The Stages of Development of Adulthood

When thinking about development, what age groups do people usually think it starts and stops? Many believe that development is part of childhood. They believe that many different pieces of development happen when a person is in their childhood stages and stop after childhood. While it is true that a lot happens in childhood in development and learning but, those are not the only stages development, learning, and growing occur. Even in adulthood a person still has development going on, especially in middle adulthood. Middle adulthood has some critical development just like younger childhood stages. Some of these stages include physical, cognitive, personality, and social development. These pieces of development are important at this stage of life and even affect later stages in life as well. There is data and actual, real life examples of this happening throughout many people lives as they have grown or are growing. In other countries, this many happen a little different but, it is still an important part of adulthood for everybody in the world. Development may seem to stop at a certain point, but it just continues to grow in certain ways as people grow. Through examples, research and personal ties, the important of middle adulthood growth will be expressed, shown, and understood better.

Middle Adulthood Physical Development

While childhood development has a lot of critical pieces of a human’s development, but so does middle adulthood as well. One important development factor is physical development. As a person ages, keeping up physical activity is very important. Being unhealthy and not taking care of your body as you age can result in a lot of negative things as you grow. Physical development follows a person from childhood and through all stages of adulthood. The support this statement, a study was conducted by Informa health care based on physical development from adolescence through adulthood. This article stated, “It appears that most adolescents are also obese later in life” (Informa Health, 2014, para.3). This also goes with people who keep track of their health and stay on top of it, will most likely stay on top of it and keep a healthy lifestyle. Since a person is aging, it is very easy to obtain disease and negative factors if you don’t keep up with your health. According to a New York Times article, “They found that those adults who had been the least fit at the time of their middle age checkup were the most likely to have developed any of eight serious or chronic diseases early in the aging process” (Reynolds, 2012, para.7). It also becomes harder to keep up with it. It is important to focus on healthy lifestyles and choices in your older childhood and young and middle adulthood. There are many benefits that come with keeping up with health is middle adulthood. Some of these benefits would be avoiding easily obtaining chronic diseases, better physical ability, feeling better, living happier, less doctor visits, and as you age being able to stay more independent because you will not be as limited. Some people within their middle adulthood stage, do not follow this the same path for physical development but, these are just a few of many reasons why this is if you can keep up with your physical life, it can have benefits. This is also how present physical development is in this particular stage of life.

Middle Adulthood Cognitive Development

A lot of cognitive development happens in a person’s childhood, but that is just the start of it. Cognitive development continues to expand through the different stages of life. US as humans are always learning new things, but we also tend to forget things as we age as well. In middle adulthood, this is the age most have been out of school for a while at this point in their life. A lot of the cognitive development people have at this stage of life comes from experience, whether it is losing some cognitive piece or gaining cognitive pieces. According to a Psychology Association “Most cognitive domains remain intact with minimal declines as adults age…cognitive domains remains the most stable.” (Psychology Association, 2019, para. 1). The meaning behind this is that people in this stage of life tend to go through a lot such as marriage, having children, gaining and losing jobs, personal changes, different stressor, and many more things. A lot of these things can change a person in their middle stage to alter their cognitive ability. Sometimes all of the things a person is going through by this stage causes some of the decrease within their cognitive ability. This does not mean that a person by their middle stage lose their cognitive ability completely. People in their middle adulthood can have just as strong cognitive ability as when they were younger, but sometimes it can be altered. It is also not impossible for a person in this stage to continue their cognitive development growth. It is something that if it is used it can continue to grow, factors can be one to alter it, and also decline in certain parts if they are not used. Even though it is a later stage in life, cognitive development is still prevalent and still has it alterations.

Middle Adulthood Personality and Social Development

Personality is a big part of human development. Just like it was stated before, it has a big role in development in childhood, but it can have a big part in middle adulthood as well. Personality does not only come from how one expresses it; it also comes from biological factors as well. Personality development can come from parent and child relationships. Parents who have conflict with their children and have not so good ways to solve it tend to take those traits and as they grow, have issues with solving problems. If parent and child conflicts are easily solved, it helps the child take good, agreeable traits along with them into their future. Parent and child relationship effect the way a person shows some emotion and personality when they get older. Along with the other parts of development in middle adulthood, this is another piece of development that is still working and changing as aging continues. Many outside factors can alter and continue to change personality traits along the way. There are still some that are within people through genetics, but personality is always present through any stage of life. Social development fits into this stage as well. Personality helps people create and act certain ways in a social setting. Social development continues through work, outside events, and any other social setting us as human encounter. As we age, we have different social faces for certain settings and at a point where our social factors flourish based on these factors. Almost everything we do is based on social interactions at this stage in life. This is why our social development is still present in middle adulthood. We learn, change, alter, and constantly use throughout the stage and beyond. In other words, according to American Psychology Association “Middle adulthood is a time when our influence on society peaks, and it turn society demands maximum social and civic responsibility.” (American Phycological Association, 2019, Para. 1). Even if it is not something, we have on our minds all the time, personality and social development are always part of our existence and very important and growing in any stage of life.

Middle Adulthood in Different Countries

Some would think that adulthood work the same for everyone, but that is not always the case. People from different cultures and have different beliefs or traditions age in their own way, it is not only the same. There are also different ages for different groups, some believe that some are adults at 18, some at 17, and some at 16. This changes the whole context of each stage of development. It is also seen that some from different places around the world have different roles to fill. Some have more roles to fill at a younger age, some at an older age. Along with this, some people from childhood go into adulthood with different cognitive skills. There are so many different ages, personality traits, cognitive abilities, and overall skills which makes aging different around the world for people from different places, backgrounds, and personal characteristics.

Personal Ideas about Middle Adulthood Development

Having the chance to research this specific part of adulthood was very informative. It was one that I have been interested in and one that most people do not focus on as much as some other parts of aging. I have always known that development does not stop at a specific age like some do. Even though childhood is one of the most important parts of anyone’s life and development, people still develop as they grow. We have the opportunity to learn, understand, and change things as we grow older. Physical development is something that can and should grow at any age. There is no limit on growing and physical development stopping. Our bodies continue to go through changes through the year, being good physically can benefit the physical development as we age. Cognitive development continues as we learn, go through different things, different experiences, and others or places that come into our life. Our brains are always working and keep going through as we age. All of these events play a part of our memory and keeping us developing cognitively. As for social and emotion development, these two developments play hand in hand and also continue to grow and expand as we age. Overall, all of these pieces of development never completely stop at a specific age. They continue and expand as long as there are factors to help it continue to expand. I think that all of these pieces of development are very important throughout are life for many different reasons. They never have a stopping point; they many slow down sometimes but they can pick up and continue in specific ways for different people. The way it happens all depends on the persona and what they do.

Conclusion

There are so many things that happen throughout a human’s lifetime. A lot of that would be development. Even if a lot of the development happens throughout a person’s childhood, many things can happen during the older stages of on life. A lot can happen in middle adulthood, this stage has a lot of important development factors throughout it. It may not seem like it but, personality, social, cognitive, and physical development are very present throughout this particular stage of a person’s life. Each stage of development has a role based on the fact they are always being used, changes, and very important in a person’s life as they continue to age. It is also seen that many all of these different stages of development happen for everyone at the same pace, but they are all different based on many different factors going on throughout peoples lives. Overall, development is not something that just stops a particular age. It is something that continues to grow through a person’s life and effects each part of it. Middle adulthood is just as important as any other stage of life and these are just a few of the many reasons that make it know that it is important, almost just as important as early childhood and later adulthood.