Instructions Reminder:
Begin each Course Journal entry bylisting two specific things you have learned during that module. These things might be facts, topics you find interesting, or the like.
Next, in at least 100 words, summarize what you have learned about those two things during that Week.
Lastly, in at least 100 words, discusshow you will apply to your life or the life of someone you know what you have learned about those two things.
Module 11th relationship in adulthood
Friendships in Adulthood
• Levinger’s ABCDE model
• Acquaintanceship, buildup, continuation, deterioration, and
• ending
• Friendships change across adulthood.
• Fewer friends
• Less contact with the friends you keep
• A buffer against the losses of roles, status, loved ones
Themes in Adult Friendships
• Affective or emotional basis
• This includes self-disclosure, expressions of intimacy,
appreciation, affection, and support
• Based on trust, loyalty, and commitment
• Shared or communal nature
• Friends participate in or support activities of mutual interest
• Sociability and compatibility
• Friends keep us entertained and are sources of amusement,
fun, and recreation
Online Friendships
•Trust develops on the basis of reputation,
performance, precommitment, and situational
factors
•Why online friends?
• Young Adults -> May be fueled by loneliness
• Older Adults -> Social networks may be a plus
Siblings as Friends
•Can sibs be friends?
•Longest and closest bonds
•Centrality of siblings depends on proximity,
health, and degree of relatedness
Developmental Aspects of Friendships
•Why are friends so important to older adults?
• Concerns about being a burden to their families
• Foster independence
• Older adults tend to have fewer relationships than
people in midlife and young adulthood
Socioemotional Selectivity
•Social contact is motivated by a variety of goals
• Information seeking
• Self-concept
• Emotional regulation
Men & Women’s Friendships
• Men’s and women’s friendship tend to differ in
adulthood
• Women’s friendships are based on intimate emotional
sharing
• Men’s friendships tend to be based on shared activities
and interests
• Women tend to have more friendships than men
•Friendships between men and women
• Beneficial effect, especially for men
• Similar to cross-ethnic friendships
• Cross-gender friendships tend to be difficult to
Maintain
Love Relationships Through Adulthood
• Sternberg has identified three components of love:
• Passion
• Intimacy
• Commitment
• Ideally, good love relationships have all three
Components
• Speed dating
• Popularity of online dating is increasing
• Problems with accuracy of personal descriptions
• Hookup culture & casual sex
• Romantic attachment is the norm in 80% of cultures
• Resistant to change cultures emphasis loyalty to family
and arranged marriages
Violence in Relationships
• Abusive relationships occur when one person becomes
aggressive toward the partner
• Battered woman syndrome
• O’Leary’s continuum
• Culture is an important contextual factor
• Patriarchal, honor, chastity
• Heterosexual men and members of the LGBTQ community
experience lower rates of violence from intimate partners
Elder Abuse, Neglect, & Exploitation
• Elder abuse is difficult to define and has several categories:
• Physical abuse
• Sexual abuse
• Emotional or psychological abuse
• Financial or material exploitation
• Abandonment
• Neglect
• Self-neglect
Singlehood
• Biases against singles
• People remain single for a variety of reasons
• Men tend to stay single longer
• However, fewer men than women remain
unmarried throughout adulthood
Ethnic differences in singlehood
• Nearly twice as many African Americans are single
during young adulthood as European Americans
• The decision to never marry is a gradual one
• Thirty percent of Millennials are projected to
remain single until at least age 40
Cohabitating
• Cohabitation: people in committed, sexual relationships
who live together, becoming an increasingly popular
lifestyle
• 70% of women with less than a high school diploma, 50% of
women with a college degree
• Longest for Latina women
• Shortest for European American women
• Rates for adults over 50 have more than doubled since 2000
• More common in Scandinavian countries
Cohabitating: Why Cohabitate?
• Part-time or limited cohabitation
• Premarital cohabitation
• Substitute marriage
LGBTQ Couples
• On many relationship dimensions gay and lesbian couples are
similar to heterosexual couples
• Gender differences are more important than sexual orientation
• Gay men tend to separate love and sex and have more shortterm relationships
• Lesbian and heterosexual women are more likely to connect sex
and emotional intimacy in fewer, longer lasting relationships
• Gay and lesbian couples often report less support from family
members than do married or cohabitating heterosexual couples.
Marriage
• Median age at first marriage is increasing.
• What is a successful marriage?
• Marital success: an umbrella term referring to any marital
outcomes
• Marital quality: a subjective evaluation of the couple’s
relationship
• Marital adjustment: the degree spouses accommodate
each other
• Marital satisfaction: a global assessment of one’s marriage
Factors Influencing Marital Success
• Age of the two partners at time of marriage
• Homogamy
• Marriage based on similarity
• Feelings of equality
• Exchange theory
Do Married Couples Stay “Happy”
• Marital satisfaction is highest at the beginning of
the marriage, falls until children leave home, and
rises in later life
• Vulnerability-stress-adaptation model
• marital quality is a dynamic process resulting from the
Couples’ ability to handle stressful events
Marriage: The Early Years
• Early in a marriage, the couple must adjust to different.
perceptions and expectations
• As couples settle in a routine, marital satisfaction tends to
decline
• Marital satisfaction tends to decline with the birth of a
Child
Marriage at Midlife
• Most marriages improve when the children
leave home.
• For some middle-aged couples, however,
satisfaction remains low.
• Married singles: emotionally divorced and living as
Housemates
Marriage in Older Couples
• Reduced potential for marital conflict and
greater potential for pleasure
• Being married in later life has several benefits
Caring for a Spouse/Partner
• The division of labor must be readjusted
• Marital satisfaction is much lower than for healthy
couples
• Providing full-time care for a partner is both
stressful and rewarding
Ending a Marriage
• Divorce
• Who Gets Divorced and Why
• Divorce in the United States is common
• Asian Americans have the lowest rate of divorce
• African Americans have the highest rate of divorce
• Gottman and Levenson: predicting divorce
• Negative emotions displayed
• Lack of positive emotions displayed
Divorce: The Aftermath
• Divorce may impair well-being even several years later
• Divorce hangover: inability to “let go”
• Divorce in middle age or late life
• If the woman initiates the divorce, they report self-focused
growth and optimism
• If they did not, they tend to ruminate and feel vulnerable
• Middle-aged divorced women often face financial problems
Remarrying
• Vast majority of divorced people remarry
• Usually men and women wait about 3 years
• Few differences between first marriages and remarriages
• Second (or higher) marriages average about 10 years (13
years for first marriages)
• Remarriage in later life appears to be very happy,
especially if the partners were widowed.
• Biggest problem is usually resistance by adult children
Widowhood
• Experiencing the death of one’s spouse is a traumatic
event, but one which is highly likely
• Death of a partner causes an increased risk of death
among older European Americans
• Widowed people are vulnerable to being abandoned by
their couples-based friendship network
• For many women widowhood results in difficult financial
circumstances
Family Dynamics & The Life Course
The Parental Role
• Nuclear family: consists only of parent(s) and child(ren)
• Extended family: grandparents and other relatives lives with
parents and children
• Deciding to become a parent is complicated
• Finances are of great concern
• An increasing number of couples are child-free
• Couples in the United States have fewer children and have their
first child later than in the past
• Being older at the birth of the first child is advantageous
Single Parents
• The rate of births to single mothers has been declining since
2008
• Births to nonmarried mother differs across race and ethnicity
• Single parents are faced with many problems
• Reduced financial resources are hardest for women
• Complex feelings such as frustration, failure, guilt, and a
need to be overindulgent.
Step-, Foster-, Adoptive, & Same Sex Parents
• There are few differences among parents who have their own
biological children versus those who do not
• Allow children do develop relationships at their own pace
• Children adopted from another culture may need connection to
culture of origin
• Foster parents have the most tenuous relationships
• Evidence is clear that children raised by gay or lesbian parents
suffer no adverse consequences compared to heterosexual.
Parents
Midlife Issues: Adult Children
• Kinkeeper: the person who gathers family members together
• Sandwich generation
• Middle-aged parents caught between their children and their
parents as caregivers
• When children leave home, most parents manage the transition
successfully
• Roughly half of young adults return home at least once
(Boomerang kids)
Midlife Issues: Caring for Parents
• Filial obligation: to care for one’s parents when necessary
(Cultural values show common challenges)
• 50 million Americans provide care for older parents, in-laws,
and grandparents
• Two main sources of stress:
• Trouble coping with parents’ declines
• When the caregiving role infringes on the adult child’s other
responsibilities
• The parents also lose independence
Grandparenthood
• How do grandparents interact with
grandchildren?
• Grandparents pass on skills, religious, social, and
vocational values
• Grandchildren give to grandparents by keeping
them in touch with youth
• Being a Grandparent is meaningful
Grandparenthood
• Grandparents are increasingly being put in the
position of raising their grandchildren
• Grandparents who raise their grandchildren
face more stress and role disruption than
noncustodial grandparents
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