The age-status system in adulthood was investigated, using a 58-item instrument which divided adulthood subjectively into three periods: normative expectations for various adulthood developmental tasks (marriage, parenthood, employment, retirement, etc.); the lower age constraints ("too young") for these behaviors. In addition, 22 items regarding…

Personality theorists have suggested the critical importance of parenting characteristics on the development of a child's personality. Missildine's (1963) classification of parenting characteristics and their effects on the adult personality were investigated using an experimental measure, the Inner Child Inventory (ICI), to assess perceived…

Research on personality and aging has been limited by several factors, including nomethetic assumptions about traits; overreliance on morale scales as measures of adaptation; and the confounding of cohort, time of measurement and age effects. An idiographic approach, which focuses on traits that individuals subjectively feel as important, may help…

Reassessment for reentry has become a popular concept on college campuses as more nontraditional students return to college. A reassessment series, offered at the University of California-Davis from 1973-1977, was evaluated in a one-year follow-up study of the life changes for 234 female and 12 male participants. Data indicated that life change…

This paper presents the "uses of the past" model of personality development, a model in which adult development transforms an individual's history into resources for meeting present demands. The components of the model are delineated in terms of how: (1) neither the past nor the present is fixed in its effects or its contribution to present…

Love and romance continue to be important issues within every age group, not merely among the usually studied college students. Two issues, the nature or intensity of the love experienced and the motives or purposes of love were examined for different age groups. The ways in which the pursuit of heterosexual love may change throughout adult life…

A systematic review and critique of the work of midlife researchers and theorists such as Gould, Vaillant, Jung, Newman and Levinson, among others, indicates that: (1) a midlife transition period exists from approximately 35 to 55 and lasts as many as 10 years for both men and women; (2) a series of unique and fundamental biological, psychosocial,…

A review of the major literature examining human work behavior from the perspective of developmental psychology indicates that, although many issues pertaining to the meaning of the concepts of change and development are still unresolved, a great potential exists for cross-fertilization between developmental and vocational psychology. Vocational…