This guide for counselors describes the Critical Events Interview (CEI), a new counseling technique designed to be used with women in transition. The concept of critical events and their influence on adult development is described and the history and current status of the CEI are reviewed, along with current results of CEI evaluations and…

Examining parent-child support patterns over the life-course reveals variations in who plays the predominant provider and receiver roles. Although children can expect to play a minimal role in supporting their parents until the parents reach old age, a divorce in the parents' middle years may lead them to call on their children for help. Male…

Theorists have proposed very different patterns of adult age changes in masculine and feminine personality attributes; while some have predicted an increase in cross-sex typed individuals among older adults, others have predicted an increase in androgynous individuals. A study was conducted to further investigate adult age differences in levels of…

Until recently marriages that endured 20 years or more have been considered long-term. And only in recent years have marriages of 50 or more years duration been plentiful enough to be studied. The course of marital satisfaction across the years was traced in the 17 surviving couples of the Berkeley Older Generation Study, a group that has been…

The author compares the differing approaches of Germany, Sweden, France, and Australia for providing financial support to adults enrolled in vocational training programs, focusing on training allowances for recurrent education. He concludes that without some governmental maintenance program, it is unlikely that adults can utilize even tuition-free…

The author expands on the false assumptions implied in the title and shows how they are in error. (AG)

Marcia's adolescent identity status interview combines objective scoring with a clinical approach to investigate Erikson's theory in terms of the identity crisis of adolescence. Marcia's interview was extended to adult identity processes by redefining the crisis and commitment dimensions of strength (of involvement in work) and flexibility (of…

Only a longitudinal study, in which retrospective reports can be verified against data collected earlier, can determine what topics tend to be reported accurately and whether certain types of individuals are more likely to be accurate reporters. A representative group of adults (N=60) who became parents 50 years ago are now part of the oldest and…

A study was conducted to investigate the relationship of fiction reading to adult development. Eighty students at an adult education center completed questionnaires that elicited information concerning their reading of fiction and their adult experiences, as well as demographic information. The results yielded a picture of a group of adult readers…

There are many issues and problems which arise for dual-career couples during their first professional year. Although the changes confronting most new professionals are typically stressful, when both members of a couple simultaneously enter careers these stresses are frequently exacerbated. Based on both extensive interviews and counseling with…

The implications of a developing theory about human posibilities for the conduct of individual life and the future of society rest on the basic fact that, because only a fraction of the possibilities the future holds can be actualized by an individual or by society, choice is a universal imperative. One important reason that better choices are not…

It was hypothesized that four different "life lines" would affect sex role orientations, specifically intimacy, parenting, grandparenting, and work. Subjects were 74 men and 43 women, white, upper middle class with a mean education level of 14 years. Each participant completed a demographic questionnaire, the Bem Sex Role Inventory, a…

Today, while secular society has opened up a new range of roles and psychological expectations to women, the status and life of Orthodox Jewish women remain circumscribed by Jewish religious law. Orthodox women face inequality in four areas: in the synagogue and participation in prayer; in religious education; in legal areas such as status in…