Life-span developments involve studying the development of humans from conception moment to death. Throughout a lifetime, there are so many psychological barriers one should overcome so as to continue developing psychologically. A number of age groups exist and each has unique barriers to tackle without which one may stay stuck if not accomplished (Bernstein, 2012). Psychological development includes social, cognitive, physical, personality, emotional, perceptual and intellectual growth. The lifespan developmental stages comprises birth, infant, adolescent stage, adulthood, old stage, and death, through the stages human beings learn to communicate, work, love and be in relationships (Bernstein, 2012). This paper describes the adulthood phase of lifespan, the struggles experienced and the remedies to overcome these stress and panic attacks.
Moving from adolescence, one gets into early parenthood where one seeks love, looks for companionship, or starts a family. Lack of obtaining a satisfying and intimate relationship makes the person feel isolated. In middle parenthood, one takes extra responsibilities in career and his/her family. Here, one is somehow stable and strives to make a change in society. Majority of individuals struggle at this phase in seeking their purpose. Another phase of development that follows encompasses reflection on an individual’s life. It involves one looking back and feeling contented and filled with an apprehension of having made a contribution to society and having lived meaningfully if successful (Bernstein, 2012). Those not successful despair reflecting upon their alleged failures. These people fear death since they start wondering if life was worthy and its purpose.
During this lifespan stage, one may contract anxiety or depression due to stress brought by some conditions. Older people present as deficiencies related to age like memory. A high level of exercise, prescribed antidepressants, and behavioral rehabilitation well abided with old adults can help reduce depression and anxiety.
Cognitive development depicts how an individual thinks, gains understanding, and perceives the world through the interaction of learned and genetic factors (Bernstein, 2012). Cognitive developmental areas include reasoning, intelligence, memory, language development, memory, and information processing. Cognition fluctuates over one’s lifespan, being high in early adulthood and declining in late adulthood. According to the theory of Piaget, formal operational intelligence establishment occurs during adolescence and goes on to adulthood. It is characterized by a capacity to reason in theoretical ways, creating hypothetical notions, and engaging in deductive thinking in explaining different concepts (Ormrod, 2012, p.282). In early parenthood, cognition starts to be stable. This is a moment of relativistic reasoning where young individuals become aware of wrong and right views about life. Here they look at concepts and ideas from different perspectives and know that situations can either be right or wrong. Eventually, they develop knowledge in their career or education that leads to enhancement of problem-solving expertise and creativity capacity. In middle parenthood, two intelligence forms are established, that is, fluid and crystallized intelligence. Crystallized cleverness is the skills, strategies, and information gathered in an entire lifetime and depends on accumulated experience and knowledge. It holds steady as one age. Fluid intelligence depends on skills of processing basic information and begins to decline when one is nearing late life stages. During the end of adulthood, intellectual processing speed tends to slow down same as the ability to resolve difficulties and distribute attention. Nevertheless, there is an increase in skills of solving problems practically that are crucial in solving real universe problems and help in figuring out the best way to attain an anticipated goal
A group of family and friends forms support systems for many people and a vital portion of their life from early adulthood to old ages (Ormrod, 2012, p.282). Family companionship is the most lasting bond formed in one’s life. As parents age, their offspring feel some sense of devoted commitment to care for their parents. Similarly, friends act as a support system to a person and are an ultimate part of life in early parenthood through old age. Social friendship relationships are significant to cognitive function, behavioral adjustment, and emotional fulfillment. Emotional nearness in companionship tends to increase with age but developing new relationships and a number of social connections start to drop. In early maturity, friends are grounded in same-aged people with the same goals while in older age they are deeper and last long. Even though it’s in smaller numbers, the quality of relationships is normally believed to be stronger for individuals who are old.
In conclusion, adulthood as a lifespan stage enables the establishment of a family, taking roles as parents and being society’s active members. However, culture differs in concepts of parenthood and related tasks of development of adults (Ormrod, 2012, p.282). Consequently, social deviations affect role of gender hence creating an impact on family systems involving parent-child relationships and childcare conditions.
References
Bernstein, D. A. (2012). Psychology. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
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ORMROD, J. E. A. N. N. E. E. L. L. I. S. (2014). Educational psychology: developing learners. UPPER SADDLE RIVER: PEARSON. Bottom of Form
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