Emerging adulthood Flashcards
(39 cards)
Average age to get married
As recently as 1960, the median age of marriage in most developed countries was in the very early 20s, around 21 for women and 23 for men. Now the median age of marriage in Australia is 32.3 for men (an increase from 31.5 in 2013 and 2014) and 30.5 years for women.
Four revolutionary changes took place in the 1960s and 1970s that laid the foundation for the new life stage of emerging adulthood:
the Technology Revolution, the Sexual Revolution, the Women’s Movement and the Youth Movement
Across developed countries, there are five characteristics that distinguish emerging adulthood from other age periods
identity explorations
instability
self-focus
feeling in-between
possibilities/optimism.
The peak of physical functioning
VO2 max, the ability of the body to take in oxygen and transport it to various organs, peaks in the early 20s
Cardiac output, the quantity of blood flow from the heart, peaks at age 25
Reaction time is also faster in the early 20s than at any other time of life
Grip strength among men shows the same pattern, with a peak in the 20s followed by a steady decline
Peak bone mass is reached in the 20s
Immune system at peak
Factors undermining health
The late teens and early 20s are the years of highest incidence of a variety of types of injury, death and disease due to behaviour. The areas of heightened risk in emerging adulthood include car accidents and substance abuse. Low social control.
Two-thirds of students report occasional sleep problems and about one-quarter report frequent severe sleep disturbances such as insomnia.
An international study of over 20,000 students in 26 countries found a rate of about 10% of students across countries who had ‘severe or extreme’ sleep problems.
Sleep patterns and deficits
University students are more than twice as likely as other adults to report the symptoms of delayed sleep phase syndrome.
Delayed sleep phase syndrome
This syndrome entails a pattern of sleeping far longer on weekends and holidays than on school or work days, which leads to poor academic and job performance as well as excessive sleepiness during school and work days.
University students tend to accumulate a sleep debt during the week as they sleep less than they need, then they try to make up their lost sleep when they have time off, with negative consequences for their cognitive and emotional functioning.
Morningness and eveningness
Sleep researchers have established that people vary in their morningness and eveningness. These preferences change with age, due to hormonal changes that are part of normal physical development—specifically, levels of growth hormone.
One massive study of over 55,000 Europeans from childhood to late adulthood concluded that children tend towards morningness; however, in the course of adolescence and the early part of emerging adulthood, the balance shifts towards eveningness, with the peak of eveningness coming at about ages 20–21 (slightly earlier for women than for men). After ages 20–21, the balance shifts again towards morningness for the remainder of the life span.
Sleep hygiene
waking at the same time each day
getting regular exercise
taking late-afternoon naps
limiting caffeine intake
avoiding excessive alcohol intake
turning off all technology at night.
Graduated driver licensing
One summary review (or meta-analysis) of 21 studies conducted by Jean Shope in 2007 concluded that GDL programs consistently reduce young drivers’ crash risk by 20–40%. Driving curfews in particular have been found to reduce young people’s crash involvement dramatically.
What explains the higher rates of substance use among some emerging adults?
Osgood (2009) borrows from a sociological theory that explains all deviance on the basis of propensity and opportunity.
Compared to other age groups, emerging adults have an unusually high degree of opportunity for engaging in substance use and other deviant behaviour, as a result of spending a high proportion of their time in unstructured socialising.
Resilience
Resilience is promoted by protective factors that enable people to overcome the risks in their lives:
High intelligence
One caring adult outside of family
A healthy school environment
Religious beliefs and practices
Emerging adulthood may be an especially important period for the expression of resilience because it is a time when people are most likely to have the scope of individual choice that may enable them to make decisions that change their lives for the better. In a classic longitudinal study, many participants showed resilience for the first time in emerging adulthood due to experiences such as obtaining higher education, joining the military or gaining religious faith.
Tertiary education: university and vocational training programs
One hundred years ago, few young people—less than 10%—obtained tertiary education in any developed country; in fact, the majority did not even attend secondary school. Those who did attend university were mostly men.
For the Japanese, their time of leisure and fun comes during their university years. Once they enter university, grades matter little and standards for performance are relaxed. Instead, they have ‘four years of university-sanctioned leisure to think and explore’.
In Australia, New Zealand and Europe, the tertiary education system is structured quite differently from the United States, Canada and Japan. Rather than beginning with 2 years of general education, students in these countries study in only one topic area from the time they enter university. European universities traditionally went for 6 years, now separated post graduate degrees like other countries.
Nearly half of Americans drop out mainly due to financial reasons. Uni is four times more expensive than it was in the 80s.
Benefits of tertiary education
General verbal and quantitative skills, oral and written communication skills and critical thinking.
In the course of the university years, students develop clearer aesthetic and intellectual values. They gain a more distinct identity and become more confident socially. They become less dogmatic, less authoritarian and less ethnocentric in their political and social views. Their self-concepts and psychological wellbeing improve. As with the academic benefits, these non-academic benefits hold up even after taking into account characteristics such as age, gender and family social class background.
Transition to work
The average Australian will have 17 employers across his or her working life, which is in stark contrast to workers in the 1970s, where employment was much more stable and workers typically remained with the same employer for 10 years.
The average American holds eight different jobs between the ages of 18 and 30.
Skills needed for high school graduates to get the most promising new jobs available to high school graduates in the changing economy, jobs that offer the promise of career development and middle-class wages.
reading at a 9th-grade (Year 9) level or higher
doing maths at a 9th-grade (Year 9) level or higher
solving semi-structured problems
communicating orally and in writing
using a computer for word processing and other tasks
collaborating in diverse groups.
Close to half of all 17-year-olds cannot read or do maths at the level needed to succeed at the new jobs. The half who do have these skills are also the half who are most likely to go to university rather than seeking full-time work after high school.
Unemployment
In Australia, the unemployment rate for emerging adults is up to twice as high as for adults beyond age 25.
The Australian Government (2020) Closing The Gap Report stated that in 2018, the Indigenous employment rate was around 49% compared to 75% for non-Indigenous Australians.
In Australia, unemployment is especially high among Indigenous Australians because they are more likely to lack educational credentials.
Self-esteem
Self-esteem often declines during early adolescence. However, for most people it rises during emerging adulthood.
Due to more comfortable with appearance, better relations with parents and less conflict, less pressure from peers. More control of social context.
Identity development
It is now generally accepted among scholars that emerging adulthood is the life stage when many of the most important steps in identity development take place (opposed to adolescence as per Erikson’s theory and traditional perspectives).
The key areas in which identity is formed are love, work and ideology (beliefs and values).
Erikson’s theory of identity development
First, adolescents assess their own abilities and interests.
Second, adolescents reflect on the identifications they have accumulated in childhood.
Third, adolescents assess the opportunities available to them in their society.
James Marcia identity status model
Marcia constructed a measure called the Identity Status Interview that classified adolescents into one of four identity statuses:
diffusion,
moratorium,
foreclosure or
achievement.
Diffusion
Diffusion is an identity status that combines no exploration with no commitment. For adolescents in a state of identity diffusion, no commitments have been made among the choices available to them. Furthermore, no exploration is taking place. The person in this status is not seriously attempting to sort through potential choices and make enduring commitments.
Moratorium
Moratorium involves exploration but no commitment. This is a status of actively trying out different personal, occupational and ideological possibilities in order for adolescents to determine which of the available possibilities are best suited to them.
Foreclosure
Adolescents who are in the foreclosure status have not experimented with a range of possibilities but have nevertheless committed themselves to certain choices—commitment, but no exploration. This is often a result of their parents’ strong influence. Marcia and most other scholars tend to see exploration as a necessary part of forming a healthy identity, and therefore see foreclosure as unhealthy.
