CHAPTER 10

PHYSICAL AND COGNITIVE

DEVELOPMENT IN EARLY
ADULTHOOD
 BECOMING AN ADULT

• Emerging adulthood: occurs approximately 18-25 years

of age (Arnett, 2006, 2007).

• Many individuals are still exploring (career path, identity,

lifestyle).
• Five key features characterize emerging adulthood (Jeffrey
Arnett, 2006):

Key Description

Identity exploration Especially in love and work

Instability In love, work and education

In the sense that they have little in the way of

social obligations, little in the way of duties
Self-focused and commitments to others, which leaves
with a great deal of autonomy in running
their own life.

Feeling in-between Don’t consider themselves adolescents/ full-

fledged adults.

A time when individuals have an opportunity

The age of possibilities to transform their lives.
• A longitudinal study, Ann Masten and her colleagues
(2006):
 Emerging adults who became competent after
experiencing difficulties while growing up were more:
 intelligent,
 experienced higher parenting quality,
 were less likely to grow up in poverty/low-income
circumstances
than their counterparts who did not become competent
as emerging adults.
MARKERS OF BECOMING AN ADULT

• holding a more or less permanent full-time job,

• economic independence, Industrialized
societies
• taking responsibility for oneself.

Marriage is more often a significant Developing

countries
marker for entry into adulthood.
 THE TRANSITION FROM HIGH
SCHOOL TO COLLEGE
• For many students, the transition from high school to
college involves:

more
Movement to a impersonal interaction with
larger school peers from
structure, more diverse

increased focus
diverse ethnic on achievement
geographical
backgrounds and its
assessment
• Can involve positive features:

More likely to feel have more subjects have more time to

grown up to select spend with peers

have more enjoy greater

opportunities to independence from be challenged
explore different parental intellectually by
lifestyle and values monitoring academic work
 learn effective ways
to cope with stress

develop explore career

academic COUNSELORS options
plans

identify students provide good

abilities and information about
interest coping with stress and
academic matters
 PHYSICAL PERFORMANCE &
DEVELOPMENT
• peak physical performance before the age of 30 (19-26 years).
• also begin to decline in physical performance:

muscle tone and

Sagging
strength-decline
chins
(age of 30)

sensory protruding
systems show abdomens
little change
The body’s
fatty tissue
Eye problems increases
HEALTH
• Emerging adults have more than twice the mortality rate of
adolescents (Park & others, 2006).
• males are mainly responsible for the higher mortality rate.
• have few chronic health problems.
• Most bad health habits engaged in during adolescence
increased in emerging adulthood (Harris & other, 2006).
• Inactivity, diet, obesity, substance use, reproductive health
care & health-care access-worsened in emerging
adulthood.
• Many of us:

Skip breakfast smoking or drinking

moderately/excessively
not eating
regular meals failing to exercise

relying on snacks eating excessively to the

as main food point where we exceed the
source normal weight for our age

lack of sleep
• The health profile of emerging and young adults can be
improved by reducing the incidence of certain health-
impairing lifestyle:
-overeating,
-engaging in health-improve lifestyle
(good eating habits, exercising regularly,
not abusing drugs)
 EATING & WEIGHT
1) Obesity:
• having a body mass index (takes into
account height and weight) of 30/more.
• a serious and pervasive health problem
for many individuals
• linked to increased risk of hypertension,
diabetes, & cardiovascular disease.
• 30% overweight-dying in middle
adulthood increases by about 40%.
2) Dieting

• has become an obsession with many Americans.

• some individuals do lose weight and maintain the loss.
• Successful dieters-exercising 30 minutes a day, planning
meals, weighing themselves daily.
• produce weight loss-place at risk for other health
problems.
REGULAR EXERCISE
• to prevent diseases (heart disease, diabetes).
• 30 minutes/more of aerobic exercise a day (everyday).
• benefits not only physical health, but mental health as well.
• Improves self-concept and reduces anxiety and depression
(Brenes & other, 2007), reducing depression as
psychotherapy (Richardson & others, 2005).
SUBSTANCE ABUSE
1) Alcohol
a. Binge drinking
• heavy binge drinking-
increases in college-can take
its toll on students.
• chronic binge dinking-
common among college men
than women & students living
away from home-fraternity
houses.
• peaks at about 21-22 years of
age and then declines
through the remainder of the
twenties
b. Alcoholism
• a disorder that involves long-term, repeated,
uncontrolled, compulsive, and excessive use of alcoholic
beverages.
• that impairs the drinker’s health and social r/ships.
• genetic influence on alcoholism.
• environmental factors play a role.
2) Cigarette Smoking and Nicotine

• like to quit-addiction to nicotine often makes quitting a

challenge.
• Nicotine-the active drug in cigarettes-a stimulant that
increases-energy and alertness, a pleasurable and
reinforcing experience.
• also stimulates neurotransmitters that have a
calming/pain-reducing effect.
Sexuality
• we need it for survival of species.
Sexual Activity in Emerging Adulthood
• Beginning of emerging adulthood (age 18)-experienced
sexual intercourse.
• End of emerging adulthood (age 25)- have had sexual
intercourse.
• Patterns of heterosexual behavior:
-males: have more casual sexual partners,
-females: more selective about choice of sexual
partner,
-casual sex is a more common (emerging
adulthood).
 Sexual Orientation & Behavior
1. Heterosexual Attitude & Behavior
• Americans: 1/3 (twice a week or more), 1/3 (a few
times a month), 1/3 (a few times a year or not at all).
• Married (and cohabiting) couples: have sex more often.
• Americans do not engage in kinky sexual act: vaginal
sex was “very” or “somewhat” appealing, oral sex was
in the 3rd place.
 Sexual Orientation & Behavior
1. Heterosexual Attitude & Behavior
• Adultery is clearly the exception rather than the rule:
married women indicated that they have never been
unfaithful.
• Men: far more than women do-every day or several
times a day.
• Women: only a few times a week/a few times a month.
2) Sources of Sexual Orientation

• people: heterosexual/homosexual.
• bisexual: sexually attracted to people of both sexes.
• NO differences between LGBs and heterosexuals:
• attitude, behavior and adjustments.
• same-sex, heterosexual, bisexual: determined by a
combination of genetic, hormonal, cognitive and
environmental factors.
3) Attitudes and Behavior of Lesbians and Gay Males

• gender differences appears in both heterosexual and

same sex r/ships.
•Eg:
i. heterosexual women & lesbians (fewer sexual
partners than gay men).
ii. lesbians have less permissive attitudes about casual
sex outside a primary relationship than gay men.
• lesbians and gay males experience life as a minority in a
dominant, majority culture.
• developing a bicultural identity creates new ways of
defining themselves (lesbian and gay men).
Sexual Transmitted Infections (STIs)
• diseases that are primarily contracted through sex
(intercourse, oral-genital and anal-genital sex).
• Most prevalent:
a. bacterial infections-gonorrhea, syphilis, chlamydia.

b. caused by viruses- AIDS, genital herpes, genital warts.

• HIV:
• greater impact on sexual behavior/created more public
fear.
• a virus that destroys the body’s immunes system.
• breaks down and overpowers the immune system (leads
to AIDS).
• individual: weakened immune system-a common cold
can be life-threatening.
• globally: 39.5 million in 2006.
• Good strategies for protecting against HIV and other
STIs:
• knowing your and your partner’s risk status,
• obtaining medical examinations,
• having protected, not unprotected, sex,
• not having sex with multiple partners.
Forcible Sexual Behavior and Sexual
Harassment
1) Rape
• is forcible sexual intercourse with a person who does
not give consent.
• legal definitions-differ from state to state.
• occurs most often in large cities.
• although most victims are women, rape of men does
occur.
• men in prisons are especially vulnerable to rape: as a
mean of establishing their dominance and power.
• Why does rape of women occur so often?
 males are socialized to be sexually aggressive,
 to regard women as inferior beings,
 to view their own pleasure as the most important
objective in sexual relations.
 according to male rapists:
o aggression enhance their sense of power or
masculinity,
o they are angry at women in general,
o they want to hurt and humiliate their victims.
• a traumatic experience for the victims and those close to
them.
• strive to get their lives back to normal-depression, fear,
anxiety, and increased substance use for months or years.
• sexual dysfunctions-reduced sexual desire and an inability
to reach orgasm.
• recovery: victim’s coping abilities, psychological
adjustment prior to the assault and social support
(parents, partner and other closes to the victim).
• Date or acquaintance rape:
 coercive sexual activity directed at someone with
whom the victim is at least casually acquainted.
 1/3 adolescent girls (involved in a controlling,
abusive relationships), 2/3 of college freshman
women (having been date raped or having
experienced an attempted date rape at lease
once.
 About 2/3 of college men (fondle women against
their will, half (forcing sexual activity).
Raped at the age of 9 by a family member.
Oprah has become an advocate for sexual
abuse survivors and devoted hundreds of shows
to the topic.
Tina Turner was the battered wife of Ike
Turner and was raped by him
Teri Hatcher, who was 'Susan' from
Desperate Housewives, was raped by her
uncle when she was just 7 years old.
Madonna-the Queen of Pop was raped when
she was 19 years old at her dance class.
2) Sexual Harassment
• is a manifestation of power of one person
over another.
• Many forms-inappropriate sexual remarks
and physical contact (patting, brushing
against one’s body) to blatant propositions
and sexual assaults.
• Sexual harassment of men by women-occurs
but to a far lesser extent than sexual
harassment of women by men.
• college women-involved noncontact forms
(crude jokes, remarks, and gestures).
• increase in psychological distress, greater
physical illness and increase in disordered
eating (Huerta & others, 2006).
• serious psychological consequences for the
victim.
Cognitive Development
• explore the nature of cognition in early adulthood.
 Cognitive Stages
1) Piaget’s view:
 an adolescent and an adult think qualitatively in the
same way.
 believe: young adults are more quantitatively advanced
in their thinking in the sense that they have more
knowledge than adolescents.
 Adults: increase their knowledge in a specific area
(physicist’s understanding of physics/a financial
analyst’s knowledge about finance).
 Formal operational thought is the final stage in
cognitive development-characterize adults as well as
adolescents.
2) Realistic and pragmatic thinking
 young adults move into the world of work-their
way of thinking does change.
 Face the constraints of reality (work promotes)-
idealism decreases (Labouvie-Vief, 1986).
 change in thinking in early adulthood: switch
from acquiring knowledge to applying
knowledge as they pursue success in their work
(Schaie & Willis, 2000).
3) Reflective and relativistic thinking
 Adolescents often view the world in term of polarities
(right/wrong, we/they, good/bad).
 Youth age into adulthood: become aware of the diverse
opinions and multiple perspectives of others.
 Reflective thinking is an important indicator of
cognitive change in young adults.
Creativity

• Individuals’ most creative products were generated-30s.

• Decline (in the fifties and later)-not as great as commonly
thought.
• Philosophy and history-creative in their 30s and 40s.
• Creative people: flow (a heightened state of pleasure
experienced when we are engaged in mental and physical
challenges that absorb us) (Csikszentmihalyi, 1995).
• First step toward a more creative life: cultivating your
curiosity and interest.
• How?
 try to be surprised by something every day.
 try to surprise at least one person every day.
 write down what surprised you and how you
surprised others-every day.
 when something sparks your interest, follow
it.
 wake up in the morning with a specific goal to
look forward to.
 spend time in setting that stimulate your
creativity.
Career and Work
• What are some of the factors that go into choosing a job or
career and how does work typically affect the lives of
young adults?
Developmental Changes
• Children: wants to be superheroes, sport stars…
• High school years: begun to think about their careers.
• Late teens and early twenties: their career decision
turned more serious
• In college: choosing a major/specialization that is
designed to lead to work in a particular field.
• Early and mid-twenties: have completed their
education/training and started to enter a full-time
occupation.
• From mid-twenties through the remainder of early
adulthood: often seek to establish their emerging career in
a particular field.
Monitoring the Occupational Outlook

• It is important to be knowledgeable about different fields

and companies.

• Most of the highest-paying occupations require a college

degree.
The Impact of Work
• Some people define their identity through their work.
• Work also creates a structure and rhythm to life-missed
when individuals do not work for an extended period.
• When unable to work-emotional distress and low self-
esteem.
• Characteristics of work settings are linked with employee
stress and health problems:
o High job demands,
o Inadequate opportunities to participate in decision
making,
o A high level of supervisor control,
o A lack of clarity about the criteria for competent
performance.
1) Work during college:
 The number of college students work increases, the
more likely they are to drop out of college.
 College students need to carefully examine-the
number of hours they work is having a negative impact
on their college success.
2) Dual-Career Couple
 May have particular problems finding a balance
between work and the rest of life.
 Although single-earned married families still make up a
sizeable minority of families, the two-earned couple has
increased in the last 3 decades.
 Suggestions:
 Husbands are taking increased responsibility for
maintaining the home,
 Women are taking increased responsibility for
breadwinning,
 Men are showing greater interest in their
families and parenting.
3) Diversity in the workplace
 Gender diversity
 Ethnic diversity
 Despite in increasing diversity in the workplace, women
and ethnic minorities experience difficulty in breaking
through the glass ceiling.

A glass ceiling is a metaphor used to represent an

invisible barrier that keeps a given demographic
(typically applied to minorities) from rising beyond
a certain level in a hierarchy.
THANK YOU!