Navigating Midlife & Later Life: Relationships, Aging, and Challenges

Posted on Sep 2, 2024 in Psychology and Sociology

Unit 5: Middle and Later Life

Test: January 19th, 2017

Chapter 12: Living the Dream

Key Terms

Adulthood: The period of life that follows childhood, adolescence, and teenage years and lasts until death. The time for living the dream.

Middle Age: Between 45-64 years old. Transitional years when individuals are sandwiched between adult children becoming independent and parents becoming dependent.

Old Age: Traditionally after age 65 when an individual retires.

Work-Family Conflict: Coordinating the demands of family and workplace roles causes stress. Work responsibilities affect family roles.

Family-Work Conflict: Family responsibilities affect workplace roles. Workplace culture requires long hours & prioritization of work before family. (True for women with children or caregiver responsibilities)

Adulthood, Middle Adulthood & Seniors

Chapter 13: Becoming Mature Adults

Contemporary Theories of Aging

The Stability Model

– Attempts to explain how individuals do not change once they become adults.

– Suggests that an individual’s identity is stable over time and they react/deal with stress/life events consistently.

– Behavior will be predictable.

The Orderly Change Model

– Suggests that an individual’s identity is developed in early life but may change because of interactions with the environment.

– “Just go with the flow.”

– Examine life structure and may want to change it.

– Identity changes according to the options available in society.

The Theory of Random Change

  • Suggests that fate/non-normative events cause change in identity because of how individuals adapt to their new roles.
  • Individuals change over time in response to biological, cultural, psychological, and environmental factors.
  • Not possible to predict the behavior of future generations.

Social Construction Theory

  • Suggests that the actions and feelings of individuals have no intrinsic meaning of their own but are given meaning by the theoretical perspective that is developed for their explanation.
  • Grew out of the theory of symbolic interactionism.
  • Individual’s behavior doesn’t necessarily differ from place to place or from generation to generation, but the meaning ascribed to the behavior changes to reflect the expectations of society.
  • Individuals choose an appropriate role based on how they interpret life events.
  • Explains why the social roles of older individuals in one culture differ from those in another culture.

Erik Erikson’s 7th Stage: Generativity vs. Stagnation

  • Generativity: A stage in middle adulthood when people want to be productive by reaching out to other people and doing something that leaves their mark on the world.
  • Stagnation: When individuals focus only on their own lives and cease to develop as people.
  • Individuals assess their lives so far and ask several questions such as “What have I done with my life? What do I truly want from others?”
  • Individuals build a new life based on answers to these questions.
  • Still continue to pursue their dreams but look for greater meaning by giving back.
  • You learn what and whom you can take care of.

Forms of Generativity

Biological and Parental

  • Parenthood declined in importance and became less valued as a role because couples found it difficult to identify reasons for having children → less biological generativity.
  • Parental generativity is attained through interaction with children as active participants in parenting.
  • In the past, it was assumed to be the motivation for a woman’s life, now men have gained greater opportunities for parental generativity.
  • Functionalists suggest men have traditionally had the role of authority, so they are better suited for being a breadwinner.
  • Men and women share parenting roles in society.
  • Grandparents achieve this by taking on the role of guardian and caring for other’s children.

Technical and Cultural Generativity

  • Teaching knowledge and skills to the next generation so that they can develop competence.
  • Cultural generativity means creating and sharing ideas and artifacts that will contribute to the cultural experience of society.
  • Achieved by developing and nurturing ideas as well as children.

Midlife Crisis

  1. A turning point → reflects back to early life.
  2. A moment of danger or suspense → unhappy with life, don’t know what will happen now.

Non-events: Life passages that people want to happen but don’t, such as getting married or having children.

  • Individuals redefine their dream and change their life structure to meet the needs of their maturing personal identities and embark on a new life.
  • Individuals develop a revised sense of self during midlife, self-concept changes to blend past experience with present circumstances.
  • Women experience an increased sense of identity and competence in midlife, they made midcourse corrections based on a review of their lives.

Marriage Satisfaction

  • Couples enter marriage with great expectations, but the realities of life challenge the durability and quality of marriage. A couple’s relationship becomes unstable as the individuals adjust their roles to respond to the crisis, and becomes stable again when the couple compromises and renegotiates a relationship to meet their needs.
  • Functionalist perspective says: conforming to the traditional gender roles of marriage and parenthood in early parenthood, couples are more satisfied with their marriage.
  • People stay married when they are less satisfied with it after 10-20 years because costs may seem higher, but it’s a long-term investment that provides rewards in later life. (More benefits)

Bereavement

  • Marriage is more likely to be dissolved by death in old age.
  • Post-retirement marriages are happier because older people are better at resolving problems.
  • Women are more likely to be widowed than men because women have a larger life expectancy.
  • Women traditionally marry men who are several years older.
  • Men have more difficulty adjusting to the death of their wives because men have a greater dependence on their wives for meeting their needs.

Erik Erikson’s 8th Stage of Life: Integrity vs. Despair

  • Adults review their lives to assess whether they have become who they wanted to be and achieved the generativity they desired to achieve integrity.
  • Integrity: Acceptance of one’s one and only life cycle as something that had to be, happy with life, gained wisdom (insight and enlightenment).
  • Individuals who have not achieved integrity feel Despair – a sense that they have not done what they wanted to do with their lives and that there is no time left to make changes.
  • Integrity clarifies the meaning of life for older people who can and do maintain a grand-generative function.

Activity Theory of Aging

  • Suggests that individuals are reluctant to give up roles unless they can substitute other meaningful ones.
  • Supports the value of social and physical activity as a contributor to self-esteem.
  • Individuals are married and can remain living in the same home or in the same community, their quality of life is better.
  • Suggests that people’s identities are defined in their evolving life story, the life structure they develop and live.
  • The opportunity to tell their life story in old age allows them to determine that they have lived a satisfying life.

Chapter 14: Issues in Midlife and Later Life

Remarriage: Three Stages

  1. Recover from the past marriage and get over grief, anger, and other emotions that result from divorce or bereavement.
  2. Make sure first marriage problems are resolved. Work and marital life will coincide.
  3. May have difficulty negotiating a system for the household – used to old ways.

Unique Challenges

  1. Combining families.
  2. More practical than romantic.
  3. Conflict in work and roles.

Advantages

  • Older age = more durable marriage.
  • Financial security.

Elder Abuse

  • Victim: Less likely to report abuse, abuse is covered up, the victim feels powerless.
  • Perpetrator: Most likely to be an adult child or caregiver.
  • Nature: Neglect, physical, robbery, threats, assault, emotional and financial manipulation.

Death and Mourning

  • Disengagement Theory: Suggests that as older people prepare for their own deaths, they become more preoccupied with themselves and thoughts from the past.
  • Kubler-Ross 5 Stages of Death:
  1. Denial of diagnosis and attempt to find a solution.
  2. Angry at the fact of death and direct anger at anyone around them.
  3. Bargaining with promises to alter who they are/what they do to change the diagnosis (i.e., praying).
  4. Depression arising from the certainty of death, no hope.
  5. Acceptance that the individual will die and has come to his/her fate.
  • Theories of Grief:
  1. Shock: Numbness, crying. Prefer to be alone.
  2. Disorganization: Need to talk or vent out feelings, be less functional.
  3. Re-organization: Less evident of grief, ready to move on.

Dependency Crisis

  • Belief, by some, that aging presents a threat to the world economy.
  • Baby boom generation will strain the resources of their children.
  • Delay in parenthood; starting in 30’s to care for aging parents.
  • Dependency ratio: # of dependents for every 100 working people (44:100).