1. CHAPTER 13: Middle Adulthood: Cognitive, Personality, and Social Development
The Life Span: Human Development for Helping Professionals
Edition 4
Patricia C. Broderick and Pamela Blewitt
© (2015, 2010, 2006) by Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

2. Life Span Developmental Theory
Development is a process of adapting to a constant flux of influences on our lives
Development requires multidimensional models
Both hereditary and environmental influences
Both continuity and change characterize adults
Adaptation continues from birth to death
Both biology and culture support development
Supporting optimal development in childhood
Most people reach adulthood and reproduce
Selection pressures weaken by middle adulthood
More cultural supports are required for success

3. Development as Growth, Maintenance, and Regulation of loss
Change involves gains and losses throughout life
Gains are most obvious early in life
Losses are more obvious later
Adaptation to change involves three global process
Growth: Adding new characteristics, understandings, skills
Maintenance or resilience: Finding ways to continue or restore functioning after loss
Regulation of loss: Adjusting expectations and accepting a lower level of functioning
Success means maximizing gains, minimizing losses

4. Influences on Adult Development: Sources of Stability
Stability in the Big 5 personality traits after age 30
Neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness to experience
Correlated with childhood temperament
Biological causes are implicated
Related to brain-mediated systems of approach, fear, irritability, effortful control, and reactivity
Stable differences in reactivity, stress response
Environmental influences equally important
Predictable responses from others
Relatively stable environments for many

5. Influences on Adult Development: Sources of Age-graded Change
Age-graded change = change as a function of time
Physical changes in adulthood
Declines in sensory ability, reproductive ability
Changes in appearance, wrinkles, weight
Cognitive changes in adulthood
Decline in fluid/mechanical processes, processing speed and inhibition mechanisms
Stable or increasing crystallized resources, declarative and procedural knowledge
Life tasks and responsibilities
Fairly predictable sequence of change in roles

6. History-graded Changes
Development is influenced by the intersection of
Chronological age (life time)
Family-related roles (family time)
Membership in a birth cohort (historical time)
Year of birth marks entry into a cohort of peers
History-graded changes are those that affect the development of a whole cohort
Examples include The Great Depression, WWII, the Vietnam War, social changes in 1960s, 9-11
Effects of event depend on age and stage of life
The social gradient
Economic, social status alters impact of events

7. Non-normative Changes
Nonnormative events are sudden, unexpected, and individual
Not predicted by age, not relevant to everyone
Create a new set of circumstances
Have potential to alter course of development
Many negative nonnormative events possible
Traumatic illnesses, accidents, imprisonment or death of a loved one
Some positive nonnormative events have impact
Geographic move for a job promotion, major career change, economic windfall

8. Key Developmental Tasks of Midlife
Continuing pursuit of intimacy and generativity
Impact of intimacy in midlife
Good marriages or primary relationships confer important physical and psychological benefits
Higher levels of happiness
Higher sexual and emotional satisfaction
Lower rates of mental illness, drug and alcohol abuse and physical illness
Economic benefits and protective factors
Tendency to live longer
Friendships also very important for life satisfaction

9. Intimacy: Marriage and Other Primary Relationships
The family life cycle: Normative stagelike sequence of roles and experiences
Leaving home as single young adults
Finding a compatible mate
Joining of families through marriage
Families with young children
Families with adolescents
Launching children and moving on
Families in later life

10. Marriage and Its Discontents
Great majority of individuals marry at least once
40 to 50% of first marriages in US end in divorce
Post-divorce decline in economic circumstances
Emotional and behavioral difficulties for children
Theories of marital harmony and discord
Disillusionment model: Romantic notions dashed
Maintenance hypothesis: Romantic couples work to maintain illusions and therefore marriage
Social exchange/behavioral theories: Marriage fails when problems become overwhelming, or because of inadequate for coping
Intrapersonal models: Attachment and temperament explain marital success or failure

11. Marriage: Keeping Love Alive
Existing models do not adequately explain success
A multidimensional model would include
Intrapersonal factors: Traits, expectations
Interpersonal factors: Problem-solving skills
Situational factors: Stresses, environment
Developmental factors: Transitions, role change
Predicting marital success or satisfaction so far
More successful when positive outweighs negative
Negative affect reciprocity predicts dissolution
“Four horsemen of the apocalypse” are criticism, defensiveness, contempt, and stonewalling

12. Generativity: Making a Mark at Midlife
Generativity is seen as a primary developmental task of middle adulthood
Two components: desire and accomplishment
Desire refers to wanting to be creative, productive, or giving
Accomplishment means actually feeling that you are creative, productive, or giving
Desire more characteristic of young adults
Accomplishment more typical of middle adults
For many people, raising children is a significant part of adult life and establishing generativity

13. The Experience of Child Rearing
Most view parenting role as a generative process
Parents experience more stress than nonparents
Parents report both intense new stresses and delightful new pleasures
Each stage of a child’s life presents new challenges for parents
Meeting parenting challenges depends on
Age and stage of life
Personality and coping skills
Socioeconomic status
Available support systems

14. Parenting Stages and Later Family Roles
Newborn period and infancy: First-time parents often distressed and overwhelmed
Toddler, preschool: Parent begin to discipline child, must provide continuous supervision
Middle childhood: Calmer period, but with plenty of challenges, new outside factors of peers, teachers
Adolescence: Parenting usually becomes more difficult, increases in conflict and worry
Launching period: Emerging adult children begin to move away and become more self-sufficient
Kinkeeping period: Maintaining extended family connections, may be caring for elder and younger

15. Generativity: Work and Community Involvement
Middle age is often the peak of career in terms of expertise, income, and advancement
Common to function in many roles in middle age
Multiple roles increase stress
Also allows for role buffering (difficulty in one role buffered by success in another)
Sense of generative accomplishment depends on how creative and productive adults feel
People who score high on measures of generativity
Report higher self-esteem and happiness
Are more actively involved in political, religious, and social reform activities

16. Applications: Fostering Relational Well-being
Some core skills and strategies clinicians can teach to help maintain relational well-being
Calm down
Speak nondefensively
Validate partners and what they’re going through
Overlearn, practice behaviors of self-soothing, nondefensive listening and validating
Pay attention to the little things, cultivate positive affect in daily interactions

17. Focus on Developmental Psychopathology: Post-traumatic Stress Disorder
Experiencing, witnessing, or being confronted with event so traumatizing that it results in symptoms of re-experiencing, hyperarousal, and avoidance
Vulnerability to PTSD a combination of factors
Biological vulnerability, stress response
Psychological vulnerability, history of trauma
Difficulties in executive functions prior to trauma
Five features of treatment
Addressing safety
Calming by addressing pressing practical needs
Supporting self and collective efficacy
Bolstering connectedness among survivors
Instilling hope