Young Adults - Education and Work

Young adults today have more options when choosing a career path than previous generations. Educational and vocational choices after high school may present them with more opportunities for cognitive growth, enhanced work skills, and exposure to new environments and ways of life.

The College Transition 

College is an increasingly important path to adulthood and there are now more options for young adults to partake in this experience. 

• Enrollment of two and four year institutions has increased to nearly 70%. 
• Increased proportion of young adults take advantage of part time college and  two-year vocationally oriented programs.
• More women are enrolled in graduate programs.
• Socioeconomic status and race/ethnicity affect a young adult's access to higher education. 

Cognitive Growth in College

• Growth of verbal and quantitative skills, critical thinking, moral reasoning, and flexible thinking
• Curriculum offers new insights
• Exposure to other students' views challenge one's own thinking
• Faculty and staff provide new role models for young adults 

Entering the Working World

By their mid-twenties, most young adults have moved out of their parents' household and are either working or pursuing advanced education. However, the transition can be very shocking and stressful on the young adult. "Leaving the family home represents a major life transition for many young adults" (Lou, 2012, p. 663) and this can greatly affect their sense of occupational balance. However, the transition to the workplace can be eased thorough certain measures.

Smoothing the Transition to the Workplace

Studies show there are specific factors that help a young adult achieve a successful transition to the working world. They are, competence of skills; personal characteristics such as initiative, flexibility, purposefulness, and a sense of urgency; positive personal relationships; and links between schooling and employment.

(Papalia, 2009, p. 243-248).


Maintaining Occupational Balance in Education and Work

While young adults are discovering themselves and what their career path will be, many find that they cannot devote as much time to leisure activities. Most of their time is dedicated to their education, work, or child care. This, combined with the difficult transition to financial independence by moving out of the family home can cause much stress and affect a young adult's overall sense of well-being and occupational balance. To maintain balance young adults should seek out resources of social support and stress management, designate time for social relationships and meaningful leisure activities, and relate skills learned in school to the workplace to ease the transition.

Relationships

During the transition into adulthood, most young adults develop more intimate relationships. They are able to be more self-aware, self-disclose, exhibit empathy, and have further developed their ability to communicate their emotions, resolve conflicts, and sustain commitments. Young adults will witness changes in their responses to friendship and love.

Friendship 

Friendships during emerging adulthood may be less stable than in earlier and later periods because of the frequency with which people of this age relocate. They tend to center on work and parenting activities and the sharing confidences and advice.

There tend to be gender differences in the way young adults develop intimate friendships.

Women

• Tend to have more intimate friendships than men.
• More likely to discuss problems they are having in their relationships and are more open to receiving advice and support. 
• Tend to have more close friends than men. 

Men

• More likely to share information and activities, not confidences, with friends. 
• Share confidences on a more limited basis. 
• Competition can be an aspect of friendship, but the focus is usually on social interaction, not winning. 

Love

According to Sternberg's triangular theory of love, patterns of love in young adulthood hinge on the balance between intimacy, passion, and commitment. 

Typical patterns of loving are listed as follows:

• Nonlove = no intimacy, passion, or commitment
• Liking = intimacy
• Infatuation = passion
• Empty Love = commitment
• Romantic Love = intimacy and passion
• Compassionate Love = intimacy and commitment 
• Fatuous Love = passion and commitment 
• Consummate Love = intimacy, passion, and commitment 

Marital and Nonmarital Lifestyles 

Single Life 

The proportion of young adults in the US who have not yet married has increased dramatically. This is due to factors such as:

• Changes in social norms of dating and courtship
• Less social pressure to marry
• More freedom to take risks, experiment, make changes, and experience sexual freedom 
• More financial independence 
• Fear of marriage ending in divorce 

Gay and Lesbian Relationships 

• Long term gay and lesbians are more common on societies that tolerate, accept, or support them. 
• The ingredients for long-term satisfaction in the relationship are the same as those of heterosexual relationships. 
• Experience more stress than heterosexual relationships when attempting to have a legal marriage and receive federal rights and benefits that marriage brings. 

Cohabitation 

• An unmarried, committed couple involved in a sexual relationship that live together.
• Has increased among all racial and ethnic groups and all educational levels in the US. 
• More than half of all US couples who marry have lived together. 

Marriage 

• The typical marrying age has increased for young adults in industrialized countries by about 4-6 years (26 for women and 28 for men). 
• Transition to married life brings major life changes and a redefining of relationships both inside and outside of the marriage. 
• Factors for success or failure of a marriage include, happiness with the relationship, presence of emotional support, communication and conflict management skills, age of marriage, and the presence of spousal abuse. 
• Statistics of divorce have increased. 

(Papalia, 2009, p. 462-470)

Occupational Balance and Relationships  

During this transition towards the development of more intimate relationships, most young adults will maintain that their social relationships are a large factor in whether or not they feel a sense of occupational balance. Those who find they do not have enough time to spend with friends or loved ones are more likely to be imbalanced. 

In one study on occupational balance, participants, "emphasized the importance of not only good relationships but also good reciprocal relationships. It was considered important to have relationships including the possibility to help others, but not to the degree of feeling exploited, i.e. a balance between giving and receiving" (Wagman, 2012, p. 382).

Therefore, for a young adult to be occupationally balanced they must seek reciprocal, intimate relationships and make time for their social needs. 

Psychosocial Developments

As one enters young adulthood there are further developments in identity, personality, and emotional and social life.

Identity Development

Young adulthood is the time for recentering. This is the process that underlies the shift to an adult identity. It occurs in stages where power, responsibility, and decision making gradually shift from the family of origin to the independent young adult.

Racial and ethnic exploration also occurs at this age for minorities.

Personality Development 


Young adults are in Erikson's sixth stage of psychosocial development. During this time young adults either make commitments to others or face a possible sense of isolation and self-absorption. Resolution of this stage results in the virtue of love: mutual devotion between partners who have chosen to share their lives, have children, and help those children achieve their own healthy development.

There are four approaches to viewing how personality develops in young adulthood. They are represented by normative-stage models, timing-of-events models, trait models, and typological models.

Normative-Stage Model

• Theoretical model that that describes psychological development in terms of a definite sequence or age-related changes. 
• Developmental tasks, or typical challenges, need to be mastered fir successful adaptation to each stage of life. 
• These tasks include leaving the childhood home, completing education, entering the world of work, and becoming financially independent. 
• This model maintains that personality development does not end with attainment of adulthood and that humans continue to change and develop throughout their lives.

Timing-of-Events Model

• Theoretical model of personality development that describes adult psychosocial development as a response to the expected or unexpected occurrence and timing of important life events.
• According to this model people adhere to a social clock, a set of cultural norms or expectations for the times of life when certain important events, such as marriage, parenthood, entry into work, and retirement, should occur.
• Normative timing of life events can cause stress and affect personality development. Also, personality differences influence the way people respond to life events and may even influence their timing. 

Trait Model

• Theoretical model of personality development that focuses on mental, emotional, temperamental, and behavioral traits, or attributes. 
• Looks for stability or change in personality traits.
• Five-factor model developed by Paul T. Costa and Robert R. McCrae consists of universal traits known as the "Big Five"

1. Neuroticism 
2. Extraversion
3. Openness to Experience 
4. Conscientiousness 
5. Agreeableness 

• Personality changes substantially until age 30, more slowly thereafter. 

Typological Model

• Theoretical approach that identifies broad personality types, or styles as a functioning whole. 
• Personality types tend to show continuity from childhood through adulthood, but certain life events can change the life course. 
• Identifies three basic personality types:

1. Ego-resilient 
2. Overcontrolled
3. Undercontrolled 

(Papalia, 2009, p. 453-461)

Remaining Occupationally Balanced throughout Psychosocial Development

In order to feel a sense of balance during this transition, young adults will need to support their own ego development. By focusing on the ability to understand oneself and one's world and integrate what they discover to take charge of planning one's life course, young adults will determine their identity in a way that allows them to remain balanced.

Cognitive Developments

While many believed the concept established by Jean Piaget, that cognitive development ended in adolescence with formal operational thought, several current theorists believe there is further cognitive development in adulthood.

Advanced Cognitive Abilities in Young Adulthood 

Reflective Thinking 

• A type of logical thinking that may emerge in adulthood, involving continuous, active evaluation of information and beliefs in the light of evidence and implications. 
• Almost all adults develop the capacity for reflective thinking, although few attain optimal proficiency in this skill.
• Emerges between ages 20-25 due to the full myelination of the cortical regions of the brain that handle higher level thinking. 

Post-formal Thought 

• A mature type of thinking that relies on subjective experience and intuition as well as logic and is useful in dealing with ambiguity, uncertainty, inconsistency, contradiction, imperfection, and compromise. 
• Emerges in young adulthood, often through exposure to higher education. 
• This thought is less rigid and more relativistic than during adolescence. 
• Criteria for post-formal thought:

1. Shifting gears between abstract and real world
2. Problem definition 
3. Process-product shift
4. Pragmatism 
5. Recognizing multiple solutions
6. Awareness of the paradox that problems and solutions involve conflict
7. Self-referential thought 

Insight and Know-How

• Sternberg's triarchic theory of intelligence states we have individual improvements in componential intelligence, experiential knowledge, and contextual knowledge. 
• Not everyone scores high in all three areas. We individually have strengths and weaknesses in  our combinations of these areas.
• Tacit knowledge develops as an aspect in practical, or contextual knowledge. This is the  ability to have common sense and manage the self or others. 

Emotional Intelligence

• The ability to understand and regulate emotions; an important component for effective intelligent behavior.
• Affects the quality of personal relationships as well as one's effectiveness at work.

Life Span Model of Cognitive Development 

• Developed by K. Warner Schaie to look at the developing use of intellect within a social context.
• Consists of seven stages that revolve around motivating goals that emerge at various stages of life:

1. Acquisitive Stage
2. Achieving Stage
3. Responsible Stage 
4. Executive Stage
5. Reorganizational Stage
6. Reintegrative Stage
7. Legacy-Creating Stage 

• These stages represent the shift from acquisition of information and skills to practical integration of knowledge and skills to a search for meaning and purpose. 

(Papalia, 2009, p. 435-439)

Maintaing Occupational Balance during Cognitive Advancements

The shift to these higher level cognitive abilities can be emotionally unsettling for young adults. In order to maintain occupational balance during this transition young adults should attempt to select jobs that are intellectually stimulating. Also by partaking in activities that are meaningful to them, young adults will find it easier to integrate these new skills into their everyday life.

Physical Developments

During the ages 20-40 is a period known as young adulthood. This is the period of maximal physical performance for most young adults.

General Physical Factors

• Bones and muscles are completely developed 
• Coordination and dexterity peak
• Visual acuity and sharpness of vision are fully functional
• Sexual organs are mature, making conception and child bearing maximally possible
• Physical recovery from injury and minor assaults is still good.
• Body proportions are established

Health Status 

Most young adults are quite healthy and find they get fewer colds and respiratory infections than during childhood. Death from disease is relatively rare vs. accidental death. To determine whether you are maintaining quality health and creating a sense of occupational balance during this time, genetic and behavioral factors must be examined.

Direct Influences on Physical Health

• Diet and Nutriton
• Obesity
• Physical Activity 
• Sleep Patterns 
• Smoking
• Alcohol
• Drug Use

Indirect Influences on Health

• Socioeconomic Status 
• Education
• Relationships 

Healthy relationships, active engagement, higher income, and education generally correlate with lower mortality rates and better overall health but they do not have a direct affect. 

Mental Health

• Incidence of psychological disorders increase during young adulthood
• Transitions bring overwhelming stress
• 50% of Americans have a mental illness sometime in their lifetime
• 3/4 of issues start by age 24

(Papalia, 2009, p. 423-431)

Physical Development and Occupational Balance 

Although physical performance is at its maximal capacity, influences on health can attribute to a sense of imbalance in the young adult's occupations. To remain occupationally balanced young adults should pay attention to nutrition and exercise, for these lifestyle choices that they select now will follow them in adulthood. Taking steps to sleep 7-8 hours a night, avoid smoking and using drugs, and remain socially integrated and engaged in their social relationships will provide them with better quality health and a sense of physical balance.

"Imbalance can be suggested as one cause of the production of excessive stress hormones — cortisol and catecholamines, which can lead to artery damage, cholesterol buildup and heart disease" (Wilcock, 1997, p. 19).