The research will identify and compare maladaptive and adaptive patterns in the relationships between middle-aged and aging parents and their young adult children;
the aim i s to identify factors in the relationship which lead to greater mental health or psychopathology among members of each generation. The research design, hypotheses, and operational definitions are based on theory and methods developed in aging, life span, and clinical psychology. A basic assumption is that the ways in which aging and middle-aged and aging parents cope with developmental tasks affect and are affected by the ways in which their grown children are dealing with the challenges of early adulthood. In-depth interviews with 168 young adults (19-30) and their aging parents will assess the ability of family members in each generation to achieve autonomy while maintaining relatedness as they cope with tasks relevant to their own stage in the life cycle. Tasks for the aging parents include renegotiating the marriage relationship, as well as the relationship with their own aging parents; preparing for retirement; and finding new areas of gratification for the later years. For the young adults, tasks include making commitments to occupation; intimate relationships; generativity; and personal ideologies. The relation of alternative patterns of relating among families to mental health and psychopathology, and to successful or maladaptive coping with life tasks will be investigated empirically. Random sampling procedures will be used to select yound adults and their parents from among four cohorts of graduates from a suburban high school. The research includes an instrument development phase and a data collection/analysis phase. Findings will have critical implications for preventing psychopathology and promoting positive coping and mental health in later and earlier years of adulthood. The research is planned as the first step in a cross-sequential design; future research will follow the progress of each generation of family members as they advance in age.
| Huyck, M H (1991) Predicates of personal control among middle-aged and young-old men and women in middle America. Int J Aging Hum Dev 32:261-75 |
| Frank, S J; Jacobson, S; Tuer, M (1990) Psychological predictors of young adults' drinking behaviors. J Pers Soc Psychol 59:770-80 |
