Adolescence

Physically, adolescence begins with the onset of puberty at 12 or 13 and culminates at age 19 or 20 in adulthood. Intellectually, adolescence is the period when the individual becomes able to systematically formulate hypotheses or propositions, test them, and make rational evaluations. The formal thinking of adolescents and adults tends to be self-consciously deductive, rational, and systematic. Emotionally, adolescence is the time when individuals learn to control and direct their sex urges and begin to establish their own sexual roles and relationships. The second decade of life is also a time when individuals lessen their emotional (if not physical) dependence on their parents and develop a mature set of values and responsible self-direction.

Adulthood

Adulthood is a period of optimum mental functioning when the individual’s intellectual, emotional, and social capabilities are at their peak to meet the demands of career, marriage, and children. Some psychologists delineate various periods and transitions in early to middle adulthood that involve crises or reassessments of one’s life and result in decisions regarding new commitments or goals. During the middle 30s people develop a sense of time limitation, and previous behaviour patterns or beliefs may be given up in favour of new ones.

Middle age is a period of adjustment between the potentialities of the past and the limitations of the future. An emotional rebellion has been observed in some persons, sometimes referred to as a midlife crisis, engendered by the recognition that less time remains to be lived than has been lived already. In women, dramatic shifts in hormone production lead to the onset of menopause. Often women whose children have grown or left home experience the “empty-nest syndrome”—feeling unwanted or unneeded. During late middle age, individuals become more aware of ill health and thus may consciously or unconsciously alter the patterns of their lives. Individuals accept the limits of their accomplishments and either take satisfaction in them or despair and become anxious over unachieved goals or unrealized aspirations. During old age, sensory and perceptual skills, muscular strength, and memory tend to diminish, though intelligence does not. These changes, together with retirement from active employment, tend to make the elderly more dependent on their children or other younger people, both emotionally and physically.