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12.1
The Development of Self in Early Adulthood
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Achievement of developmental tasks is affected by both individual priorities and cultural context.
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The modern world offers more connection and diversity but also greater economic difficulties, which can create both opportunities and challenges in completing developmental tasks. Feelings of helplessness or indecision known as the quarter-life crisis can be offset by self-reflection and perceived social support.
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A primary challenge of early adulthood is to establish close and trusting relationships with others. According to Erikson, intimacy requires both commitment and willingness to sacrifice and compromise.
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Valliant proposes that affiliation allows us to reduce the anxiety of developmental tasks by confiding in others and being willing to ask for and receive help.
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Levinson’s Seasons of Life theory proposes that young adults develop mentoring relationships to support their emerging independence.
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Personality traits can both drive and direct the developmental tasks of early adulthood, while also adapting and responding to changing roles and responsibilities.
12.2
Identity Development in Context in Early Adulthood
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Early adulthood prompts reflection about the way identity domains align with each other and the person’s changing contexts and priorities.
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Intersectionality refers to how people simultaneously experience multiple aspects of their identity and their associated privileges or discrimination.
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Young adults show more transition in their ethnoracial identity status than older adults. The salience, centrality, and regard for ethnoracial identity may change in response to early adult developmental transitions, especially for ethnic and racial minorities.
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Gender and sexual identity intersect with ethnoracial identity to produce a wide variety of developmental experiences. Compared to past generations, LGBTQ+ young adults are more likely to have explored their sexual identity earlier in life and come out at a younger age, but compared to straight young adults, face greater challenges with regard to traditional expectations of marriage and parenthood.
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Gender, sexual, and ethnoracial identity are related to religious identity development. Christian religious identity has dropped substantially in the last 50 years, in part, because many disaffiliate with the religion by the end of young adulthood. There are also more U.S. adults who were raised unaffiliated with a particular religion.
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Young adults show increased exploration and information-seeking regarding their religious identity as they consider how their beliefs their align with their adult needs, values, and priorities. Overall religiosity does not change for most people as they progress from adolescence into early adulthood.
12.3
Relationships with Friends and Family in Early Adulthood
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According to self-determination theory, well-being is maximized when needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness are met.
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Friends in early adulthood can facilitate self-determination by valuing each other’s individuality and identity while also providing support to achieve goals. Selman called this stage of friendship autonomous interdependence.
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U.S. families are the primary support for emerging adults. The decision about whether, when, and why to move out of their parents’ home is affected by culture, education, financial considerations, and responsibilities.
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After young adult children have moved out, their relationship with their parents varies individually and cross-culturally. Proximity between adult children and their parents is associated with increased contact and promotes intergenerational solidarity
12.4
Contexts: School and Work Settings in Early Adulthood
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Young adults follow a variety of pathways after high school, including starting a family, undertaking vocational training, accepting full-time employment, enlisting in military service, and signing on for volunteer work or political activism. The choice of pathway is influenced by family and community background, socioeconomic status, gender, and race.
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Young adults who choose college differ in how and when they complete degrees, including taking a gap year before starting, signing up for ROTC, and enrolling full- or part-time.
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The best preparation for likely career changes during adulthood is to develop transferable professional skills, including communication, problem-solving, and collaboration.
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According to Super’s lifespan theory of career development, adult career trajectory evolves from exploration in emerging adulthood to establishment in early to middle adulthood (Super, 1990).
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Those who establish themselves in good jobs are more likely to take a strategic approach to career development, using entry-level jobs to develop skills, knowledge, and connections to advance.
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As young adults take on more responsibilities, they need to maintain a balance among the activities that matter to them, such as work, leisure, education, and caregiving.
12.5
Finding Love, Intimacy, and Romance in Early Adulthood
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Identity development in adolescence and emerging adulthood predicts subsequent intimacy and romantic partnership quality in early adulthood. High-quality intimate relationships are characterized by frankness and spontaneity, sensitivity and knowing, exclusivity, giving and helping, imposing and taking, common activity, trust and loyalty, and secure attachment.
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Rates of casual sex are fairly low among young adults. A friends-with-benefits relationship can provide a safe, familiar, and convenient context to explore sexual or romantic feelings with another person, but it usually does not result in long-term friendships or romantic relationships.
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About half of young adults are single, and being single by choice can be a source of happiness and well-being.
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Young adults seek homogamy, faithfulness, intelligence, sense of humor, and physical attractiveness in romantic partners, and they meet potential partners in a variety of in-person and online settings.
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Most young adults use technology such as texting and social media to maintain their relationships, which can increase both positive and negative relationship behaviors.
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The experiences and trajectories of young adult romantic experiences differ widely. Most couples are happy, but the extent of commitment varies.
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More young adults are cohabiting than in the past, and by the end of young adulthood most are not married.
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The likelihood of becoming a parent in young adulthood depends on contextual factors that influence a young person’s social clock. Adjusting to parenthood can bring a mix of positive and negative experiences.