SUMMARY

Emerging into Adulthood

Psychologists have identified a new life phase called emerging adulthood. This in-between, not-quite-fully-adult time of life, beginning after high school and tapering off by the late twenties, involves testing out adult roles. The main challenge of this least-structured life stage is taking adult responsibility for our lives. This new, developed-world life stage differs from person to person and country to country. In southern Europe, young people typically live at home until they marry, and they often have great trouble becoming financially independent. In northern Europe, cohabitation and having babies before marriage are widespread. In these nations, better economies, plus an emphasis on independence, make early nest-leaving the norm. In the United States, there is tremendous variability, with people moving backward and forward on the way to constructing an adult life.

We often think of the entry point of emerging adulthood as leaving the nest. But, although, in many nations, parent–child relationships improve after emerging adults move out, this is not true in places such as Portugal where most young people stay in the nest through their twenties. The idea that we must leave home to “act adult” is also incorrect. Young people typically live with their parents because they cannot afford to live alone. Ethnic-minority young people, in particular, may stay in the nest to help their families as “full adults.”

Social-clock pressures, or age norms, set the boundaries of emerging adulthood. Exploring is on time, or appropriate, in the twenties, but off time if it extends well into the thirties. Although society sets the overall social-clock guidelines, people also have their own personal timetables for when to get married and reach other adult markers. Social-clock pressures, plus other forces, make emerging adulthood both an exhilarating life stage and a time of special stress.

Constructing an Identity

Deciding on one’s identity, Erikson’s first task in becoming an adult, is the major challenge facing emerging adults. Erikson believed that exploring various possibilities and taking time to ponder this question is critical to developing a solid adult self. At the opposite pole lies role confusion—drifting and seeing no adult future.

James Marcia identified four identity statuses: identity diffusion (drifting aimlessly), identity foreclosure (leaping into an identity without any thought), moratorium (exploring different pathways), and identity achievement (settling on an identity). In contrast to Marcia’s idea that we progress through these stages and reach achievement in the twenties, people shift from status to status throughout life. Emerging adults may not need to sample different fields to develop a secure career identity. Being paralyzed by different possibilities, or locked in ruminative moratorium, produces special distress. In terms of identity—including one’s ethnic (biracial or multiracial identity)—it’s important to make a choice, feel positive about your identity, and believe that your decision expresses your inner self.

Finding a Career

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Teenagers have high career goals. The downside is that, because many teens overinflate their abilities, self-esteem often drops when young people enter college. Emerging adults follow diverse emotional paths as they leave high school and move through their early twenties. Getting good grades, being someone who enjoys mastering challenges (a “worker”), and finding a stable love relationship (if you are a male) seem important in boosting self-worth. Emerging adulthood, in general, is a time of emotional growth, with young people getting more conscientious, gaining self-control, and thinking about life in more complex ways. “Troubled teens,” in particular, tend to grow emotionally if they lock into a satisfying job.

Flow is a feeling of total absorption in a challenging task. The hours seem to pass like minutes, intrinsic motivation is high, and our skills are in balance with the demands of a given task. Flow states can alert us to our ideal careers.

Although higher education is more necessary than ever, and most young people in the United States enroll in college, many drop out before finishing. Economics looms large in who leaves college, as high-performing young people from low-income backgrounds are less apt to finish school than their affluent counterparts. While there may be advantages to leaving college and coming back, we need to make it easier for financially strapped young people to get a B.A. and offer non-college alternatives that lead directly to jobs. The absence of a real school-to-work transition in the United States is a national crisis.

Ideally, the college experience should be a time of inner growth. Get the best professors (and reach out to them); explore career-relevant work; become involved in campus activities; and reach out to students of different backgrounds to make the most of these special years.

Finding Love

Erikson’s second emerging-adult task, intimacy—finding committed love—has changed dramatically in recent decades. People now find romance on-line, and are far more likely to date outside their ethnicity and race, although White women and Christians who accept biblical pronouncements as literal truth are less open to interethnic romance. Same-sex relationships are “out in the open,” in the West, although homophobia still exists. Western gay teens are more comfortable about coming out than in the past. The dating phase of life lasts longer, too, with more young people putting off serious romantic involvements until they establish a career. Unfortunately, putting relationships on the back burner can have negative effects, as casual sex has emotional downsides, and having a caring partner seems important during the early twenties, especially for men.

Stimulus-value-role theory spells out a three-stage process leading to marriage. First, we select a potential partner who looks appropriate (the stimulus phase); then, during the value-comparison phase, we find out whether that person shares our interests and worldview. Finally, during the role phase, we plan our lives together. Homogamy, people’s tendency to choose similar partners and partners of equivalent status to themselves, is the main principle underlying this theory.

Although it does help to be similar in values, there are qualifications to the idea that we should search for a similar mate. Relationships flourish when people respect their partner’s personality, and two very dominant (or submissive) personalities might not mesh. It helps to view a lover as embodying your “ideal self’ and idealize that person’s virtues. While the experience of love doesn’t fall into patterned stages, it helps to gradually get closer, too—although every relationship has ups and downs. Facebook, that new medium for selecting and announcing one’s love, can make things more complicated by evoking jealousy and distress. Relationship success, however, depends on the above qualities, and one final attribute: finding someone who is securely attached.

Researchers have spelled out three adult attachment styles. Adults ranked as insecurely attached—either preoccupied/ambivalent (overly clingy and engulfing) or avoidant/dismissive (overly aloof and detached)—have poorer-quality relationships. Securely attached adults tend to be successful in love and marriage. Although we can question the validity of this research, the attachment-styles framework offers fascinating insights into the qualities we should search for in selecting a mate.