Midlife Crisis?
Research suggests that most people in the United States today do not experience a midlife crisis and that, in fact, many women find midlife a freeing, satisfying period. While people in their early 20s may emphasize how old they are (to gain respect, to be viewed as experienced), by the time people reach their 40s, they tend to emphasize how young they are.
Results of a 10 year study conducted by the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Successful Midlife Development, based on interviews with over 3,000 midlife adults suggest that the years between 40 and 60 are ones marked by a sense of well-being. Only 23 percent of their participants reported experiencing a midlife crisis. The crisis tended to also be triggered by a major life event rather than out of a fear of aging (Research Network on Successful Midlife Development, accessed 2007). Nevertheless, sales of products designed to make one feel younger than their age (as though aging is a bad thing!) and “over the hill” birthday parties with black balloons and banners abound.
Figure 9.3.1: The idea of a "midlife crisis" is largely a myth - with many finding satisfaction with this stage of life. (Pexels license; Andrea Piacquadio via Pexels)
Personality in Midlife
Does the personality change in midlife? Think about your parents/caregivers or other adults you've known for some time. Did their personalities change when they reached midlife? Or were they pretty much the same? Some theorists maintain that personality becomes more stable as we reach middle adulthood. Other suggest that with age comes the addition of new personality traits - perhaps traits we may not have felt comfortable showing when we were younger. When we observe people around us, one of the first things that strikes us is how different people are from one another. Some people are very talkative while others are very quiet. Some are active whereas others are couch potatoes. Some worry a lot, others almost never seem anxious. Each time we use words like “talkative,” “quiet,” “active,” or “anxious,” to describe those around us, we are talking about a person’s personality—the characteristic ways that people differ from one another. Personality psychologists try to describe and understand these differences. “Are you an introvert”? In popular culture it’s common to talk about people being introverts or extroverts as if these were precise descriptions that meant the same thing for everyone. But research shows that these traits and others are quite variable within individuals at any age. Carl Jung believed that our personality actually matures as we get older. A healthy personality is one that is balanced. People suffer tension and anxiety when they fail to express all of their qualities. Jung believed that each of us possess a "shadow side". For example, those who are typically introverted (inward looking, quiet) also have an extroverted (sociable, people-loving) side that rarely finds expression unless we are relaxed and uninhibited. Each of us has a spectrum of masculine to feminine sides but in younger years, so many feel societal pressure to give expression only to one. As we get older, we may become freer to express all of our traits as the situation arises. We find gender convergence in older adults. Men (male identified individuals) tend to become more interested in intimacy and family ties. Women (female identified individuals) tend to become more assertive. This gender convergence is also affected by changes in society's expectations for "males" and "females." With each new generation we find that the roles of people are less stereotypic and this allows for change as well.
The most widely accepted system to emerge from the trait approach to studying personality was “The Big Five Personality Assessment” or “The Five-Factor Model” often referred to as just "The Big Five." (Goldberg, 1990; McCrae & John, 1992; McCrae & Costa, 1987). The Big Five personality traits are openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. These five factors are assumed to represent the basic structure behind all personality traits. They were defined and described by several different researchers during multiple periods of research. A way to remember these five is with the acronym OCEAN (O is for Openness; C is for Conscientiousness; E is for Extraversion; A is for Agreeableness; N is for Neuroticism). As mentioned, midlife is viewed as a time of increased stability in many areas, especially if compared with early adulthood or adolescence. There are some notable changes in this area associated with middle adulthood though; Midlife adults tend to become more agreeable, but also decline in openness and neuroticism. Therefore, midlife is also viewed as a time of change.
The Five Traits
The traits are:
- Openness – Openness to experience describes a person’s degree of intellectual curiosity, creativity, and preference for novelty and variety. Some disagreement remains about how to interpret this factor, which is sometimes called intellect.
- Conscientiousness – Conscientiousness is a tendency to show self-discipline, act dutifully, and aim for achievement. Conscientiousness also refers to planning, organization, and dependability.
- Extraversion – Extraversion describes energy, positive emotions, assertiveness, sociability, talkativeness, and the tendency to seek stimulation in the company of others.
- Agreeableness – Agreeableness is the tendency to be compassionate and cooperative towards others rather than suspicious and antagonistic.
- Neuroticism – Neuroticism describes regular vulnerability to strong, unpleasant emotions like anger, anxiety, or depression. Neuroticism also refers to an individual’s level of emotional stability (or lack of) and impulse control and is sometimes referred to as emotional stability.
Big 5 Traits and Examples for LOW Scorers and HIGH scorers (these are just examples of how these traits might manifest in people. There are, obviously, variabilities within expressions)
This table describes some example behaviors for low and high score on the Big Five
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Big 5 Trait
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Example Behavior for LOW Scorers
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Example Behavior for HIGH Scorers
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Openness
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Prefers not to be exposed to other moral systems other than own; narrow interests; not analytical; also viewed as down-to-earth
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Enjoys seeing people with new types of clothes, hairstyles, body piercings, etc.; curious; imaginative; nontraditional
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Conscientiousness
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Prefers spur-of-the-moment action to planning; can be unreliable; may be viewed as careless; lax
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Never late for a date with friends; organized; hardworking; neat; persevering; punctual; self-disciplined
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Extraversion
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Preferring a quiet evening reading to a loud party; sober; aloof; may appear unenthusiastic to others
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Being the life of the party; active; optimistic; fun-loving; affectionate
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Agreeableness
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Quickly and confidently asserts own rights; irritable; uncooperative; may be viewed as rude by others
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Agrees with others easily; forgiving; gullible; good-natured
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Neuroticism
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Not getting irritated by small annoyances; calm; resilient; secure; self-satisfied
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Constantly worrying about little things; insecure; hypochondriacal; feeling inadequate
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Scores on the Big Five traits are mostly independent. That means that a person’s standing on one trait tells very little about their standing on the other traits of the Big Five. For example, a person can be extremely high in Extraversion and be either high or low on Neuroticism. Similarly, a person can be low in Agreeableness and be either high or low in Conscientiousness. Thus, in the Five-Factor Model, you need five scores to describe most of an individual’s personality.
An important feature of personality traits is that they reflect continuous distributions rather than distinct personality types. This means that when personality psychologists talk about Introverts and Extraverts, they are not really talking about two distinct types of people who are completely and qualitatively different from one another. Instead, they are talking about people who score relatively low or relatively high along a continuous distribution. In fact, when personality psychologists measure traits like Extraversion, they typically find that most people score somewhere in the middle, with smaller numbers showing more extreme levels. Most people report being moderately, but not extremely, extraverted, with fewer people reporting very high or very low scores.
There are three criteria that are characterize personality traits: (1) consistency, (2) stability, and (3) individual differences.
- To have a personality trait, individuals must be somewhat consistent across situations in their behaviors related to the trait. For example, if they are talkative at home, they tend also to be talkative at work.
- Individuals with a trait are also somewhat stable over time in behaviors related to the trait. If they are talkative, for example, at age 30, they will also tend to be talkative at age 40.
- People differ from one another on behaviors related to the trait. Using speech is not a personality trait and neither is walking on two feet—virtually all individuals do these activities, and there are almost no individual differences. But people differ on how frequently they talk and how active they are, and thus personality traits such as Talkativeness and Activity Level do exist.
Traits are important and interesting to examine (especially in middle-adulthood) because they describe stable patterns of behavior that persist for long periods of time (Caspi, Roberts, & Shiner, 2005). Importantly, these stable patterns can have broad-ranging consequences for many areas of our life (Roberts, Kuncel, Shiner, Caspi, & Goldberg, 2007). For instance, think about the factors that determine success in college. If you were asked to guess what factors predict good grades in college, you might guess something like intelligence. This guess would be correct, but we know much more about who is likely to do well. Specifically, personality researchers have also found the personality traits like Conscientiousness play an important role in college and beyond, probably because highly conscientious individuals study hard, get their work done on time, and are less distracted by nonessential activities that take time away from school work. In addition, highly conscientious people are often healthier than people low in conscientiousness \because they are more likely to maintain healthy diets, to exercise, and to follow basic safety procedures like wearing seat belts or bicycle helmets. Over the long term, this consistent pattern of behaviors can add up to meaningful differences in health and longevity and this becomes even more evident in middle adulthood.
Intimate Relationships
Middle adulthood is the perfect stage to discuss relationships. While relationships certainly become central much earlier than middle adulthood, it is in this stage that individuals have gained some life experience in this area and can reflect more deeply on where they have evolved (or not) and where they see themselves going...adding into the mix their own range of "generativity vs. stagnation" from Erickson's Model.
Single or Spouse-free? The number of adults who remain single has increased dramatically in the last 30 years. We have more people who never marry, more widows and more divorcees driving up the number of singles. According to the United Census Bureau, as of 2016, there were 109 million adults in the United States, 18 and older, who are divorced, widowed, or have always been single. That's 45 percent of the adult population. Whether or not a single person is happy depends on the circumstances of their remaining single. Singlehood has become a more acceptable lifestyle than it was in the past and many singles are very happy with their status.
