Middle and late adulthood: transitions and life endings

Emotional and Social Development in Middle Adulthood

Middle Adulthood

This paper highlights the phases of a human being's emotional and social development. It also describes the challenges faced by a person when he enters the middle age. The paper explains the emotional and social changes that occur in a person's life during middle adulthood and how these changes help in the development of a person's emotional and social traits. In addition to that, the duties of a middle aged person and how one's reactions change the development process are also explained in the proceeding paper.

Emotional and Social Development in Middle Adulthood

Middle age is an important period of life. In middle adulthood, people face a number of changes including, middle age parenting, changing relationships with one's parents, transition in personal and professional responsibilities etcetera. In addition to that in late mid life people generally experience retirement which is a completely new thing for them. Therefore, middle age should not be considered as a period in which things continue to happen in the same way, instead it should be considered as a period when a person faces entirely new conditions in his/her life. Even though, the characteristics of middle adulthood vary from society to society and culture to culture; some general characteristics of middle adulthood include increased social and family responsibilities, attainment of maximum status in the family, society and the profession, continuing decline in health and development of personality through experience. (Helson, Soto & Cate)

Although middle adulthood is an important part of people's life, there is confusion about when it starts and when it ends. According to 'Levinson' it starts at the age of thirty five and ends at the age of sixty five. (Hargrave, 2006) the middle adulthood period consists of three different phases. All of these phases are listed below.

The Ascendant Phase:

In this phase individuals are motivated by the spirit to find and achieve higher standards for themselves and their family. At this stage individuals are committed to different roles, they also have to follow social norms and have to stand up to the expectations of different people and society. Although all these responsibilities require sacrifices on a personal level, they also enhance self-confidence and personal integrity. In this phase individuals generally focus on self and identity. The ascendant phase is generally characterized by success and achievements but in this phase an individual's negative emotions overcome his/her positive emotions. (Helson, Soto & Cate)

The Executive Phase

This is the second phase of the middle adulthood and in this phase the individual reaches the highest possible position in this socially complex environment. Control over oneself and cognitive skills continue to improve in this phase but individuals under this phase usually work under great pressure and time limits and the time spent on leisure activities decreases a lot. In this phase an individual gains mastery over his skills and attains high degree of competence and effectiveness. (Helson, Soto & Cate)

The Acceptance Phase

The third phase in the middle adulthood development is known as the acceptance phase. In this phase individuals stop striving to achieve further goals and higher status as they become contended with their present position. The commitment to social and public goals decline and the individuals become more committed to their personal interests. Individuals become excessively aware of the decreasing time that they have in this world but their per day demand of time decreases because they do not have to perform multiple roles now. The person in this phase becomes more spiritual and less complex. In this phase people generally evaluate what they have done in their middle adulthood and prepare themselves for the time to come. (Helson, Soto & Cate)

Emotional development

During the middle adulthood, men and women start to consider themselves as different generations with different needs. Many men and women in their 50's face a transition from becoming parents to becoming grandparents. They have to make decisions about their old parents and work as well. This causes emotional disturbances in this age because the person is facing a massive emotional change. ("Stress, mental health," 2011)

In addition to that, men and women get emotionally disturbed in their middle adulthood because they start to think of the opportunities they have lost. The fact that in future the opportunities are going to diminish even more also bothers them a lot. A person in middle adulthood may face emotional turmoil due to dissatisfactions in the past as well as in the present. ("Stress, mental health," 2011)

Women face a lot of emotional and psychological problems in their middle adulthood. One of the major problems that women face during their middle adulthood is caring for their families. A woman, after marriage, has to care for both of her families which makes her more vulnerable to emotional upheavals. Moreover, many women find themselves in a poverty trap after marriage due to part time working, caring for their families and improper provision of pension. Widowed, divorced and minority women stand almost no chance in avoiding this trap. In addition to that, those women who take care of families and only work in their houses have a high probability of getting dejected and having low self-esteem. ("Stress, mental health," 2011)

A research has shown that during their middle adulthood the characteristic qualities of each sex reduces and its opposite increases. This is one of the causes of emotional stress on people in middle adulthood. Researchers gave a hypothesis that women, between the ages of 43 to 52, will increase emotional stability, masculinity and intelligence. The femininity will be reduced. This change will be advantageous to the women as they will gain confidence and dependence will reduce. (Hargrave, 2006)

Many researchers associate a person's thinking to his emotional state. During the middle adulthood, a person faces a lot of challenges that may give him emotional instability. A person in midlife is thought to be in a crisis due to the challenges faced by him. People in middle adulthood have conflicting feelings of generativity and stagnation. Generativity is the feeling of contributing to the next generation. A person can have the feeling of generativity through personal or family achievements. For instance, a businessman can have this feeling by continuing to train his new co-workers. ("Adolescence and adulthood,")

Stagnation, on the other hand, is feeling opposite to generativity. It is a feeling of not having anything to pass on to the next generation. People in middle adulthood may also have this feeling. They may think that they were unable to achieve the goals set by them. Thus they get the feeling that they have not escalated in their life. This gives them the feeling of still standing on the point from where they began. ("Adolescence and adulthood," )

According to the researchers, people face both these feelings during middle adulthood and if they resolve them successfully then they get a sense of balance between future and present. Those who fail to resolve them develop a feeling of being rejected. They lose whatever interest they have in contributing something to the next generation. ("Adolescence and adulthood," )

A person in middle adulthood faces many challenges that need to be solved. Men and women face many problems in this age. These include the change of relationships, making new relationships and growing up of children. Men and women in this age also experience a gender role change. Furthermore, people get the opposing feelings of generativity and stagnation in this age. All these challenges need to be resolved if a person wants to be happy, emotionally stable and contended.

Social development

In addition to emotional changes and development, middle adulthood brings social changes in a person as well which then stabilizes them socially. The mid life restructures a person's social life as his parents become ill, he himself becomes a parent or a grandparent and he has to fulfill multiple duties at home and at work. These multifarious duties that a middle aged person has to fulfill at work or at home give this phase the name "sandwich generation." (Hargrave, 2006)

The first social change that comes in midlife is marriage. Many researchers relate marriage to well being. Many middle aged men have a strong marital relationship and they are doing more than better with their lives. However, unmarried men show more personal growth than married ones. Although marriage is related to well being but still a stable marriage also put new pressures on a person. These pressures include growing up of children, children's marriage and becoming a grandparent. These things bring changes to a person's life and thus inhibit the personal growth. (Hargrave, 2006)

Another social change is the change in the parental roles that a middle aged person faces. The middle aged person sees his children growing to adolescents. This change requires alterations in a parent child relationship. The boundaries should become more flexible for the adolescent to move outside the family system. The increase in the flexibility of these boundaries will help the adolescent get a sense of freedom and he will get some new friends in the family system. The parents then have to maintain a balance between the dependence and independence of their adolescent on the family as both extremes may prove to be harmful. The parents may also need to alter the family system as their adolescents interact with the extended family and make new friends. The middle aged parents also have to change their psychological interactions with their children as their children have now become teenagers and they would be required to make amendments in authority, privacy, perspective and emotional interactions. The middle aged parents who themselves are facing many problems also have to address the problems of their teenage children. (Hargrave, 2006)