Middle Adulthood

Overview

• Middle adulthood: Ages 40 to 65.
• Developmental tasks include:
  • Loss of parents and dealing with grief.
  • Launching children into independent lives.
  • Adjusting to children returning home (e.g., for school or after divorce).
  • Becoming grandparents.
  • Preparing for late adulthood.
  • Caring for family members in need.

Health and Lifestyle

• Health

  • Most experience good health with low risk of chronic disability.
  • Common issues: vision changes, hearing loss, joint pain, and weight gain.
  • "Use it or lose it" principle applies.

• Risks to Health

  • Poor diet, stress, smoking, excessive alcohol, inactivity, chronic disease.

• Preventative Measures

  • Engage in physical and mental activities.
  • Weight-bearing exercises.
  • Good nutrition and social resources.

Menopause and Andropause

• Women: Menopause

  • Loss of estrogen, occurs mid-40s to mid-50s.
  • Changes in menstrual cycle, hot flashes, night sweats, skin/hair dryness.
  • Post-menopause: no longer capable of reproduction.

• Men: Andropause

  • No complete loss of reproductive ability.
  • Lower sperm count and testosterone with age.

Cognitive Development

• Formal and Postformal Thought

  • Ability to think abstractly in experienced areas.
  • Increases: tacit knowledge, verbal memory, spatial skills, inductive reasoning.
  • Decreases: working memory, speed of processing.

• Learning Differences in Older Students

  • Focus on relevance and accuracy rather than speed.
  • Distraction reduction and slower pace improve learning.

Psychosocial Development

• Midlife Crisis

  • Not universal; triggered by feeling off-course in life.
  • May involve impatience and self-focus.

• Generativity vs. Stagnation (Erikson)

  • Generativity: feeling productive and contributing to the next generation.
  • Stagnation: feeling stuck and unaccomplished.

• Family Relationships

  • Adult children maintain relationships with aging parents.
  • Kinkeeping: organizing family connections, often by midlife daughters.
  • Caregiving for children, spouses, or parents.

Singles and Marriage

• Types of Singles (Stein's Typology)

  • Voluntary temporary: happy single status, plans to marry.
  • Voluntary permanent: chooses to stay single.
  • Involuntary temporary: seeks partner but is currently single.
  • Involuntary permanent: wanted marriage, didn’t find partner.

• Types of Marriages

  • Intrinsic: focused on being together.
  • Utilitarian: marriage serves a practical purpose.

• Marriage Killers (Gottman)

  • Criticism, contempt, defensiveness, stonewalling.

• Divorce

  • Impacts: emotional, legal, economic, coparental, community, psychic.

Work Life and Personality

• Work Life

  • Variability: peak career or retraining for new careers.
  • Encore careers: purpose, meaning, income.
  • Importance of flexibility and adapting to new demands.

• Personality Changes

  • Big Five traits: more agreeable, less open/neurotic.
  • Jung: increased balance and expression of both masculine and feminine sides.