Adulthood and the life events that redirect it

Transcript

SoheeIn one single year, a woman in her late fifties gets three pieces of news. Her company offers her early retirement. Her youngest child moves across the country. And her father, after a long illness, dies.

RyanThree life events. One expected, one sort of expected, one that was coming but still knocks her off her feet. And developmental psychology has something to say about each.

SoheeWelcome to EPPP Prep, the podcast. I'm Sohee.

RyanI'm Ryan. Today we're covering life events that can change the course of development, and some of the normal changes of adulthood they land on top of.

SoheeLet's start with timing. Neugarten and colleagues described the social clock. Cultural expectations about what we should achieve by certain ages, which we use to judge our own progress and other people's.

RyanAnd here's the subtle part. Lifespan Development says social-clock expectations don't necessarily reflect what's real or typical. They're idealized milestones. The textbook's example is the expectation of finishing college in four years, by twenty-two, when in reality fewer than half of U.S. college students do.

SoheeStill, feeling off time, especially behind your friends, can create real pressure. So when a stem describes someone distressed about being late to marry, finish school, or start a career compared to peers, think social clock.

RyanThe timing idea also explains why some losses hit harder. Lifespan Development says the death of a child or young adult appears harder to cope with than the death of an older adult, perhaps because dying young violates expectations about how the lifespan should unfold.

SoheeNow midlife. Everybody has heard of the midlife crisis. The textbook traces the term to psychoanalytic psychologist Elliott Jaques, and its female version to the idea of empty-nest syndrome.

RyanAnd then it says the stereotype, the sports cars and the desperate grab at youth, doesn't reflect Erikson's or Levinson's frameworks, and isn't supported by data on the typical midlife adult.

SoheeGeorge Vaillant's longitudinal study found that while middle adulthood was often challenging for the men he followed, there was no greater incidence of psychological distress at midlife than at other times of life.

RyanSo on the exam, if an answer assumes most adults go through a midlife crisis, be suspicious.

SoheeWhat does normal physical aging look like? The psychology textbook says physical abilities peak in early adulthood. In middle adulthood, decline is gradual. Menopause, the end of the menstrual cycle, comes around age fifty. In late adulthood, reaction time slows further and the senses decline.

RyanCognition follows a different path. Crystallized intelligence, the knowledge and skills built through experience, tends to hold steady and may even improve with age. Fluid intelligence, information processing, reasoning, and memory, declines in late adulthood.

SoheeLifespan Development puts it this way. Fluid intelligence is using logic to solve problems in new ways. Crystallized intelligence is existing knowledge from education and experience. Fluid declines with age, crystallized increases.

RyanAnd the hopeful part from the psychology textbook. Adults who engage in mentally and physically stimulating activities experience less cognitive decline, and a reduced incidence of mild cognitive impairment and dementia.

SoheeTwo theories about how people adapt as they age. First, socioemotional selectivity theory, from Carstensen. Social networks get smaller with age, but the remaining relationships stay as close, or even closer.

RyanLifespan Development explains why. It's a selective focus on the more meaningful relationships that serve emotional goals. So a shrinking circle isn't necessarily loneliness. It can be a choice.

SoheeSecond, selection, optimization, and compensation, from Paul Baltes and colleagues. Selection, focusing on the activities that matter most. Optimization, putting more practice and attention into those. Compensation, using strategies or aids to work around declines.

RyanAnd the textbook's example is wonderful. The concert pianist Arthur Rubinstein, still performing at eighty. He played fewer pieces, the ones that mattered to him. That's selection. He rehearsed them more. Optimization. And because he couldn't play as fast, he slowed down just before fast passages so they sounded faster. Compensation.

SoheePause and think. A seventy-five-year-old gardener gives up her big vegetable plot, keeps only her roses, spends more time on them, and switches to raised beds and a kneeling stool. Map it.

RyanKeeping only the roses is selection. More time on them is optimization. Raised beds and the stool are compensation. And if a stem says she now spends time mostly with two close friends, rather than a large social circle, that's socioemotional selectivity.

SoheeNow retirement, our woman's first piece of news. Lifespan Development calls it a common part of adult life, but not an inevitable one. And a review of twenty-two longitudinal studies found most retirees report mental health benefits, like lower depression, anxiety, or stress.

RyanBut context matters. How people spend retirement is strongly associated with socioeconomic status and health. Some people move into phased retirement, cutting hours gradually, or bridge employment, a different job after retiring.

SoheeNow loss. Three words the exam likes to distinguish. Grief is the internal, emotional reaction to loss. Mourning is the outward, behavioral expression of grief. And bereavement simply means having experienced the death of a loved one.

RyanThe death of a spouse has long been regarded as one of the most stressful events a person can experience. And Lifespan Development notes loneliness increases for widowed spouses.

SoheeThe circumstances matter too. Lifespan Development says a sudden death is associated with stronger grief, because there's less time to prepare emotionally. And the psychology textbook notes research suggesting people with religious or spiritual beliefs are often better able to cope with death, through hope in an afterlife and support from their communities.

SoheeThe best-known model is Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's. She interviewed dying hospice patients and described five themes: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

RyanAnd here's what the exam wants you to know. Kübler-Ross herself didn't propose a timetable, and acknowledged people may not experience all the themes, or in the same order. The psychology textbook says the stages may occur in different orders, and not everyone experiences all of them.

SoheeLifespan Development even says themes is a better word than stages. And it lists limits. Her research was qualitative, and she didn't follow participants over time. Grief isn't linear. It can rise again around anniversaries and holidays.

RyanThe risk is that professionals treat the stages as a prescription and fail to support people who don't fit. So an answer choice saying a grieving client must move through all five stages in order is the trap.

SoheeA newer alternative is the dual-process model from Stroebe and Schut. Loss orientation means dealing with the emotional pain of the loss. Restoration orientation means coping with the life changes, like new roles and relationships. People cycle back and forth between them.

RyanPause and think, last one. A widower spends mornings looking at old photos and crying, and afternoons learning to cook and handle the finances his wife used to manage. Which model fits best?

SoheeThe dual-process model. The photos and tears are loss orientation. Learning to cook and manage finances is restoration orientation. Moving between the two is exactly what the model describes.

RyanAnd one more piece of end-of-life context. The psychology textbook says Cicely Saunders created the first modern hospice in England in 1967, and Florence Wald founded the first U.S. hospice in 1974. Hospice aims to provide a death with dignity and pain management in a humane, comfortable setting.

SoheeAnd planning ahead is part of that. A living will, or advance directive, is a written legal document detailing the interventions a person wants. A Do Not Resuscitate order says medical staff shouldn't try to revive the person if breathing or heartbeat stops. And a health care proxy appoints someone to make medical decisions if the person can't speak for themselves.

SoheeLet's recap. The social clock sets idealized age expectations, and feeling off time creates pressure. The midlife crisis is a stereotype, not the typical experience.

RyanFluid intelligence declines in late adulthood while crystallized holds or grows. Socioemotional selectivity means smaller but closer networks. Selection, optimization, and compensation describe how older adults keep functioning well.

SoheeRetirement often brings mental health benefits, shaped by socioeconomic status and health. Grief is internal, mourning is outward, bereavement is the loss itself. Kübler-Ross's five themes aren't a fixed sequence, and the dual-process model cycles between loss and restoration.

RyanIf you're carrying a loss of your own, including a disappointing score, grief can show up in waves, and that's normal. You don't have to follow anyone's timetable.

SoheeTake care of yourself, and come back when you're ready. Thanks for listening to EPPP Prep.

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