Personality Development in Adulthood Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages

Personality Development in Adulthood You already know that each human is genetically unique, in temperament and inclinations, and that childhood experiences and culture shape personality. Continuity is evident: Few adults develop a personality opposite the one they had at age 8 or 18. But discontinuity can occur, as you will see. Erikson’s Theory As you remember, Erikson described eight stages of development. His first five stages begin in a particular chronological period. His adult stages are less age-based (see Table 13.1). TABLE 13.1 Erikson’s Stages of Adulthood Unlike Freud or other early theorists who thought adults simply worked through the legacy of their childhood, four of Erikson’s eight psychosocial stages occur after puberty. His most famous book, Childhood and Society (1993a), devoted only two pages to each adult stage, but elaborations in later works have led to a much richer depiction (Hoare, 2002). Identity Versus Role Confusion Although Erikson originally situated the identity crisis during adolescence, he realized that identity concerns could be lifelong. Identity combines values and traditions from childhood with the current social context. Since contexts keep evolving, many adults reassess all four types of identity (sexual/gender, vocational/work, religious/spiritual, and political/ethnic). Intimacy Versus Isolation Adults seek intimacy — a close, reciprocal connection with another human being. Intimacy is mutual, not self-absorbed, which means that adults need to devote time and energy to one another. This process begins in emerging adulthood and continues lifelong. Isolation is especially likely when divorce or death disrupts established intimate relationships. Generativity Versus Stagnation Adults need to care for the next generation, either by raising their own children or by mentoring, teaching, and helping others. Erikson’s first description of this stage focused on parenthood, but later he included other ways to achieve generativity. Adults extend the legacy of their culture and their generation with ongoing care, creativity, and sacrifice. Integrity Versus Despair When Erikson himself reached his 70s, he decided that integrity, with the goal of combating prejudice and helping all humanity, was too important to be left to the elderly. He also thought that each person’s entire life could be directed toward connecting a personal journey with the historical and cultural purpose of human society, the ultimate achievement of integrity. The three adult stages — intimacy versus isolation, generativity versus stagnation, and integrity versus despair — do not always appear in chronological sequence; they overlap, with many social and cultural factors influencing all three. Social influences are most evident in intimacy versus isolation. This stage begins in emerging adulthood, as explained in the Chapter 11. It continues throughout adulthood. According to Erikson, after intimacy comes generativity versus stagnation, when adults seek to be productive in a caring way. Erikson wrote that a mature adult “needs to be needed” (1993a, p. 266). Without generativity, adults experience “a pervading sense of stagnation and personal impoverishment” (Erikson, 1993a, p. 267). Generativity is often expressed by caring for the younger generation, but it occurs in ways other than child rearing. Meaningful employment, important creative production, and caregiving of other adults also are generative ways to avoid stagnation. The final adult stage, integrity versus despair, is described in Chapter 15. However, although the drive to understand the whole of one’s life is especially evident in late adulthood, it may come to the fore in midlife as well. Thus, Erikson’s three stages of adulthood may be evident for adults aged 25–65. Maslow’s Theory of Personality Some scientists are convinced that there is something hopeful, unifying, and noble in humans. People seek love and then respect, and finally, if all goes well, people become truly themselves. This is the central idea of humanism, a theory developed by Abraham Maslow (1908–1970) and many others. Maslow believed that all people — no matter what their culture, gender, or background — have the same basic needs. He arranged these needs in a hierarchy, often illustrated as a pyramid (see Figure 13.1): Physiological: needing food, water, warmth, and air Safety: feeling protected from injury and death Love and belonging: having friends, family, and a community (often religious) Esteem: being respected by the wider community as well as by oneself Self-actualization: becoming truly oneself, fulfilling one’s unique potential while appreciating all of life FIGURE 13.1 Moving Up, Not Looking Back Maslow’s hierarchy is like a ladder: Once a person stands firmly on a higher rung, the lower rungs are no longer needed. Thus, someone who has arrived at step 4 might devalue safety (step 2) and be willing to risk personal safety to gain respect. This pyramid caught on almost immediately. It was one of the most “contagious ideas in behavioral science,” because it seemed insightful about human psychology (Kenrick et al., 2010, p. 292). Maslow did not believe that the five levels were connected to a particular stage or age, but he thought that lower needs must be met before higher needs. That makes this hierarchy relevant for life-span development. At the highest level, when all four earlier needs have been satisfied, adults can be fully themselves — creative, spiritual, curious, appreciative of nature, respectful of everyone else. Maybe Next Year Self-acceptance is a gradual process over the years of adulthood, aided by the appreciation of friends and family. At some point in adulthood, people shift from striving to fulfil their potential to accepting their limitations. Humanism is prominent among medical professionals because they recognize that illness and pain are connected to the psychological needs of the patient (Felicilda-Reynaldo & Smith, 2018; Jackson et al., 2014b). As a medical team from the famed Mayo Clinic states, “solely addressing physiological recovery in the ICU, without also placing focus on psychological recovery, is limiting and not sufficient for recovery of the entire patient — both body and mind” (Karnatovskaia et al., 2015, p. 210). The Big Five Another theory of personality begins with the idea that people have five distinct clusters of characteristics, expressed in various ways over the decades of the life span. They are called the Big Five: Openness: imaginative, curious, artistic, creative, open to new experiences Conscientiousness: organized, deliberate, conforming, self-disciplined Extroversion: outgoing, assertive, active Agreeableness: kind, helpful, easygoing, generous Neuroticism: anxious, moody, self-punishing, critical (To remember the Big Five, the acronym OCEAN is useful.) Each person is somewhere on a continuum on each of these five. The low end might be described, in the same order as above, with these five adjectives: closed, careless, introverted, hard to please, and placid. According to this theory, adults choose vocations, hobbies, health habits, mates, and neighborhoods to reflect their personality. Those high in extroversion might work in sales, those high in openness might be artists, and so on. International research confirms that human personality traits (there are hundreds of them) can be grouped based on these five dimensions. Active Brains, Active Personality The hypothesis that individual personality traits originate in the brain was tested by scientists who sought to find correlations between brain activity (shown in red) and personality traits. People who rated themselves high in four of the Big Five (conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, neuroticism — but not openness) also had more activity in brain regions that are known to relate to those traits. Here are two side views (left) and a top and bottom view (right) of the brains of people high in neuroticism. Their brain regions known to be especially sensitive to stress, depression, threat, and punishment (yellow bullseyes) were more active than the same brain regions in people low in neuroticism (DeYoung et al., 2010). AGE CHANGES When adults are followed longitudinally, stability of the Big Five is evident. Change is more likely in emerging adulthood or late adulthood than for 25- to 64-year-olds (Wagner et al., 2019). The general age trend is positive, as people align with the norms of their community. Adults gradually become less neurotic and more conscientious. Similar trends are found in research on attachment over the life span. Anxious and avoidant attachment become less common, while secure attachment becomes more prominent (Fraley, 2019). All theories find that people become more accepting of themselves and their community over the decades of adult life. This is a process that develops over adulthood. A longitudinal study found that self-criticism gradually declines from age 23 to 29, which bodes well for later mental health (Michaeli et al., 2019). Efforts at self-improvement gradually become efforts at self-acceptance. One summary says that people under the age of 30 “actively try to change their environment,” moving to new places, finding new friends, seeking new jobs. Later in life, context shapes traits: once adults have their vocation, family, and neighborhoods, they “change the self to fit the environment” (Kandler, 2012, p. 294). CULTURAL INFLUENCES Over the life span, culture shapes personality. As one team wrote, “personality may acculturate” (Güngör et al., 2013, p. 713). A study of well-being and self-esteem in 28 nations found that people are happiest if their personality traits match their social context. This has implications for immigrants, who might feel (and be) less appreciated when the personality values of their home culture clash with their new community. For example, extroversion is valued in Canada and less so in Japan; consequently, Canadians and Japanese have a stronger sense of well-being if their personal ratings on extroversion (high or low) are consistent with their culture (Fulmer et al., 2010). Many people criticize immigrants for the very traits that are valued in their home cultures. For example, a student who seeks help from others in writing a paper might be accused of cheating in an individualistic culture. A man who tells the police that his brother was among those who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, may be a patriot or a traitor, depending on cultural values. Common Themes Universal trends are more significant than cultural differences. Regarding the Big Five, adults who are low in neuroticism and high in agreeableness tend to be happier than the opposite. Personal experiences matter, affecting individuals everywhere more than nations anywhere. For example, people who personally experience a happy marriage become less neurotic over time; people in unhappy marriages become more neurotic (O’Meara & South, 2019). THINK CRITICALLY: Would your personality fit better in another culture? As for universal human needs, every well-known theorist or scholar of adult personality echoes the same themes. Freud did it first: He said that a healthy adult is able to do two things: lieben und arbeiten (to love and to work). Likewise, as you just read, Maslow considered love/belonging and then success/esteem to be steps in his hierarchy. Similarly, extroversion and conscientiousness are two of the Big Five, again suggesting that these are among the basic human attributes. Other theorists call these two needs affiliation/achievement, or emotional/instrumental, or communion/agency. Every theory recognizes both; all adults seek to love and to work in ways that fit their personality, culture, and gender. In the rest of this chapter, to simplify and organize our discussion, we will use Erikson’s terms, intimacy and generativity, each of which refers to a cluster of adult psychosocial development.