17-4 What themes and influences mark our social journey from early adulthood to death?

Many differences between younger and older adults are created by significant life events. A new job means new relationships, new expectations, and new demands. Marriage brings the joy of intimacy and the stress of merging two lives. The three years surrounding the birth of a child bring increased life satisfaction for most parents (Dyrdal & Lucas, 2011). The death of a loved one creates an irreplaceable loss. Do these adult life events shape a sequence of life changes?

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As people enter their forties, they undergo a transition to middle adulthood, a time when they realize that life will soon be mostly behind instead of ahead of them. Some psychologists have argued that for many the midlife transition is a crisis, a time of great struggle, regret, or even feeling struck down by life. The popular image of the midlife crisis is an early-forties man who forsakes his family for a younger girlfriend and a hot sports car. But the fact—reported by large samples of people—is that unhappiness, job dissatisfaction, marital dissatisfaction, divorce, anxiety, and suicide do not surge during the early forties (Hunter & Sundel, 1989; Mroczek & Kolarz, 1998). Divorce, for example, is most common among those in their twenties, suicide among those in their seventies and eighties. One study of emotional instability in nearly 10,000 men and women found “not the slightest evidence” that distress peaks anywhere in the midlife age range (McCrae & Costa, 1990).

For the 1 in 4 adults who report experiencing a life crisis, the trigger is not age, but a major event, such as illness, divorce, or job loss (Lachman, 2004). Some middle-aged adults describe themselves as a “sandwich generation,” simultaneously supporting their aging parents and their emerging adult children or grandchildren (Riley & Bowen, 2005).

Life events trigger transitions to new life stages at varying ages. The social clock—the definition of “the right time” to leave home, get a job, marry, have children, and retire—varies from era to era and culture to culture. The once-rigid sequence has loosened; the social clock still ticks, but people feel freer about being out of sync with it.

Even chance events can have lasting significance, by deflecting us down one road rather than another. Albert Bandura (1982, 2005) recalls the ironic true story of a book editor who came to one of Bandura’s lectures on the “Psychology of Chance Encounters and Life Paths”—and ended up marrying the woman who happened to sit next to him. The sequence that led to my [DM] authoring this book (which was not my idea) began with my being seated near, and getting to know, a distinguished colleague at an international conference. Chance events can change our lives.

Two basic aspects of our lives dominate adulthood. Erik Erikson called them intimacy (forming close relationships) and generativity (being productive and supporting future generations). Researchers have chosen various terms—affiliation and achievement, attachment and productivity, connectedness and competence. Sigmund Freud (1935) put it most simply: The healthy adult, he said, is one who can love and work.

LoveWe typically flirt, fall in love, and commit—one person at a time. “Pair-bonding is a trademark of the human animal,” observed anthropologist Helen Fisher (1993). From an evolutionary perspective, relatively monogamous pairing makes sense: Parents who cooperated to nurture their children to maturity were more likely to have their genes passed along to posterity than were parents who didn’t.

Adult bonds of love are most satisfying and enduring when marked by a similarity of interests and values, a sharing of emotional and material support, and intimate self-disclosure. There also appears to be “vow power.” Straight and gay couples who seal their love with commitment—via marriage or other public vows—more often endure (Balsam et al., 2008; Rosenfeld, in press). Such bonds are especially likely to last when couples marry after age 20 and are well educated. Compared with their counterparts of 50 years ago, people in Western countries are better educated and marrying later. Yet, ironically, they are nearly twice as likely to divorce. (Both Canada and the United States now have about one divorce for every two marriages, and in Europe, divorce is only slightly less common.) The divorce rate partly reflects women’s lessened economic dependence and men and women’s rising expectations. We now hope not only for an enduring bond, but also for a mate who is a wage earner, caregiver, intimate friend, and warm and responsive lover.

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Historically, couples have met at school, on the job, through family, or, especially, through friends. Since the advent of the Internet, such matchmaking has been supplemented by a striking rise in couples who meet online—as have nearly a quarter of heterosexual couples and some two-thirds of same-sex couples in one recent national survey (FIGURE 17.6).

Might test-driving life together in a “trial marriage” minimize divorce risk? In Europe, Canada, and the United States, those who cohabit before marriage have had higher rates of divorce and marital dysfunction than those who did not cohabit (Jose et al., 2010). In recent data, however, those who cohabited only after engagement and only with their future spouse did not have an increased divorce risk (Goodwin et al., 2010; Jose et al., 2010; Manning & Cohen, 2011; Stanley et al., 2010). American children born to cohabiting parents have been four to five times more likely to experience their parents’ separation than children born to married parents (Osborne et al., 2007; Smock & Manning, 2004). Two factors contribute. First, cohabiters tend to be initially less committed to the ideal of enduring marriage. Second, they may become even less marriage supporting while cohabiting.

Although there is more variety in relationships today, the institution of marriage endures. In Western countries, people marry for love. What counts as a “very important” reason to marry? Among Americans, 31 percent say financial stability, and 93 percent say love (Cohn, 2013). And marriage is a predictor of happiness, sexual satisfaction, income, and physical and mental health (Scott et al., 2010). National Opinion Research Center surveys of more than 50,000 Americans since 1972 reveal that 40 percent of married adults, though only 23 percent of unmarried adults, have reported being “very happy.” Lesbian couples, too, have reported greater well-being than those single (Peplau & Fingerhut, 2007; Wayment & Peplau, 1995). Moreover, neighborhoods with high marriage rates typically have low rates of social pathologies such as crime, delinquency, and emotional disorders among children (Myers & Scanzoni, 2005).

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Relationships that last are not always devoid of conflict. Some couples fight but also shower each other with affection. Other couples never raise their voices yet also seldom praise each other or nuzzle. Both styles can last. After observing the interactions of 2000 couples, John Gottman (1994) reported one indicator of marital success: at least a five-to-one ratio of positive to negative interactions. Stable marriages provide five times more instances of smiling, touching, complimenting, and laughing than of sarcasm, criticism, and insults. So, if you want to predict which couples will stay together, don’t pay attention to how passionately they are in love. The pairs who make it are more often those who refrain from putting down their partners. To prevent a cancerous negativity, successful couples learn to fight fair (to state feelings without insulting) and to steer conflict away from chaos with comments like “I know it’s not your fault” or “I’ll just be quiet for a moment and listen.”

Often, love bears children. For most people, this most enduring of life changes is a happy event—one that adds meaning and joy (Nelson et al., 2013). “I feel an overwhelming love for my children unlike anything I feel for anyone else,” said 93 percent of American mothers in a national survey (Erickson & Aird, 2005). Many fathers feel the same. A few weeks after the birth of my first child I was suddenly struck by a realization: “So this is how my parents felt about me!”

When children begin to absorb time, money, and emotional energy, satisfaction with the relationship itself may decline (Doss et al., 2009). This is especially likely among employed women who, more than they expected, may carry the traditional burden of doing the chores at home. Putting effort into creating an equitable relationship can thus pay double dividends: greater satisfaction, which breeds better parent–child relations (Erel & Burman, 1995).

Although love bears children, children eventually leave home. This departure is a significant and sometimes difficult event. For most people, however, an empty nest is a happy place (Adelmann et al., 1989; Gorchoff et al., 2008). Many parents experience a “postlaunch honeymoon,” especially if they maintain close relationships with their children (White & Edwards, 1990). As Daniel Gilbert (2006) has said, “The only known symptom of ‘empty nest syndrome’ is increased smiling.”

WorkFor many adults, the answer to “Who are you?” depends a great deal on the answer to “What do you do?” For women and men, choosing a career path is difficult, especially during bad economic times. Even in the best of times, few students in their first two years of college or university can predict their later careers.

In the end, happiness is about having work that fits your interests and provides you with a sense of competence and accomplishment. It is having a close, supportive companion who cheers your accomplishments (Gable et al., 2006). And for some, it includes having children who love you and whom you love and feel proud of.

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17-5 How does our well-being change across the life span?

To live is to grow older. This moment marks the oldest you have ever been and the youngest you will henceforth be. That means we all can look back with satisfaction or regret, and forward with hope or dread. When asked what they would have done differently if they could relive their lives, people’s most common answer has been “taken my education more seriously and worked harder at it” (Kinnier & Metha, 1989; Roese & Summerville, 2005). Other regrets—”I should have told my father I loved him,” “I regret that I never went to Europe”—have also focused less on mistakes made than on the things one failed to do (Gilovich & Medvec, 1995).

From the teens to midlife, people typically experience a strengthening sense of identity, confidence, and self-esteem (Huang, 2010; Robins & Trzesniewski, 2005). In later life, challenges arise: Income shrinks, work is often taken away, the body deteriorates, recall fades, energy wanes, family members and friends die or move away, and the great enemy, death, looms ever closer. And for those in the terminal decline phase, life satisfaction does decline as death approaches (Gerstorf et al., 2008).

Small wonder that most presume that happiness declines in later life (Lacey et al., 2006). But worldwide, as Gallup researchers discovered, most find that the over-65 years are not notably unhappy (FIGURE 17.7). Self-esteem remains stable (Wagner et al., 2013). If anything, positive feelings, supported by enhanced emotional control, grow after midlife and negative feelings subside (Stone et al., 2010; Urry & Gross, 2010). Older adults increasingly use words that convey positive emotions (Pennebaker & Stone, 2003), and they attend less and less to negative information. Compared with younger adults, for example, they are slower to perceive negative faces and more attentive to positive news (Isaacowitz, 2012; Scheibe & Carstensen, 2010).

Compared with teens and young adults, older adults also have a smaller social network, with fewer friendships (Wrzus et al., 2012). Like people of all ages, older adults are, however, happiest when not alone (FIGURE 17.8). They also experience fewer problems in their relationships—less attachment anxiety, stress, and anger (Chopik et al., 2013; Fingerman & Charles, 2010; Stone et al., 2010). With age, we become more stable and more accepting (Carstensen et al., 2011; Shallcross et al., 2013).

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The aging brain may help nurture these positive feelings. Brain scans of older adults show that the amygdala, a neural processing center for emotions, responds less actively to negative events (but not to positive events) (Mather et al., 2004). Brain-wave reactions to negative images also diminish with age (Kisley et al., 2007).

Moreover, at all ages, the bad feelings we associate with negative events fade faster than do the good feelings we associate with positive events (Walker et al., 2003). This contributes to most older people’s sense that life, on balance, has been mostly good. Given that growing older is an outcome of living (an outcome most prefer to early dying), the positivity of later life is comforting. Thanks to biological, psychological, and social-cultural influences, more and more people flourish into later life (FIGURE 17.9).

The resilience of well-being across the life span obscures some interesting age-related emotional differences. Psychologists Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi [chick-SENT-me-hi] and Reed Larson (1984) mapped people’s emotional terrain by periodically signaling them with electronic beepers to report their current activities and feelings. They found that teenagers typically come down from elation or up from gloom in less than an hour, but adult moods are less extreme and more enduring. As the years go by, feelings mellow (Costa et al., 1987; Diener et al., 1986). Highs become less high, lows less low. Compliments provoke less elation and criticisms less despair, as both become merely additional feedback atop a mountain of accumulated praise and blame. As we age, life therefore becomes less of an emotional roller coaster.

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17-6 A loved one’s death triggers what range of reactions?

Warning: If you begin reading the next paragraph, you will die.

But of course, if you hadn’t read this, you would still die in due time. “Time is a great teacher,” noted the nineteenth-century composer Hector Berlioz, “but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.” Death is our inevitable end. We enter the world with a wail, and usually leave it in silence.

Most of us will also suffer and cope with the deaths of relatives and friends. Usually, the most difficult separation is from one’s partner—a loss suffered by five times more women than men. Grief is especially severe when a loved one’s death comes suddenly and before its expected time on the social clock. The sudden illness or accident claiming a 45-year-old life partner or a child may trigger a year or more of memory-laden mourning that eventually subsides to a mild depression (Lehman et al., 1987).

For some, however, the loss is unbearable. One Danish long-term study of more than 1 million people found that about 17,000 of them had suffered the death of a child under 18. In the five years following that death, 3 percent of them had a first psychiatric hospitalization, a 67 percent higher rate than among other parents (Li et al., 2005).

Even so, reactions to a loved one’s death range more widely than most suppose. Some cultures encourage public weeping and wailing; others hide grief. Within any culture, individuals differ. Given similar losses, some people grieve hard and long, others less so (Ott et al., 2007). Contrary to popular misconceptions, however,

Facing death with dignity and openness helps people complete the life cycle with a sense of life’s meaningfulness and unity—the sense that their existence has been good and that life and death are parts of an ongoing cycle. Although death may be unwelcome, life itself can be affirmed even at death. This is especially so for people who review their lives not with despair but with what Erik Erikson called a sense of integrity—a feeling that one’s life has been meaningful and worthwhile.

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