P514 - Young adulthood, Slides of Advanced Education

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Module 5

YOUNG ADULTHOOD

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Young Adulthood

● The period between the ages of 18 and 25, which is now widely thought of as a separate developmental stage.

● Also called young adulthood or youth.

Strong and Healthy Bodies

● Emerging adults are usually in good health.

● Traditionally, the years between ages 18 and 25 were a time for hard physical work and childbearing.

● Physical work and parenthood are no longer expected of every young adult in the twenty-first century.

● The current level of food availability means that in almost every nation, emerging adults have reached full height (girls usually by age 16, boys by age 18).

● For both sexes, muscle growth and fat accumulation continue into the early 20s, when women attain adult breast and hip size and men reach full shoulder width and upper-arm strength.

Homeostasis

● The adjustment of all the body’s systems to keep physiological functions in a state of equilibrium.

● As the body ages, it takes longer for these adjustments to occur, so it becomes harder for older bodies to adapt to stress.

● Nutrition and exercise underlie health at every age.

● With frequent intercourse and without contraception, the average woman in her early 20s becomes pregnant within three months.

● Globalization, advanced technology, and modern medicine have combined to produce effective contraception, available in almost every nation.

● As fewer infants die, people no longer need to begin childbearing before age 20 or to have four or more children simply to ensure that some of their children will survive.

Replacement Rate

● The number of births per woman that would be required to maintain a nation’s (or the world’s) population with no increases or decreases.

● The current replacement rate is considered to be about 2.1 births per woman.

● Birth rates have declined the world over, with developing as well as developed nations recording lower fertility rates.

● Advances in contraception have not only reduced the birth rate; they have also increased the rate of sexual activity, especially among unmarried adults.

● Globally, emerging adults have fewer babies but engage in more sexual activity than older adults (married or not) do or than people their own age once did.

● Half of all emerging adults in the United States have had at least one sexually transmitted infection (STI).

Taking Risks

● Emerging adulthood is marked by a greater willingness to take risks of all sorts, not just sexual ones.

● Young adults enjoy danger, drive without seat belts, carry guns, try addictive drugs.

Drug Abuse

● The ingestion of a drug to the extent that it impairs the user’s biological or psychological well-being.

Drug Addiction

● A condition of drug dependence in which the absence of the given drug from the individual’s system produces a drive—physiological, biological, or both—to ingest more of the drug.

Social Norms Approach

● A method of reducing risky behavior among emerging adults that is based on their desire to follow social norms.

● This approach publicizes survey results to make emerging adults aware of the actual prevalence of various behaviors within their peer group.

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT