jointly. Legal rights on the dissolution of the relationship are less certain than in a divorce.
Marital trends
Marriage rates have declined.
Is there a best age to get married? Marriages in adolescence are more likely to end in divorce than marriages in adulthood (Waite, 2009). However, researchers have not been able to pin down a specifi c age or age span for getting married in adulthood that is most likely to result in a successful marriage.
Benefits of a good marriage
Are there any benefi ts to having a good marriage? There are. Individuals who are happily married live longer, healthier lives than either divorced individuals or those who are unhappily married.
What are the reasons for these benefi ts of a happy marriage? People in happy marriages likely feel less physically and emotionally stressed, which puts less wear and tear on a person’s body. Such wear and tear can lead to numerous physical ailments, such as high blood pressure and heart disease, as well as psychological problems such as anxiety, depression, and substance abuse.
Divorced adults
Although divorce has increased for all socioeconomic groups, those in some groups have a higher incidence of divorce (Amato, 2010). Youthful marriage, low educational level, low income, not having a religious affi liation, having parents who are divorced, and having a baby before marriage are factors that are associated with increases in divorce.
Gottman: marriage principles that determine success of marriage
1) Establish love maps . Individuals in successful marriages have personal insights and detailed maps of each other’s life and world. They aren’t psychological strangers. In good marriages, partners are willing to share their feelings with each other. They use these “love maps” to express not only their understanding of each other but also their fondness and admiration.
2) Nurture fondness and admiration. In successful marriages, partners sing each other’s praises. More than 90 percent of the time, when couples put a positive spin on their marriage’s history, the marriage is likely to have a positive future.
3) Turn toward each other instead of away. In good marriages, spouses are adept at turning toward each other regularly. They see each other as friends. This friendship doesn’t keep arguments from occurring, but it can prevent differences from overwhelming the relationship. In these good marriages, spouses respect each other and appreciate each other’s point of view despite disagreements.
4) Let your partner infl uence you. Bad marriages often involve one spouse who is unwilling to share power with the other. Although power-mongering is more common in husbands, some wives also show this trait. A willingness to share power and to respect the other person’s view is a prerequisite to compromising.
5) Solve solvable confl icts . Two types of problems occur in marriage: (1) perpetual and (2) solvable. Perpetual problems are the type that do not go away and may include differences about whether to have children and how often to have sex. Solvable problems can be worked out and may include such things as not helping each other reduce daily stresses and not being verbally affectionate. In his research, Gottman has found that to resolve confl icts, couples should start out with a soft rather than a harsh approach, try to make and receive “repair attempts,” regulate their emotions, compromise, and be tolerant of each other’s faults. Confl ict resolu-tion is not about one person making changes; it is about negotiat-ing and accommodating each other.
6) Overcome gridlock . One partner wants the other to attend church; the other is an atheist. One partner is a homebody; the other wants to go out and socialize a lot. Such problems often produce gridlock. Gottman believes the key to ending gridlock is not to solve the problem, but to move from gridlock to dialogue and be patient.
7) Create shared meaning . The more partners can speak candidly and respectfully with each other, the more likely it is that they will create shared meaning in their marriage. This also includes sharing goals with one’s spouse and work-ing together to achieve each other’s goals.
Parenting myths and reality
The birth of a child will save a failing marriage.
As a possession or extension of the parent, the child will think, feel, and behave as the parent did in his or her childhood.
Having a child gives the parents a “second chance” to achieve what they should have achieved.
Parenting is an instinct and requires no training.
Trends in childbearing
Like marriage, the age at which individuals have children has been increasing (Morgan, 2009). In 2005, the average age at which women gave birth for the fi rst time was a record high 25.2 years of age, up from 21 years of age in 2001.
As birth control has become common practice, many individuals consciously choose when they will have children and how many children they will rear. The number of one-child families is increasing, for example. These childbearing trends are creating several trends:
- By giving birth to fewer children and reducing the demands of child care, women free up a signifi cant portion of their life spans for other endeavors.
- Men are apt to invest a greater amount of time in fathering.
- Parental care is often supplemented by institutional care (child care, for example).
Rapport talk
Rapport talk is the language of conversation; it is a way of establishing connections and negotiating relationships.
Report talk
Report talk is talk that is designed to give information, which includes public speaking.
Gender differences in relationships
In sum, Miller, Tannen, and other gender experts such as Carol Gilligan, whose ideas you read about in Chapter 10, believe that women are more relationshiporiented than men—and that this relationship orientation should be prized as a skill in our culture more than it currently is.
Critics of this view of gender differences in relationships contend that it is too stereotypical (Dindia, 2005; Hyde, 2007). They argue that there is greater individual variation in the relationship styles of men and women than this view acknowledges.
Work in midlife
The role of work, whether one works in a full-time career, a part-time job, as a volunteer, or a homemaker, is central during middle adulthood. Many middle-aged adults reach their peak in position and earnings. However, they may also be saddled with multiple fi nancial burdens from rent or mortgage, child care, medical bills, home repairs, college tuition, loans to family members, or bills from nursing homes.
For many people, midlife is a time of evaluation, assessment, and refl ection in terms of the work they do and want to do in the future (Moen, 2009). Among the work issues that some people face in midlife are recognizing limitations in career progress, deciding whether to change jobs or careers, deciding whether to rebalance family and work, and planning for retirement.
Career challenges and changes
The current middle-aged worker faces several important challenges in the 21st century (Blossfeld, 2009). These include the globalization of work, rapid developments in information technologies, downsizing of organizations, early retirement, and concerns about pensions and health care.
To improve profi ts, many companies are restructuring, downsizing, and outsourcing jobs. One of the outcomes of these changes is to offer incentives to middle-aged employees to retire early—in their fi fties, or in some cases even forties, rather than their sixties.
The decline in defi ned-benefi t pensions and increased uncertainty about the fate of health insurance are decreasing the sense of personal control for middle-aged workers. As a consequence, many are delaying retirement plans.
Some midlife career changes are self-motivated; others are the consequence of losing one’s job (Moen, 2009). Some individuals in middle age decide that they don’t want to do the same work they have been doing for the rest of their lives.
Leisure
As adults, not only must we learn how to work well, but we also need to learn how to relax and enjoy leisure (Gibson, 2009). Leisure refers to the pleasant times after work when individuals are free to pursue activities and interests of their own choosing—hobbies, sports, or reading, for example. In one analysis of research on what U.S. adults regret the most, not engaging in more leisure was one of the top six regrets.
Leisure can be an especially important aspect of middle adulthood (Parkes, 2006). By middle adulthood, more money is available to many individuals, and there may be more free time and paid vacations. In short, midlife changes may produce expanded opportunities for leisure.
Adults at midlife need to begin preparing psychologically for retirement. Constructive and fulfi lling leisure activities in middle adulthood are an important part of this preparation (Danigelis, 2007). If an adult develops leisure activities that can be continued into retirement, the transition from work to retirement can be less stressful.
Historical contexts (cohort effects)
Some developmentalists conclude that changing historical times and different social expectations infl uence how different cohorts—groups of individuals born in the same year or time period—move through the life span. Bernice Neugarten (1986) argues that our values, attitudes, expectations, and behaviors are infl uenced by the period in which we live. For example, individuals born during the diffi cult times of the Great Depression may have a different outlook on life than those born during the optimistic 1950s, says Neugarten.
Neugarten (1986) holds that the social environment of a particular age group can alter its social clock —the timetable according to which individuals are expected to accomplish life’s tasks, such as getting married, having children, or establishing themselves in a career. Social clocks provide guides for our lives; individuals whose lives are not synchronized with these social clocks fi nd life to be more stressful than those who are on schedule, says Neugarten.
Gender contexts
Critics say that the stage theories of adult development have a male bias. For example, the central focus of stage theories is on career choice and work achievement, which historically have dominated men’s life choices and life chances more than women’s. The stage theories do not adequately address women’s concerns about relationships, interdependence, and caring.
The adult stage theories have also placed little importance on childbearing and child rearing. Women’s family roles are complex and often have a higher salience in their lives than in men’s lives.
Cultural contexts
In many cultures, especially nonindustrialized cultures, the concept of middle age is not very clear, or in some cases is absent. It is common in nonindustrialized societies to describe individuals as young or old, but not as middleaged (Grambs, 1989). Some cultures have no words for “adolescent,” “young adult,” or “middle-aged adult.”
Love and marriage at midlife
Two major forms of love are romantic love and affectionate love. The fi res of romantic love are strong in early adulthood. Affectionate, or companionate, love increases during middle adulthood. That is, physical attraction, romance, and passion are more important in new relationships, especially in early adulthood. Security, loyalty, and mutual emotional interest become more important as relationships mature, especially in middle adulthood.
A recent study revealed that marital satisfaction increased in middle age (Gorchoff, John, & Helson, 2008). Even some marriages that were diffi cult and rocky during early adulthood turn out to be better adjusted during middle adulthood. Although the partners may have lived through a great deal of turmoil, they eventually discover a deep and solid foundation on which to anchor their relationship. In middle adulthood, the partners may have fewer fi nancial worries, less housework and chores, and more time with each other. Middle-aged partners are more likely to view their marriage as positive if they engage in mutual activities.
Empty nest syndrome
An important event in a family is the launching of a child into adult life. Parents face new adjustments as a result of the child’s absence. Students usually think that their parents suffer from their absence. In fact, parents who live vicariously through their children might experience the empty nest syndrome, which includes a decline in marital satisfaction after children leave the home. For most parents, however, marital satisfaction does not decline after children have left home but rather increases during the years after child rearing (Fingerman & Baker, 2006). With their children gone, marital partners have time to pursue career interests and more time for each other.
Sibling relationships and friendships
Sibling relationships persist over the entire life span for most adults (Dunn, 2007). Eighty-fi ve percent of today’s adults have at least one living sibling. Sibling rela-tionships in adulthood may be extremely close, apathetic, or highly rivalrous. The majority of sibling relationships in adulthood are close (Cicirelli, 2009). Those siblings who are psychologically close to each other in adulthood tended to be that way in childhood. It is rare for sibling closeness to develop for the fi rst time in adulthood (Dunn, 1984). A recent study revealed that adult siblings often provide practical and emotional support to each other.
Friendships continue to be important in middle adulthood just as they were in early adulthood (Antonucci, 1989). It takes time to develop intimate friendships, so friendships that have endured over the adult years are often deeper than those that have just been formed in middle adulthood.
Grandparent roles and styles
The diversity of grandparenting also was apparent in an early investigation of how grandparents interacted with their grandchildren (Neugarten & Weinstein, 1964). Three styles were dominant—formal, fun-seeking, and distant.
In the formal style, the grandparent performed what was considered to be a proper and prescribed role. These grandparents showed a strong interest in their grandchildren, but were careful not to give child-rearing advice.
In the fun-seeking style, the grandparent was informal and playful. Grandchildren were a source of leisure activity; mutual satisfaction was emphasized.
A substantial portion of grandparents were distant fi gures. In the distant-fi gure style, the grandparent was benevolent but interaction was infrequent. Grandparents who were over the age of 65 were more likely to display a formal style of interaction; those under 65 were more likely to display a funseeking style.
