MIDDLE ADULTHOOD
THE NATURE OF MIDDLE ADULTHOOD
Changing midlife: with improved lifestyle and
medical discoveries, middle age seems to be
starting later and lasting longer. People today
take longer to grow up and longer to die than in
the past
Defining middle adulthood: middle adulthood
begins at approximately 40 to 45 years of age
and extends to about 60 to 65 years of age. This
period involves “balancing work and physical
relationship responsibilities in the midst of the
physical and psychological changes associated
with aging
PHYSICAL ASPECTS
- The rate of changes that occur during
middle adulthood may vary from one
individual to another depending on the
individual’s genetic makeup and
lifestyle
 Visible signs:
- The skin begins to sag and presence of
age spots, graying and thinning of hair
- Fingernails and toe nails become brittle
 Height and Weight:
- Individuals lose height but gain weight
during this period
 Strength, Joints and Bones:
- In middle age, individuals experience
muscle loss and strength
- bones become less efficient
 Vision and Hearing :
- Begins to decline
 Cardiovascular system:
- Hypertension begins to appear for
many individuals in their 40s and 50s.
having a healthy lifestyle can often
delay the onset of cardiovascular
diseases
 Lungs:
- The lung capacity of individuals who are
smokers drop precipitously in middle
age but may improve if the individuals
quit smoking
 Sleep:
- Sleep problems in midlife are more
common among individuals who have
illnesses or diseases
STRESS AND DISEASE
Stress:
- Increasingly identified as a factor of many
diseases
- The cumulative effects of stress often
takes a toll on the health of individuals by
the time they reach normal age
 The immune System
- Immune system functioning decreases
with normal aging
 Cardiovascular System
- Stress and negative emotions can affect
development of cardiovascular diseases
 Culture and Health
- When people migrate to another
culture, their health practices are likely
to change while their genetic
dispositions to certain disorders remain
constant
Control:
- Having a sense of control is one of the
most important modifiable factors in
delaying the onset of diseases in middle
adulthood
MORTALITY RATES:
o For many years, heart disease was the
leading cause of death in middle
adulthood followed by cancer
o Since 2005, more individuals (45-64)
have died of cancer followed by
Cardiovascular disease
o Men have higher mortality rates than
women
1. Cancer
2. Heart disease
SEXUALITY
- Fertility declines (climacteric)
 Menopause
- 6% of women age 30-49 are estimated
to be menopausal (PSA, 2013)
- The proportion of women who are
menopausal increases with age, from
1% among women age 30-34 to 32%
among women age 48-49 (PSA, 2013)
 Hormonal Changes in Middle-Aged Men
- Most men do not lose their capacity to
father children, but there is a decline in
their sexual hormone level and activity
 Sexual Attitudes and Behavior
- Sexual activity occurs less frequently in
midlife than in early adulthood
- A study showed that how often
individuals have sexual intercourse, the
 quality of their sexual life, and their
interest in sex were linked with how
healthy they were
COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
INTELLIGENCE
 Fluid and Crystallized Intelligence
- John Horn indicated:
 Crystallized Intelligence:
- an individual’s accumulated
information and verbal skills,
continues to increase in
middle adulthood
 Fluid Intelligence
- ability to reason abstractly,
begins to decline
 The Seattle Longitudinal Study
- (Involves extensive evaluation of
intellectual abilities during adulthood)
- For both women and men, peak
performance on verbal activity, verbal
memory, inductive reasoning, and
spatial orientation was attained
- However, number and perceptual
speed declines
- Some researches emphasized that a
lower level of cognitive functioning in
early and middle adulthood is likely due
to age-related neurobiological decline
INFORMATION PROCESSING
 Speed of Information Processing
- The cause for the decline in speed of
information processing may be due to
different aspects such as:
 Cognitive
- Maintaining goals, switching
between tasks or preserving
internal representation
despite distraction
 Neuroanatomical
- Changes in specific brain
regions such as the
prefrontal cortex
 Neurochemical
- Changes in neurotransmitter
systems
 Memory
- either absent or minimal
- Memory decline is either absent or
minimal during the early part of middle
age but does occur in the latter part of
middle or late adulthood
- An aging expert concludes that decline
in memory in the late middle age is a
result of information overload
 Expertise
- Developing expertise is a result of many
years of experience, learning, and effort
 Practical Problem Solving
- A research found no evidence for
significant changes in everyday
cognition from 2-75 years old
- This may be due to the increase in
accumulated knowledge individuals
process as they grow older
CAREERS, WORKS, AND LEISURE
 Work in Midlife
- Many middle-aged adults reach their
peak in position and earnings, while
some are forced to have premature
retirement due to economic downturns
 Career Challenges and Changes
- Middle-aged workers face several
challenges but also attain career
development during this period
 Leisure
- This refers to a pleasant time after work
when individuals are free to pursue
activities and interests of their own
choosing
- Constructive and fulfilling leisure
activities are important in preparing
psychologically for retirement
RELIGION, SPIRITUALITY AND MEANING IN LIFE
 Religion, Spirituality, and Adult Lives
- Religion and spirituality are powerful
influences for some adults but hold
little or no significance for others
- Women have consistently shown a
stronger interest in religion and
spirituality than men have
 Religion, Spirituality, and Health
- Some religion encourage behaviors that
can cause negative outcomes to health
while others bring positive ones
 Meaning in Life
- Many individuals in middle age begin to
evaluate their lives
- Studies suggest that individuals who
have found a sense of meaning in life
had a positive outcome
- There are four main needs for meaning
1. Need for purpose
2. Need for values
3. Need for a sense of efficacy and
4. Need for self-worth
SOCIOEMOTIONAL
STAGES OF ADULTHOOD
 Erikson’s Stage of Generativity vs
Stagnation
 Generativity
- Desire to leave legacies of
themselves to the next
generations
 Stagnation
- When individuals sense that they
have done nothing for the next
generation
 Levinson’s Seasons of a Man’s Life
- According to Levinson, the transition to
middle adulthood lasts about 5 years
(40-45) and requires the adult male to
come to grips with four major conflicts
1. Being young vs being old
2. Being destructive vs being
constructive
3. Being masculine vs being
feminine,
4. Being attached to others vs
being separated from them
- Levinson stated that the success of
midlife transition rests on how
effectively the individual reduces the
polarities and accepts each one of them
MIDLIFE CRISIS
- Others may view midlife as a crisis
mostly attributed to negative life events
rather than aging but for most people
midlife is not a crisis
- A study showed that “crisis” is triggered
by life events such as job loss
THE LIFE-EVENTS APPROACH
 Contemporary life-events approach:
- Emphasizes how a life event
influences the individual’s
development depends not only
on the life event but also on:
1. mediating factors
2. that individual’s
adaptation to life event
3. the life stage context
4. the socio-historical
context
STRESS AND PERSONAL CONTROL IN MIDLIFE
 Stress, Personal Control, and Age
- A study showed that middle-aged
adults experience “overload”
stressors as compare to young
adults who experience daily
stressors more frequently
- Another study also revealed that
older adults showed a lesser
increase in psychological distress
to interpersonal stressors that
young adults
 Stress and Gender
- Women are more vulnerable to
social stressors than men
 men
- are more likely to
respond in a fight-or-
flight manner
- either aggressive or
they do not talk to
people
 Women
- are more likely to
engage in tend-and-
befriend pattern
- Share problems with
others
CONTEXTS OF MIDLIFE DEVELOPMENT
 Historical Contexts (Cohort Effects)
- Developmentalists conclude that
changing historical times and
different social expectations
influence how different cohorts
(groups of individuals born on
the same year or time period)
move through the life span
 Gender Contexts
- Although some critics say that
stage theories of adult
development is male biased,
other studies proved that midlife
is diversifies, heterogeneous
period for women and men
 Cultural Contexts
- In some cultures especially non-
industrialized societies, they
describe individuals as either
young or old but not as middle-
aged
- Middle-aged women in non-
industrialzed may experience
certain advantages
STABILITY AND CHANGE
LONGITUDINAL STUDIES
 Costa and McCrae’s Baltimore study
- In this study, personality traits
changed the most in early
adulthood and late adulthood
 - Most research study indicate
that the greatest change occur in
early adulthood
 Berkley Longitudinal Studies
- Researchers point out that some
people experience recurrent
crisis and change a great deal
over the life course, whereas
others have more stable,
continuous lives and change far
less
 Helson’s Mills College Study
- Researchers conclude that
rather than being in midlife
crisis, women were experiencing
midlife consciousness
 George Vaillant’s Studies
- Vaillant’s main conclusion is that
“warmth of relationships
throughout life has the greatest
positive impact of “life
satisfaction”
“squeezed” or “overload”
generation because of the
responsibilities they have for the
adolescent and young adult
children as well as their aging
parents
Big five factors of personality
The five broad traits that are thought to
describe the main dimensions of personality:
Openness to experience, Conscientiousness,
Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism
(emotional instability). Acronym: OCEAN
social clock
Timetable according to which individuals are
expected to accomplish life's tasks, such as
getting married, having children, and
establishing themselves in a career.

CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS

 Love and Marriage at Midlife

- Most individuals in midlife
expressed satisfaction in their
marriage
- Divorce in middle adulthood may
be more positive in some, and
more negative in others
- Some of the marriages that were
difficult during early adulthood
have improved during middle
adulthood; eventually
discovered deep and solid
foundation in their relationship
 The Empty Nest and its Refilling
- Parents undergo adjustment as a
result of the child’s absence
 Sibling Relationship and Friendship
- Sibling relationships persist over
the entire life span for most
adults
- Friendships are as important In
middle adulthood as they were
in early adulthood
 Grandparenting
- Grandparents roles and styles
- The changing Profile of
Grandparents
- Some grandparents take the role
as parents because of some
reasons
 Intergenerational Relationships
- Middle-aged adults have been
described as the “sandwich”,