14.1: Development of Self, Personality, and Identity in Middle Adulthood
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Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Describe theories regarding the development of self during middle adulthood
- List opportunities and obstacles to achieving generativity across middle adulthood
- Explain stability and development of personality during middle adulthood
- Describe ways in which identity develops across middle adulthood
Forty-year-old Amir’s life is much different than it was fifteen years ago. At twenty-five-years-old, he never could have pictured that his hours, days, and weeks would be spent cultivating his garden, raising his kids (plus two rescue cats), and managing a team of employees. And though his days are long and often exhausting, he feels more certain of himself and his goals than he ever has. His time in the garden allows him to unwind with a quiet yet productive activity.
Sandwiched between the optimistic beginnings of early adulthood and the experience and wisdom of older adulthood, socioemotional development in middle adulthood may often be overshadowed. However, between ages thirty and fifty-nine years, adults experience many important psychosocial changes as they take on increasing responsibilities within their relationships, work life, homes, and communities, known as role expansion . For many adults, role expansion results in an increased sense of control and accomplishment known as mastery. However, psychoanalytic theorists have noted that while this time of life is typically a period of positive growth, failure to manage and embrace the challenges of middle adulthood may result in a feeling of developmental stagnation or crisis. In this section, you will learn theories on the development of personality in middle adulthood in the context of research regarding stability and change.
Self in Middle Adulthood
Spanning three decades, middle adulthood is typified by important changes in our sense of self. In this section, you will review how different theories describe and explain the self during midlife. As you read about these theories, be on the lookout for what features these developmental theories have in common and for the concepts that are unique to each.
Psychosocial Theory of Development: Generativity versus Stagnation
Erik Erikson ’s lifespan theory of psychosocial development (Erikson, 1963) can be a valuable framework for articulating the unique challenges and outcomes of the development of self in middle adulthood. Erikson called the primary challenge of this stage of life generativity versus stagnation . The key to healthy development of self at this time of life is to resist the temptation to rest on the accomplishments and values of young adulthood, and focus one’s energy on giving back to others through mentoring and care of others, as well as continuing to have productive and creative endeavors that are beneficial to the self and society—a developmental task Erikson called generativity . This term intentionally evokes connotations of productivity, as well as the importance of guidance and creating a better world for future generations. Erikson called it the “ virtue of care ,” which includes “the care to do” (taking the initiative to generate creative solutions in the form of “ideas or products”) as well as the task of “caring for” or “taking care of” those who need guidance or protection (Evans, 1967). Generativity, broadly, is about having a sense of productiveness and a sense of purpose, feeling that who you are and what you are doing is contributing to the wellbeing of society, your family, your children, your culture, and/or your career. Some types of generativity included biological (having biological offspring), parental/caregiver (nurturing and raising children), or cultural generativity (contributing to culture)
Generativity requires a role expansion that goes beyond self-serving to the service of others, including family, workplaces, community, and society (McAdams & Guo, 2015; Wrightsman, 1994). For many, rising to the challenge of these generative roles results in the rewarding experience of role enhancement (Sieber, 1974). However, Erikson warned that ignoring or resisting the generativity challenge can result in stagnation , or unwillingness to show generative concern, which could be experienced as an unsatisfying developmental plateau or even as a panicked and narcissistic regression to immature self-absorption.
Seasons of Life
Erikson’s theory of generativity is not the only one to reflect the personal experiences of its author. In the 1970s, U.S. psychologist Dan Levinson used interviews with adult men to outline his book The Seasons of a Man’s Life (Levinson, 1986), saying, “At 46, I wanted to study the transition into middle age in order to understand what I had been going through myself.” Levinson used the term “ life structure ” to describe the “pattern or design of a person’s life at any given time,” based on how the person chooses to prioritize their time and energy. He proposed that men develop through various “eras” across the lifespan, with “transition” periods between each era. According to Levinson, adult men transition into middle adulthood between the ages of twenty-eight and thirty-three years 1 as they become aware of possible missteps taken in the naivete of early adulthood and revise their goals and priorities to move forward with greater clarity and maturity. Ages thirty-three through forty years represent the second life structure of adulthood where the focus shifts to making contributions to family, work, friends, and community. Levinson’s midlife transition (ages forty to forty-five years) prompts men to evaluate whether they accomplished the goals of young adulthood before entering middle adulthood, where the patterns and choices reflect many aspects of Erikson’s concept of generativity.
Levinson's spouse Judy worked with him to conduct interviews with adult women during the 1980s and early 1990s. These findings were published in The Seasons of a Woman’s Life (Levinson, 1997) and concluded that the lives of adult women exhibit many of the same patterns as those of men. Judy Levinson finished this work after Levison’s death in 1994. It should be noted that the conclusions of Levinson’s longitudinal studies of men and women were based on a small sample of mostly White American adults from the same generation, so these findings cannot be generalized to adults beyond those demographic characteristics.
Valliant’s Theory of Successful Aging
Expanding the influence of the psychoanalytic approach to the study of adult psychosocial development, psychiatrist George Valliant added that adults respond to life transitions by employing defense mechanisms. A defense mechanism is a psychological strategy for managing the anxiety and stress triggered by developmental challenges (Vaillant et al., 1986). Also based on a longitudinal study of adult men, Valliant and colleagues, argued that some defense mechanisms, like humor and sublimation (i.e., channeling anxiety toward a productive outlet), are mature ways of handling stress and promote positive aging during life transitions. Other defense mechanisms, like denial or acting out, are immature coping mechanism s and can inhibit well-being and healthy growth (Prout et al., 2022). The repeated concern with crisis or anxiety that links the theoretical views of Erikson, Levinson, and Valliant on midlife development served as the basis for the myth of the “midlife crisis.”
Personality Development in Middle Adulthood
Theories of personality can be generally classified into two approaches. First are those that emphasize traits, including their stability over time and their interaction with the environment. Second are those that emphasize development and growth, including the power of the environment to influence personality change.
Recall from 4.2 Temperament and Personality in Infants and Toddlers, the Big Five or Five-Factor model of personality describes personality according to five traits: conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness, and extraversion (sometimes represented by the acronym OCEAN) (McCrae & Costa, 2008). Trait theories generally predict that while environments may change, our predisposition to respond to certain environments remains stable. In other words, personality predicts our feelings, behavior, and even the environments we choose for ourselves—a process known as niche-picking .
On the other hand, developmental approaches to personality assert that personality develops over time in response to challenges or support encountered in our social environments. Rogers ’s humanistic theory (1980) took a growth-oriented approach to personality development, asserting that people require acceptance, genuineness, and empathy in their social environments to nurture positive and congruent (or authentic) personality growth over the lifespan (Figure 14.2).
Trait Theories
Since 1995, the MIDUS (Midlife in the United States) project has been collecting longitudinal data on American adults ages twenty-five years and older (and the more recently developed MIDJA studying adults in Japan). Some of these participants have been followed for more than thirty years, providing behavioral, psychological, social, and biological data on their aging. Data from MIDUS and other longitudinal research find that personality traits generally remain stable once a person reaches adulthood (Damian et al., 2019; Schaie & Willis, 1991). In other words, if you were introverted at twenty-five years old, you’re unlikely to be extraverted at fifty years old. This overall stability can be explained by gene-environment correlations, the reciprocal influence between an individual’s genetic predispositions and their environment, which often encourages the expression of their genetic predispositions. In the case of personality, evidence suggests that its temperamental foundations are largely genetically determined (Mottus et al., 2019) and associated with differences in the structure and functioning of the nervous system (Degnan & Fox, 2007; Toschi et al., 2018).
In other words, each person’s genetic predispositions are naturally more compatible with the demands of certain environments, a match known as goodness of fit (Wachs, 1994). Individuals will be more likely to seek out good-fitting, comfortable environments that, in turn, encourage their natural dispositions to thrive (Sutin & Costa, 2010). For example, an extraverted adult might feel comfortable in a job that requires confidence in approaching and talking to strangers, so they become a salesperson or work in customer service. Their job allows them to practice and be rewarded for behaviors associated with their extraverted personality, which leads to an increase in the expression of those behaviors. The alignment of a person’s personality with their environment supports the stability of personality over time in a gene-environment correlation and is predictive of successful aging (Kooij et al., 2020).
Growth and Development Theories
Researchers have studied whether there environments or experiences that predict or even require personality change over time. Cross-cultural comparisons of the stability of temperament al and personality traits suggest that culturally valued traits have more stability. While many individualistic societies like the United States prioritize individuality and independence, many collectivist cultures value a person’s investment in and conformity to group goals, whether at work or at home, which may be facilitated by adjusting one’s personality to meet the demands of the situation. For example, compared to Americans, Japanese adults show somewhat more variation in personality traits over time as they adapt their personality to best serve their environment (rather than vice versa) (Chopik & Kitayama, 2018). Even in individualistic countries, research has shown potential for growth and change in persaonality characteristics based on experiences. For example, in the United States and Australia, adults who have taken on greater leadership roles at work have shown increases in conscientiousness (a Big Five personality trait associated with a willingness to be responsible, organized, and goal directed) (Li et al., 2021).
Consistent with Rogers’s humanistic theory of personality, individual differences in social contexts may predict maladaptive changes to personality. Negative experiences in balancing work and family roles (a major task for middle-aged adults) predict increases in neuroticism (a Big Five personality trait associated with anxiety and self-doubt) and decreases in conscientiousness (Li et al., 2024). Adults who experience discrimination in their day-to-day lives are also more likely to show increased neuroticism and decreased conscientiousness and agreeableness (a Big Five personality trait associated with being trusting and friendly) over a ten-year-period (Sutin et al., 2016). Daily and pervasive stress, including in the form of discrimination and microaggressions, can negatively impact our psychological functioning and health outcomes. However, intervention and prevention efforts aimed at reducing discrimination experiences and increasing positive coping may represent an important pathway in promoting resilience (Lewis et al., 2015).
Intersections and Contexts: Historical Context and Personality Development
Psychologists have noted that the way age is defined and measured may affect findings on adult personality. Typically, longitudinal studies of personality measure chronological age , or age in years since birth, but researchers can also measure subjective age , which describes how old a person feels. Having a lower subjective age (feeling younger than you are) predicts increases over time in openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness (Stephan et al., 2015). As for chronological age, a person’s generational cohort reflects their experiences, which can include different historical challenges, such as war, poverty, and discrimination, as well as changing cultural norms and values, such as loyalty, collaboration, and skepticism.
When researchers compared three cohorts of adults (those born 1883–1913, 1914–1944, and 1945–1976), they found that in middle adulthood, those cohorts who were born in later (more recent) demonstrated “lower levels of maturity-related traits (such as agreeableness and neuroticism) and higher levels of agency-related traits (such as extraversion and openness)” compared to middle-aged adults born in earlier (older) cohorts. Researchers speculated that for later-born cohorts, increases in cultural individualism might promote agency-related traits of extraversion and openness, whereas delayed entry into roles such as spouse and parent compared to the past might decrease maturity-related traits. Later-born cohorts were also more likely to become more agreeable with age, compared to earlier-born cohorts (Brandt et al., 2022). Age cohorts popularly known as the Silent Generation (born 1925–1945), boomers (born 1946–1964), Generation X (born 1965–1979), the millennials (born 1980–1994), and Generation Z (born 1995–2012) have each experienced important sociohistorical events and changes that shaped their development differently. Some examples are listed here. What others can you think of? How might these changes shape these generations values, personalities, and worldviews?
- The Silent Generation : Great Depression, World War II, radio broadcasts available in most homes
- The Boomers : Civil rights movement, Vietnam War, televisions available in most homes
- Generation X : Gulf War; September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks; cable TV in most homes
- The Millennials : Legalization of same-sex marriage, increased access to the internet and cell phones
- Generation Z : COVID-19, rise of social media
One thing is certain: personality development continues in meaningful ways in middle adulthood as adults select and adapt to changing roles at home, work, and in their communities. Whether certain personal qualities develop with age to enable or prepare adults for these changes, or whether it is the life changes themselves that foster personal growth, middle adulthood is associated with increasing socioemotional maturity. For example, the goal-oriented Big Five trait of conscientiousness is the trait most likely to increase from youth into middle adulthood, as adults juggle expanding responsibilities as caregivers, employees, and community servants (Wagner et al., 2019). In support of Erikson’s virtue of care, adults in middle adulthood are more likely to make altruistic choices when presented with hypothetical dilemmas, compared to younger adults (Freund & Blanchard-Fields, 2014). They are also more likely than younger adults to report priorities consistent with generativity, such as feeling needed, showing concern for future generations, having an interest in teaching others, and taking actions to protect others (Einolf, 2014; McAdams et al., 1992).
The achievement of successful outcomes in middle adulthood appears to be highly influenced by the goodness-of-fit principle, or whether a person’s interests, goals, abilities, and traits are aligned with their environments or experiences. For example, adults who find jobs that fit their personalities (like the extraverted salesperson) are more likely to be satisfied at work (Judge et al., 1998, 1999) because they are more likely to be good at the job, which leads to both intrinsic rewards (such as pride) and extrinsic rewards (such as praise and professional advancement) (Tett et al., 2013). On the other hand, negative interactions between family and work roles predict anxiety and subsequent negative adaptations to personality (Li et al., 2024). However, negative life events are not always correlated with negative personal development: adults who activated goal-oriented coping mechanisms in response to health fears associated with their possible selves were more likely to engage in healthy behaviors (Hooker & Kaus, 1994), and cancer survivors show a greater increase in personal mastery than those adults who have never had cancer (Pudrovska, 2010). The influence appears to be bidirectional: personal qualities can predict life experiences, and life experiences can affect personal growth.
Stability versus Change
So, is adult personality stable or changeable? Research suggests that, the answer is probably both. McAdams (1995) offers a theory of personality that attempts to resolve the inconsistencies in personality development data (Figure 14.3). He suggests that personality can be measured at three levels:
- level one: general dispositional traits
- level two: personal choices
- level three: personal narrative
McAdams argues that dispositional traits (such as those measured by the Big Five) are relatively stable over time (level one). However, the way people act on those traits (level two), including the choices they make to attain personal goals and adapt to life circumstances, and the subsequent life story or identity they build (level three), can reflect both stability and change, depending on both personal and environmental factors.
The Continuation of Identity Development
Our life story or personal narrative , as conceptualized by McAdams, continues to develop across adulthood. Our personal narrative helps to create an integrated sense of self by linking together our personality, priorities, and experiences into a coherent story or identity (McLean & Syed, 2015). So even though identity development emerges as a primary focus or challenge of adolescence and early adulthood in Erikson’s framework, our identity continues to evolve and grow throughout adulthood to adapt to different goals and experiences (Kroger, 2015).
In a longitudinal study of adults at ages twenty-seven, thirty-six, forty-two, and fifty years, adults were asked the following questions regarding different domains of their identity:
- “Do you have a conception of your occupational career?” (occupational identity)
- “Do you have an idea of what you expect from a close relationship?” (intimate relational identity)
- “Do you have an idea of the lifestyle according to which you would like to live?” (lifestyle identity)
- “Do you have a personal relationship to religion?” (religious identity)
- “Do you have a political opinion?” (political identity)
Participant responses at each age were evaluated for the extent of their exploration and commitment to determine their identity status according to Marcia’s identity framework introduced in 10.1 Theories of Adolescent Socioemotional Development. While identity statuses fluctuated for each domain at each age, the overall trend was progressively toward greater identity achievement with age, with women generally reaching identity achievement earlier than men (Fadjukoff et al., 2016). These findings are consistent with longitudinal and cross-sectional studies of ethnic identity, which find that people’s ethnic identity labels (such as Mexican American or Latino) stabilize in adulthood, and ethnic identity achievement increases with age. In particular, generativity in adulthood seems linked to the development of ethnic identity . Adults who are involved in their community are more likely to be in the achievement status of ethnic identity (Feliciano & Rumbaut, 2019; Maehler, 2021).
The Concept of the Midlife Crisis
How does the concept of the “ midlife crisis ” fit into our understanding of aging? The origin likely lies in the developmental frameworks proposed by Erikson and Levinson. Each is influenced, in some way, by the psychoanalytic concept of psychological turmoil, generated by the push-and-pull of our inner psyche. Whether it’s the “psychological crisis” of Erikson’s psychosocial stage of generativity versus stagnation, or the midlife review necessitated by Levinson’s “midlife transition,” the potential for a developmental crisis in middle adulthood made its way into WEIRD conceptions of aging.
Psychoanalytic psychologist Elliott Jaques is credited with coining the term “midlife crisis,” when he predicted turmoil for those middle-aged adults facing the reality of their own aging and death without the security of established careers or family lives (Jackson, 2020). For women, the midlife crisis is often depicted as “empty-nest syndrome,” which imagines that when their adult children have left the home, middle-aged mothers become depressed and adrift without their apparent primary purpose as caregivers. These portrayals soon came to be associated with caricatured “over-the-hill” middle-aged adults desperately seeking youthfulness in the defensive fantasies of cosmetic surgery, sports cars, or extramarital affairs. However, this stereotype does not authentically reflect the framework of Erikson or Levinson, nor is it supported by data on the typical experience of the midlife adult. Both Erikson and Levinson viewed this stage of life as a challenge to motivate healthy growth and avoid stagnation or crisis. In fact, Valliant’s longitudinal study found that while middle adulthood was often a challenging time for the men, there was no greater incidence of psychological distress in middle adulthood than at other times of life. Those who found happiness from their generative efforts at work and home were the happiest and most well-adjusted.
Link to Learning
Perhaps because the work of Levinson and Valliant was initially focused on men, or perhaps because many of these psychoanalytic perspectives on the development of self in middle adulthood were constructed by men, the concept of midlife (and the potential risk of stagnation or crisis) is often represented in masculine ways. But what does it feel like for a woman to experience these same challenges, worries, and questions? Hollywood reporter Anne Philippi’s TEDTalk about “why we need to disrupt middle age” presents her experience of turning forty years old and her perspectives on middle age.
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Footnotes
- 1 Levinson included the late twenties in his definition of middle adulthood, in a time before emerging adulthood was incorporated into a discussion of the lifespan.