Emerging Adulthood Years Research Articles

Young men’s sexual health through the lens of precarious manhood

Objectives: This review examines the sexual development of young men through a precarious manhood framework. The teenage and emerging adulthood years are a time of change and uncertainty for many boys and young men, heightening concerns about manhood. They are also a time when boys and young men are learning about and experimenting with sex. Sex and (hetero)sexuality are means for establishing and proving manhood, especially during a developmental period when other avenues (e.g. financial success) may be less available. Methods and Results: This paper reviews research connecting precarious notions of manhood to sexual development across three areas. First, we examine how precarious manhood encourages sexual risk-taking and objectification of sexual partners. Second, we review research connecting precarious manhood to men’s sexual violence. Third, we link precarious manhood to men’s derogation of gender and sexuality minority (LGBTQ+) individuals and groups. Conclusion: We end the paper by suggesting how sexual education programmes may consider a precarious manhood framework to foster healthier sexual development.

Digital Ethnic Enclaves: Mate Preferences and Platform Choices Among Chinese Immigrant Online Daters in Vancouver

In light of the growing racialized immigrant population in Canada and advances in dating technologies, this study examines Chinese immigrants' partner preferences and mate selection processes through the lens of online dating. We draw on in-depth interviews with 31 Chinese immigrants who have used online dating services in Metro Vancouver to search for different-sex partners. Chinese immigrant online daters show strong preferences for dating Chinese. They emphasize permanent residency status and similarity in age at arrival when evaluating potential partners. Given their preferences, Chinese immigrants strategically choose the dating platforms they primarily use. Men exhibit higher selectivity in their preferences and choices of platforms. Notably, platforms catering to Chinese users create "digital ethnic enclaves" where Chinese immigrant daters congregate. The findings illuminate the intersection of race, gender, immigrant status, and age at arrival in shaping divergent experiences of mate selection and immigrant assimilation in the digital era.

Effects of Goal Appraisals and Goal Motivation on Dimensions of Identity Development: A Longitudinal Mixed Methods Analysis of European American Emerging Adults.

In the present study, we investigated the ways in which the ideographic goal descriptions and goal appraisals of European American high school seniors reflect potentials for intentional self-development during emerging adulthood (EA), a lifespan phase characterized by increasing levels of freedom and decreasing age-graded, socially sanctioned developmental norms. Additionally, we investigated whether variation in participants’ goal appraisals and the motivational qualities emergent in their goal descriptions would predict variation in dimensions of identity development, both concurrently at age 18 and prospectively at age 23. Results of an exploratory, mixed method analysis of participants’ (N = 129, 56.6% male, Mage = 18.24, SD = 0.37) goal data revealed diversity in education and work goals, strong potentials for intentional self-development reflected across goal appraisals, and more nuanced reflections of intentional self-development across the motivational qualities emergent in goal descriptions. Results partially supported the hypothesis that goal appraisals and motivational qualities that reflect potentials for intentional self-development would predict kindred processes of identity development across the first five years of EA. These findings contribute to a nascent empirical literature focused on the interrelationship of goal and identity constructs during EA and suggest new avenues for future research.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10804-021-09386-0.

Family Dynamics During Emerging Adulthood: Reviewing, Integrating, and Challenging the Field

The present study seeks to review and integrate evidence from the empirical literature on family dynamics during the emerging adulthood years. Fifty studies were analyzed, resulting in the following research findings: (a) Emerging adulthood is a period of change in family relationships; (b) family systems anchor both individual and family development during emerging adulthood years; (c) reports of family dynamics by parents and children suggest intergenerational differences; (d) feeling “in between” is not only a characteristic of individuals but also a family experience; and (e) individual‐ and family‐level sociodemographic indicators shape family dynamics in emerging adulthood. The main challenges for future research entail considering the family as the unit of analysis by collecting data from multiple family members, conducting longitudinal studies to better understand changes in family relationships across emerging adulthood, and focusing on family relationships beyond the parent–child dyad.

How Does Financial Life Shape Emerging Adulthood? Short-Term Longitudinal Associations Between Perceived Features of Emerging Adulthood, Financial Behaviors, and Financial Well-Being

Becoming independent from parental financial support and developing financial capabilities are important life tasks in emerging adulthood (EA). However, research on how the accomplishment of these tasks contributes to perceptions of EA features is rare. This study investigates how functioning in the financial domain shapes perceptions of EA features during the early years of EA. Participants in this short-term longitudinal study were 533 emerging adults (57.2% women; Mage = 18.94, SDage = .73, range 18–21 years) freshly enrolled into a set of programs at three higher education institutions. Results show that (a) financial well-being promotes more desirable (perceived) EA features, while financial difficulties tend to be related to more negative ones; (b) change in economic dependence is primarily driven by financial well-being; (c) (perceived) features of EA also contribute to how one functions in financial life; and (d) parental socioeconomic status plays at least some role in these matters.

Executive Cognitive Functions and Behavioral Control Differentially Predict HbA1c in Type 1 Diabetes across Emerging Adulthood.

To examine the contributions of two aspects of executive functioning (executive cognitive functions and behavioral control) to changes in diabetes management across emerging adulthood. Two hundred and forty-seven high school seniors with type 1 diabetes were assessed at baseline and followed up for 3 years. The baseline assessment battery included performance-based measures of executive cognitive functions, behavioral control, IQ estimate (IQ-est), and psychomotor speed; self-report of adherence to diabetes regimen; and glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) assay kits as a reflection of glycemic control. Linear and quadratic growth curve models were used to simultaneously examine baseline performance on four cognitive variables (executive cognitive functions, behavioral control, IQ, and psychomotor speed) as predictors of indices of diabetes management (HbA1c and adherence) across four time points. Additionally, general linear regressions examined relative contributions of each cognitive variable at individual time points. The results showed that higher behavioral control at baseline was related to lower (better) HbA1c levels across all four time points. In contrast, executive cognitive functions at baseline were related to HbA1c trajectories, accounting for increasingly more HbA1c variance over time with increasing transition to independence. IQ-est was not related to HbA1c levels or changes over time, but accounted instead for HbA1c variance at baseline (while teens were still living at home), above and beyond all other variables. Cognition was unrelated to adherence. Different aspects of cognition play a different role in diabetes management at different time points during emerging adulthood years.

A Life Course Perspective on the Ways Older Men and Women Discuss Sexual Issues.

The present study examined how older adults communicate about sexual issues in light of the tremendous societal changes that have taken place with regard to sexuality in the past few decades. We relied on interviews with 47 Israelis 60years of age and older who were instructed to discuss sexuality in old age and its unique characteristics, using semi-structured interviews. Analysis consisted of repeated comparisons and contrasts to identify common themes. A common thread of "secrets and lies" characterized the discussion of sexual issues throughout the life course of respondents. The findings showed that although older adults have been aware of the limited information provided to them during their upbringing and of the limited room allowed to sexuality in their emerging adulthood years, many have continued to find it difficult to address sexual issues, even in later life. Moreover, many perceived the information currently available about sexuality and the contemporary approach to sexuality brought by the media or their children and grandchildren as being somewhat inadequate. Implications for practice are discussed.

Daily Subjective Age in Emerging Adults: “Now We’re Stressed Out”

During the emerging adulthood years, individuals explore their identities and often report feeling in-between adolescence and adulthood. These characteristics may correspond to greater variability in how old individuals feel. This study examined the daily variability in emerging adults’ subjective ages, as well as its association with daily stressors and the psychological dimensions of identity exploration and feeling in-between. Using a 9-day daily diary design, the study measured 106 emerging adults’ (18–22 years old) daily stressors, daily subjective ages, and endorsement of the Inventory of the Dimensions of Emerging Adulthood. Findings indicated that over half of the variability in emerging adults’ subjective ages occurred within person, and daily stressors could predict this variability. Furthermore, those high in identity exploration and feeling in-between were most likely to respond to daily stressors by feeling older. Results suggest that psychological identification with emerging adulthood amplifies responses to daily stressors and predicts feeling subjectively older.

Healthy Weight and Cardiovascular Health Promotion Interventions for Adolescent and Young Adult Males of Color: A Systematic Review.

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of mortality in the United States, accounting for one fourth of deaths. Higher rates of obesity put Hispanic and Black men at increased risk. The American Heart Association cites diet quality, physical activity, and body weight as alterations responsive to health promotion intervention. Prevention strategies need to begin in adolescence and the emerging adulthood years to impact cumulative risk factors. A scoping review identified search terms and this was followed by a systematic review of Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) and PubMed databases for articles published in English from January 1, 2002, through May 11, 2017. This review explores community-based content, delivery, recruitment, or retention strategies used with young men of color aged 15 to 24 years. Of 17 articles describing 16 individual interventions and 1 describing multiple interventions (with samples ranging from 37 to 4,800), 13 reported significant results in one or more domains. No studies specifically targeted the needs of young men and only three had more than 50% male participants. There was a gap in studies that addressed young men in the ages of interest with most interventions reaching participants aged 11 to 19 years. Cultural tailoring was addressed through recruitment setting, interventionist characteristics, community involvement, and theoretical frameworks such as motivational interviewing that allow individual goal setting. Because young men seek access to preventive health services less than young women, it is suggested that interventions that are community based or use push technology (send information directly to the user) be increased.

The Relation between Childhood Parenting and Emerging Adults’ Experiences of Shame and Guilt

Emerging adulthood (EA) is a pivotal transition period that can be impeded by shame’s global and disabling self-evaluations or supported by guilt’s adaptive self-evaluations. However, little is known about the factors contributing to EAs’ shame and guilt—the present study therefore explores the relation between parenting behaviors and EA shame and guilt (n = 213). Correlations between shame, guilt, and parenting behaviors, and hierarchical regressions found a positive relation between guilt-proneness and positive parenting and between shame-proneness and negative parenting. Results support the view that guilt and shame are two distinct constructs—with adaptive forms of guilt being associated with positive parenting and maladaptive self-evaluations of shame being related to negative parenting behaviors even during the EA years (18–29). The present study suggests that it may be beneficial for therapists to have clients explore how childhood parenting experiences can continue to play a role in their self-evaluations during their emerging adulthood years. In addition, results of the present study support the need for future clinical efforts to develop parent skills training initiatives that encourage parents to understand the consequences of both positive and negative actions and their potential impact on child developmental outcomes. Future studies should also assess whether temperament mediates the relationship between self-conscious emotions and parenting behaviors or if parenting behaviors and temperament each account for unique variance in self-conscious emotions. Developing a more complete understanding of socialization and developmental factors will further facilitate psychologists’ efforts to reduce the harmful impact of shame by replacing it with adaptive guilt.

The Emerging Adulthood Years: Finding One’s Way in Career and Intimate Love Relationships

ABSTRACTThis study examines career and intimate love pathways in 100 Israeli emerging adults (fifty-four men) who were followed from age twenty-two to twenty-nine. In a semistructured interview at the age of twenty-nine, participants were asked about current work and educational status and changes in recent years. They were also asked to reflect on the meaning of the processes they followed. Following the completion of the career interview, participants were asked to talk about their current romantic status, their past romantic experiences, difficulties in relationships and past separations, and how they coped with these. Analyses of interviews yielded four distinctive career pursuit pathways and four intimate love pathways that varied on the continuum of stability–variability, and were associated with different levels of concurrent well-being. Analysis of the interviews showed that changes that young people make along the way do not necessarily indicate confusion, but might represent their efforts to find their own paths toward settling down. Personality measures, such as self-criticism, dependency and efficacy, measured seven years earlier, predicted pathway affiliation at age twenty-nine. In addition, parental support was found to serve as a protective or risk factor associated with adaptive pursuit of career and intimate love goals. By employing this mixed-method approach, the findings demonstrate the diverse development of career and intimate love pathways during emerging adulthood, and indicate the importance of personality and parental support in the process of development during the transition to adulthood.

Narrative Identity

Narrative identity is a person’s internalized and evolving life story, integrating the reconstructed past and imagined future to provide life with some degree of unity and purpose. In recent studies on narrative identity, researchers have paid a great deal of attention to (a) psychological adaptation and (b) development. Research into the relation between life stories and adaptation shows that narrators who find redemptive meanings in suffering and adversity, and who construct life stories that feature themes of personal agency and exploration, tend to enjoy higher levels of mental health, well-being, and maturity. Researchers have tracked the development of narrative identity from its origins in conversations between parents and their young children to the articulation of sophisticated meaning-making strategies in the personal stories told in adolescence and the emerging adulthood years. Future researchers need to (a) disentangle causal relations between features of life stories and positive psychological adaptation and (b) explore further the role of broad cultural contexts in the development of narrative identity.

The Psychological Self as Actor, Agent, and Author

The psychological self may be construed as a reflexive arrangement of the subjective “I” and the constructed “Me,” evolving and expanding over the human life course. The psychological self begins life as a social actor, construed in terms of performance traits and social roles. By the end of childhood, the self has become a motivated agent, too, as personal goals, motives, values, and envisioned projects for the future become central features of how the I conceives of the Me. A third layer of selfhood begins to form in the adolescent and emerging adulthood years, when the self as autobiographical author aims to construct a story of the Me, to provide adult life with broad purpose and a dynamic sense of temporal continuity. An integrative theory that envisions the psychological self as a developing I–Me configuration of actor, agent, and author helps to synthesize a wide range of conceptions and findings on the self from social, personality, cognitive, cultural, and developmental psychology and from sociology and other social sciences. The actor–agent–author framework also sheds new light on studies of self-regulation, self-esteem, self-continuity, and the relationship between self and culture.

Life Authorship

A central psychological challenge of emerging adulthood is the construction and internalization of a self-defining life story or narrative identity. In becoming an author for one’s own life, the emerging adult develops a personal narrative that selectively reconstructs the past and imagines the future in such a way as to provide life with purpose, meaning, and a sense of temporal coherence. This article sketches the main themes and processes involved in the development of narrative identity in emerging adulthood by briefly reviewing empirical studies and describing two notable case examples—Barack Obama and George W. Bush. Both Obama and Bush sought to discover and/or compose self-defining life narratives during their emerging adulthood years. Despite their many differences, both ended up drawing upon important social relationships and deep cultural sources to develop powerful stories of personal redemption—in Obama’s case a story of redemption through liberation and self-discovery, and in Bush’s case a story of redemption through recovery, atonement, and the achievement of self-regulation. As illustrated in the case examples, the development of narrative identity should set the psychological stage for meeting the daunting life challenges of the 30s and midlife.

Resilience in the transition to adulthood

The emerging adulthood years, commonly defined as the late teens and twenties, represent a period of significant variability and change for much of the population. Thus, it is important for the field to consider pathways of at-risk youth as they move through this key window of development. We review research on positive outcomes in the transition to adulthood following a history of experienced adversity, including both investigations focused on resilience in diverse specific populations as well as broader longitudinal studies. There is compelling evidence for major protective and promotive factors identified in younger age periods continuing to exert an influence at this stage of development, along with evidence for new factors unique to this developmental time and/or to specific populations. We conclude by noting recommendations for future work in this area, emphasizing Garmezy's call for the testing of competing models.

“You’re Always First a Girl”: Emerging Adult Women, Gender, and Sexuality in the Israeli Army

The Israeli army drafts both men and women, and most Israelis complete their military service during their emerging adulthood years. This study examined Israeli women’s experiences as soldiers in the army. Twenty-three women (18 emerging adults, 5 young adults) were recruited using purposive sampling and interviewed about how they experienced their gender and sexuality during their army service. Interviews were analyzed using open and focused coding. Participants reported experiencing their army tenure as gendered and sexualized beings. Themes that emerged include gender performance, sexual harassment, and dating experiences and heteronormativity. This study expands current knowledge by examining Israeli emerging adult soldiers, gender, and sexuality in the Israeli army and looking at the intersection of gender, culture, and development.

Managing the Transition to College: Family Functioning, Emotion Coping, and Adjustment in Emerging Adulthood

Using a self-reported assessment of 320 first-time college students, we tested the hypothesis that one's ability to manage emotion moderates the relationship between family environment and college adjustment. Results add to growing evidence that the way one views one's whole family environment during the emerging adulthood years is linked to one's adjustment during normative transition points, such as the college transition. Emotion coping variables also predicted college adjustment over and above the variance accounted for by family factors. The relationship between family expressiveness and social adjustment to college varies depending on emerging adults' emotion coping style. Participants from less expressive families who tend to avoid their emotions reported significantly more difficulty adjusting to college than their peers from more expressive family environments.