Five Characteristics Of Emerging Adulthood

In “Changes in the transition to adulthood in the UK and Canada: the role of structure and agency in emerging adulthood” by James Côté and John M. Bynner, they discuss the exclusion processes in education and the workplace that restrict young people from experiencing the developmental processes that benefit all emerging adults. Essentially, the notion of adulthood is becoming longer than it used to be due to economical and societal restrictions. In the article, Côté and Bynner refer to Jeffery Arnett, who argues that young adulthood is now in reference to the thirties rather than the twenties (Côté and Bynner 253). This is in

Being successful in your search for a romantic relationship can determine the rate of development emotionally of emerging young adults.

As the mother of seven grown children, I agree with most of Jeffrey Arnett’s, author of Emerging Adulthood, theories. It is a time of change, with a developmental connection between adolescence and adulthood. During this phase of development, children experience periods of self-discovery transformation. There are favorable outcomes as well as adverse effects during this developmental stage. Furthermore, this successive stage encourages and promotes the change from the dependency of their parents to the independence that is distinctive for adults. This autonomy is beneficial because it prepares the emerging adult for their future independently from their parents. Arnett believes there are five characteristics of emerging adulthood that make it distinguishable from other time periods: the age of identity explorations, the age of instability, the self-focused age, the age of feeling in-between, and the age of possibilities.

The life pursuits and subjective judgments of many contemporary young people indicate that the transition to adult roles has become so delayed and prolonged that it has spawned a new transitional period extending from the late teens to the mid-to late-twenties, called emerging adulthood. During the college years, young people often refine their approach to forming their own identity. In these years, young people have left adolescence, but most have not yet assumed adult responsibilities. Many have dreams and those are what guides them in their decision making. In the video, 22 year old Casey describes her dream and comments on her identity development. Casey says that she became interested in Psychology in high school during her junior year when she took a psych course. She knew from then on that was what she wanted to do, but she hadn't picked a career yet. Casey said that she picked a career during her first year of graduate school, when she decided on gerontology. She said her happy and active grandparents had a lot to do with picking a career and wanting to work with the population. Casey thinks her identity was a gradual process and it's only really formed since last year. She feels her parents helped shape her morals and beliefs, but in between her senior year and her first year of graduate school, she started to form her own and integrated some of her own ideas. 24 year old Elizabeth and 25 year old Joel are shown discussing

Life is what you make it as we go through life’s journey. We all have different experiences that are unique to us individually. “Life is not the way it’s supposed to be. It’s the way it is. The way you cope with it is what makes the difference.” - Virginia Satir. There are typical aspects of our journey that are similar, but different; we share commonalities along the way with others. In life, we will face challenges that bring about change, which is what happens to us along the way when we are younger, and it makes us who we are when we are older. Change is the opposite

Young people don’t maintain the same personality, feelings and views throughout their life. At some point in their life, which very often starts during adolescence, they start looking for their true identity. The transition into becoming a more mature person may be very exciting and very uncertain at the same time. It is a process that involves many changes shaped by the family, friends, environment, community and culture. Young people become more independent, dream of living their life the way they always wanted to, they explore the world, look for new possibilities. At the same time they still ponder their personal identity, are vulnerable and easily influenced by others. They take on new responsibilities, face new challenges and make mistakes.

Adulthood is a generation when modifications appear in social connections and situations. These transformations do not appear in efficient, foreseeable stages but as an alternative resulting in different courses, depending on personality

Being an adult is the number one thing that children want to be: The desire to get older to do things that you want when you want and having no one say otherwise. However, what is an adult? An ambiguous term that really falls into the hands of the individual, where at Sixteen you can drive, eighteen you can vote, and twenty-one you can drink, for those in the USA, all varying ages that individuals could use as indications of adulthood. Robin Heinig wrote and article “What is it about 20- somethings?” where she discusses Arnett’s proposal about a new developmental stage, “Emerging Adulthood”. Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, an American professor in psychology, believes that we aren 't entering adulthood till the later portions of our twenties. For some, this may be true but for the general population including myself I find this hard to believe. Leo Hendry’s article, “How universal is emerging adulthood? An empirical example”, on emerging adulthood gives a deeper understanding to what this generation 's kids are going through. The late teens are a crucial part to the lives of a young adult. It 's the time that we spend trying to identify ourselves, escape the circumstance that we are put into at a younger age, or just had a better family income. Arnett is not wrong, but all other external factors need to be accounted for before we know, or even consider if emerging adulthood is a new developmental stage.

The study concluded that however a few categories lined up between graduates, some college individuals, and non-student individuals, the overall findings reinforced other studies that the ages of 18-30 look very different for non-students versus college students (Mitchell & Syed, 2015). Arnett’s emerging adulthood theory may be overgeneralizing to a population that is very diverse (Mitchell & Syed,

The article "Betwixt and Bewildered: Scholars are Intrigued by the Angst of "Emerging Adults" by Lynn Smith discusses a societal trend towards young adults (18-25) who are struggling to achieve the traditional markers of adulthood. The article covers some of the scholarly debate of the subject, wherein some researchers accept the phenomenon, others reject it, and between them they find little in the way of clear definition of the problem and its ramifications.

In emerging adulthood, many people experience the need to share their personal life with someone else. Erikson name for this crisis is intimacy versus isolation and emerging adults and many older adults know this feeling very well (Berger, 2014, p. 551). As emerging adults begin feeling the need for human connection, friendships and intimate relationships deepen for this reason (Berger, 2014, p. 551). As a senior in high school my friends became an extremely important part of my life, we told each other everything and the need for human connection was evident as I always wanted to be with my friends and share my personal life with them. I had, and currently have, the same 2 friends that I would confide in about boy problems, health

A human’s development is a lifelong process beginning before birth and extending until the moment of death. In every moment of life, every human being is constantly evolving in their own person way. Some evolve mostly with physical changes while other evolve based more solely on mental evolution. However, as humans grow their cognitive abilities advance and decline in response to the brain’s growth from childhood and reduced function in their old age. Psychosocial development is also significantly influenced by physical growth, as our changing body and brain, together with our environment, shape our identity and our relationships with other people.

Arguably, the physical and cognitive development of young adults is an issue that has always attracted the attention of many scholars including Schaie and Erikson among others. Schaie is one of the most prominent scholars who have done exhaustive research on individuals’ development. He conducted many studies on areas of intellectual functioning in adults, and from his research, he proposed his theory of stages in cognitive development in human adults. Schaie outlined these stages as the acquisition stage, young adult stage, achieving stage, responsible stage, executive stage, reorganizational stage, reintegrative stage, and legacy creating stage (Capuzzi & Stauffer, 2016). The achieving stage is just one of the many stages proposed by Schaie in his

There is no doubt that there are many things that can contribute to a young, emerging adult’s wellbeing. The theory that prompted research on young adults distinctive characteristics, in other words,

There are five key features that characterize emerging adulthood. The first s identity exploration. The second is “Instability.” For many the instability is a result of residential changes such as living in a dorm. There is also instability in friendships, romantic relationships, academia, and work. Emerging adults have few obligations, responsibilities, and commitments. Because they have so much autonomy in controlling their own lives the third key feature is “Self-Focused.” One of the most difficult