Summary
Summary Week 6 (Emerging Adults)
- Course
- Institution
Developing Media Entertainment
[Show more]
Seller
Follow
biglinomax
Content preview
Week 6 – Young Adults – DevMedEntReadings
Arnett (2004)
Summary: Emerging adulthood has been identified as a time of identity exploration (primarily
in the areas of love, work, and world-views), instability (primarily in terms of residence
changes), feeling in-between (not yet feeling like and adult, but no longer considering oneself a
child), being self-focused, and feeling very positive and optimistic about future possibilities.
For today’s young people, the road to adulthood is a long one. They leave home at age 18 or 19,
but most do not marry, become parents, and find a long-term job until at least their late twenties.
From their late teens to their late twenties they explore the possibilities available to them in love
and work, and move gradually toward making enduring choices. Such freedom to explore
different options is exciting, and this period is a time of high hopes and big dreams. However, it
is also a time of anxiety and uncertainty, because the lives of young people are so unsettled, and
many of them have no idea where their explorations will lead.
Late teens through the mid to late twenties: a rise in the ages of entering marriage and
parenthood (4 years later than the 70s), the lengthening of higher education, and prolonged job
instability.
In their late teens and early twenties, marriage, home, and children are seen by most of them not
as achievements to be pursued but as perils to be avoided. Adulthood and its obligations offer
security and stability, but they also represent a closing of doors—the end of independence, the
end of spontaneity, the end of a sense of wide-open possibilities.
What is different now is that young people are freer than they were in the past to use the
intervening years, between the end of secondary school and entry into marriage and parenthood,
to explore a wide range of different possible future paths. Young people of the past were
constricted in a variety of ways, from gender roles to economics, which prevented them from
using their late teens and twenties for exploration.
Five distinctive features of young adults:
1. It is the age of identity exploration, trying out various possibilities, especially in love and work.
2. It is the age of instability
3. It is the most self-focused age of life.
4. It is the age of feeling in-between, in transition, neither adolescent nor adult.
, Week 6 – Young Adults – DevMedEnt
5. It is the age of possibilities, when hopes flourish, when people have an unparalleled opportunity
to transform their lives.
Let’s look at them in detail.
1. The Age of Identity Explorations
In the course of exploring possibilities in love and work, emerging adults clarify their identities,
that is, they learn more about who they are and what they want out of life.
During this interval of years, when they are neither beholden to their parents nor committed to a
web of adult roles, they have an exceptional opportunity to try out different ways of living and
different options for love and work.
Although research on identity formation has focused mainly on adolescence, this research has
shown that identity achievement has rarely been reached by the end of high school and that
identity development continues through the late teens and the twenties.
Explorations in love in emerging adulthood tend to involve a deeper level of intimacy, and the
implicit question is more identity-focused: “What kind of person am I, and what kind of person
would suit me best as a partner through life?”
Work experiences become more focused on laying the groundwork for an adult occupation.
“What kind of work am I good at? What kind of work would I find satisfying for the long term?
In work as in love, explorations in emerging adulthood commonly include the experience of
failure or disappointment. But as in love, the failures and disappointments in work can be
illuminating for self-understanding.
Many of the identity explorations of the emerging adult years are simply for fun, part of gaining
a broad range of life experiences before “settling down”.
2. The Age of Instability
Emerging adults know they are supposed to have a Plan with a capital P, that is, some kind of
idea about the route they will be taking from adolescence to adulthood,21 and most of them
come up with one. However, for almost all of them, their Plan is subject to numerous revisions
during the emerging adult years. These revisions are a natural consequence of their explorations.
The benefits of buying summaries with Stuvia:
Guaranteed quality through customer reviews
Stuvia customers have reviewed more than 700,000 summaries. This how you know that you are buying the best documents.
Quick and easy check-out
You can quickly pay through credit card or Stuvia-credit for the summaries. There is no membership needed.
Focus on what matters
Your fellow students write the study notes themselves, which is why the documents are always reliable and up-to-date. This ensures you quickly get to the core!
Frequently asked questions
What do I get when I buy this document?
You get a PDF, available immediately after your purchase. The purchased document is accessible anytime, anywhere and indefinitely through your profile.
Satisfaction guarantee: how does it work?
Our satisfaction guarantee ensures that you always find a study document that suits you well. You fill out a form, and our customer service team takes care of the rest.
Who am I buying these notes from?
Stuvia is a marketplace, so you are not buying this document from us, but from seller biglinomax. Stuvia facilitates payment to the seller.
Will I be stuck with a subscription?
No, you only buy these notes for $4.81. You're not tied to anything after your purchase.
Can Stuvia be trusted?
4.6 stars on Google & Trustpilot (+1000 reviews)
62774 documents were sold in the last 30 days
Founded in 2010, the go-to place to buy study notes for 15 years now