​Adults Age in Stages, Too

Until recently, most theories of human development ended with young adulthood and tacitly assumed that the sledding from there is strictly downhill, on the inevitable decline of aging. But nope. We continue to grow and change right up until the day we die. At least, we can.

It's DEFINITELY not all downhill
Several psychologists and psychiatrists are working on models of human development through the lifespan. Berkeley’s Norma Haan found (ages ago) very significant increases in three broad areas of personality development in people over 70: outgoingness, self-confidence, and warmth. Nice, hm? The great psychoanalyst Erik Erikson also conceptualized adult development as a series of four stages, around Identity, Intimacy, Generativity, and Integrity. 

One of the most comprehensive and interesting studies of adult development is described in Aging Well by Harvard psychiatry professor George E. Vaillant. His six adult life tasks are modifications of Erikson’s, built on Harvard’s Study of Adult Development, which followed three groups of 824 people for decades.

Here are the six tasks Vaillant describes:

Identity: Yes, step one to successful adult development is the last step out of childhood, which some people never do make: establishing a sense of ourselves, our values, politics, and tastes, separate from that of our parents.

Intimacy: This is the task of bonding with another person in an interdependent, reciprocal, committed, and contented fashion for a decade or more. This is anti-narcissism. Intimacy can be achieved in close, asexual friendships as well as through live-in partnerships.

Career Consolidation: This task involves expanding our personal identity to assume a social identity within a world of work, involving other people.

Generativity: The fourth task involves demonstrating our ability to generously guide the next generation—to be in a relationship where we care deeply for younger people while respecting their autonomy.

Keeper of Meaning: This task (awkwardly named, to my ear) involves preserving the great products of human effort—in the arts, architecture, sciences, and political and cultural institutions. Keeping them safe, passing them on, so future generations can benefit.

Integrity: The ultimate task in human life is embracing the value and uniqueness of our own lives—of life itself—in the face of death.

These tasks are not necessarily accomplished in an orderly fashion (or indeed at all), but over and over again, Vaillant witnessed individuals in the Harvard study mastering each of these milestones, growing outward with each one.

How am I doing?
This work has made me think about my own continued development: Have I hit these marks? What work do I have still to do? Do you see your own continuing growth in these terms?