Are YOU an Adult? What is Adulthood? (South East European University, SEEU)

Okay, there are two views of adulthood. There is the classical view of adulthood, which we will discuss, and there's the modern view of adulthood, very modern. This is a view of adulthood that started about 10 years ago, maybe less, and is now in fashion.

So today, we do not use the classical view of adulthood anymore. We use the modern view.

But I will introduce you to the classical view because the history of psychology teaches us where we made mistakes and where we should have thought differently and where other models are superior.

So let's start with the classical view.

And I'm going to read to you what the American Psychological Association, American Association of Psychology, that's the name, how they define adulthood.

American Association of Psychology, or APA, is the association in the United States in Canada of all the psychologists, therapists, licensed, social workers and so on, but not psychiatrists. Psychiatrists, as you know, are psychologists who also have a medical degree. They are also medical doctors. That is a psychiatrist. That's why psychiatrists can prescribe pills, all kinds of pills, while a psychologist cannot. Because psychiatrists are medical doctors, which makes them much more dangerous.

The American Psychological Association defines adulthood this way.

The stage of human development characterized by complete physical growth, maturity, and various biological, cognitive, social, personality, and aging-related changes.

I didn't get it.

By the way, okay, you can't translate all the time. It's also disruptive to the recording. So you will find this text or in the in Google Classroom. So when you go to Google Classroom, there's Lecture Number 6, and you will find this definition in Lecture Number 6, and then you can translate it.

Okay, so let's continue with the American Psychological Association of Psychology. This stage, adulthood, marks the culmination of brain maturation and the acquisition of personal and social skills essential for attaining status in society, engaging in mating and reproduction, and establishing social relationships in general.

This is the definition of adulthood, and now I will read to you the definition in the dictionary published by the American Psychological Association or American Association of Psychology.

American Psychological Association has a dictionary online. I don't know if you know about it. It's called the APA Dictionary and it has 25,000 definitions. It's the biggest, hugest dictionary of psychology ever. And it's available free of charge online. So it's called APA Dictionary.

And I'm going to read to you the definition of adulthood from the APA dictionary.

American Psychological Association, dictionary definition. Adulthood. The period of human development in which full physical growth and maturity have been achieved, and certain biological, cognitive, social, personality and other changes associated with the aging process occur.

Beginning after adolescence, adulthood is sometimes divided into young adulthood, which is 20 to 35 years of age, middle adulthood, 36 to 64, and later adulthood, 65 and beyond.

I'm not quite sure what is beyond, but it sounds frightening.

The last period, the later adulthood, the last period is sometimes divided into young old individuals. I like that. That's 65 to 74. Old old individuals, 75 to 84, and oldest old individuals, 85 and beyond.

The oldest age group is the fastest growing segment of the population in many developed countries.

In Japan, for example, there are more old people than young people. In Japan, 26% of the population are above the age of 65.

Now that we study psychology, you need to begin to accept that in the future, the majority of the human species, majority of mankind, are going to be old people.

In many, many countries, definitely in the West, but in many, many countries in the world, children are disappearing, almost completely.

The population of all the countries in Europe, populations of all the countries, from Germany to Croatia or toname it, all the countries, the population is declining, going down. That includes China, countries like China, because people are not having children.

There is something called replacement rate. Replacement rate is how many children an average couple has, and are these children enough to compensate for the death?

So so many people are dying, so many people are being born, and this is the replacement rate.

The replacement rate in most parts of the world is negative.

When you start to practice psychology, which is probably in four years time, or three years time, four years time, in most countries that you are acquainted with, I'm not talking about countries in Africa, Chad, Sudan, you know, countries, in most countries that you're acquainted with, you are far more likely to come across middle age and old people than across children.

And this presents a serious problem because we know a lot about childhood psychology.

Because when psychology started 150 years ago, children were the biggest segment of the population. Children were the biggest demography.

So we know a huge amount about child psychology. We know a lot about adolescent psychology. We started to study adolescent psychology a hundred years ago.

But we know very, very, very little about old age psychology.

So this is a field that if you go into old age psychology, geriatric psychology, and so on, you will make a lot of money and you will have a lot of work because it's new and it's just developing.

Now, remember we are still discussing the classical view of adulthood.

Classical view of adulthood.

These definitions and so on, this is not the modern view. This is the old view. This is a view from my age when I was playing with dinosaurs, you know?

Okay. That's the reason there are no dinosaurs because I was playing with them. People say meteor, meteor, what meteor? I was the reason.

Okay.

According to the classical view, we define adulthood by using rights and milestones. Rights of passage and milestones, also known as markers.

Don't be alarmed, I will explain everything.

Rights of passage are celebrations, rituals, parties where we invite many people, we invite friends, we invite family, we invite the community, and they are intended to mark a specific phase in your development, in your life.

Can you think of a right of passage? Can you give me an example of a right of passage?

Again, it's a celebration involving people you know and people you love, the community and so on, intended to mark, intended to celebrate an event or a phase, a stage in your life.

Can you give me an example of such a celebration?

When you graduate, for example?

Yes, graduation. Anniversaries are such things, yes.

But something about the stage of life.

Birthdays, yes.

Maybe it never crossed your mind, but weddings.

Weddings.

In Judaism, when the boy reaches the age of 13, that's one three.

In Islam also, but it's a bit different.

But in Judaism, when the boy reaches the age of 13, the boy celebrates something called Bar Mitzvah.

Bar Mitzvah is a celebration, a party, a ritual, where the Jewish boy reads a part of the Torah, a part of the Bible, in public, in a synagogue, and then there's a celebration with all the family and the friends and community and so on so forth at age 13, because at age 13, the Jewish boy becomes an adult, official member of the community and obligated to follow the religious laws, the religious regulations, the edicts, the commandments of the religion.

Mitzvah means commandments in Hebrew. Mitzvah is commandment. Bar, child of the commandments.

So now the child becomes an adult who follows the command. That's an example.

By the way, you can see my Bar Mitzvah, those of you are interested. You can watch my Bar Mitzvah on my YouTube channel. So you go to YouTube channel, you type Bar Mitzvah and you spend another two hours with me. That's if you are masochistic or suicidal.

So this is an example of a rite of passage.

The best book, the best book and wonderfully written that describes passages in life was written by Gail Sheehy. She wrote two books actually. The first one is titled Passages, and the second one is titled, I think, More Passages. Very imaginative.

So Gail Sheehy, and these are great books. They describe life from beginning to end, the passages, the stages, it's a wonderful book.

Okay, so these are rites of passage. These are rituals, communal rituals because they involve the community. These are not individual things. Because they involve your family, your friends, people around you, your neighbors, especially the neighbors you hate, and so on. So everyone is involved.

So these are rituals. Rituals are not milestones. It's not the same.

Rituals or rites of passage are communal, they are social. These are social acts, they are public acts, while milestones and markers are usually individual.

I will give you one example of a milestone or a marker and you will give me another so that I feel it's a fair exchange.

Marker or milestone getting a job. It's an individual act. The individual goes and gets a job. That's a marker or a milestone of adulthood.

Yes, we're talking about rights and markers of adulthood. So getting a job.

Can you give me another marker of adulthood? Marker, not right, not ritual. Individual, alone. Something you do alone. And marks that you are adult.

Going to a course, maybe?

Going to a course? You can go to a course as a child as an adolescent. It doesn't mean that you're adult.

Something that when you do it's clearly you're an adult. A child cannot get a job, usually. Not a regular job.

Think of something that when you do it, it's clear that you're an adult.

Marriage.

Marriage? Although marriage is a bit of a right of passage. It's communal.

But if you marry alone secretly in small offices, then it's a marker. But for example, voting. Yeah. The right to vote can you think of something else now something that depends on your age only when you're an adult you can do it individual not communal

If I send my someone to buy me a bottle of whiskey, can anyone buy? Like if I send someone four years old to buy me a bottle of whiskey?

No.

Well, never mind.

We're talking about theory. This is a lesson in theory.

Drinking. Drinking is a sign of adulthood.

Maybe you drive a car?

Yes, driver's license.

Okay? So these are all markers. Some people say sex. There I disagree a bit, but these are all milestones and markers of adulthood. They're all individual.

When you drink, most cases you drink alone or with one or two friends. When you drive, you drive alone. And so on. So these are individual and these are communal.

When we combine the two, we have a map, a map of adulthood.

You know, when you become adult, you first do this, then you do this, then you vote, then you drink, then you have sex, then you have family, making a family is also.

Then you have, so rights of passage and milestones.

All societies in the world, all from the smallest to the biggest, from the most primitive to the most sophisticated, from a tribe in the Amazon to Manhattan in New York, all human societies have rights of passage. All of them.

In primitive tribes, the right of passage would involve hunting, for example.

But they all have it. And all of them have milestones and markers.

Consequently, because of this fact, the classical view of adulthood was operational, functional.

In other words, an adult is someone who has these milestones or markers and these rights.

If you have these rights and you have these markers, you're an adult. That's it. End of story.

Even if you're an idiot, even if you are emotionally mature, even if you are childlike, even if you are developmentally challenged, intellectually challenged, retarded, even then, by the way, don't use the word retarded. It's considered to be very bad, okay? Only I am allowed to use it.

Even then, you're an adult. Even then you're an adult.

You're beginning to see the mistake in this. You begin to see it's a mistaken view.

When you read classical textbooks, even today, even textbooks were published in the last two, three years, they define an adult as someone who has sex, drives, drinks, votes, goes to the army, has a bar mitzvah or Sune, whatever, and that's an adult.

That's a very bad definition, very wrong definition, as you can immediately see, because adulthood cannot be defined from the outside.

Adulthood is an internal state of mind.

That's an important sentence. Adulthood is a state of mind. Not a social construct or an external reality. It's an internal thing.

And to be an adult, you must meet the five criteria, intellectual, chronological, biological, intellectual, emotional, affective, and social.

Only if you are adult on all five levels, you're an adult.

If you're an adult on the social level, but intellectually or not, if you're a great intellect, a genius, but you don't know how to behave with people. If you are chronologically 60 years old, but you behave like a two years old, etc.

If there is a discrepancy between these five components, that's not an adult.

And we will discuss it a bit later when we come to the modern view of adulthood.

Now, I promise to discuss people who remain to live with their parents for up to age 35, etc.

First of all, facts. Always, as a psychologist, you start with scientists. You always start with facts.

Wherever the evidence takes you, I just gave an interview on a Macedonian podcast, and I had difficulty with this, because the other guy refused to accept evidence as the judge. His opinions were more important than the facts.

That is a wrong approach. Always follow the facts wherever they take you.

Will this coffee ever get colder?

Leave it open.

You see why I'm married to her? She is a practical genius. I would have never thought about this.

So, fact, about one third of people under age 35 in industrialized societies, not all over the world, about one third of them still live with the parents. One third.

This is the highest number since we started to keep records. The first records we kept about habitation. The first records are dated 1880. From 1880 until today, that is the highest number.

So today, 35% of people under age 35 continue to live with mommy and daddy.

And that's only half the story.

Because another 20% come and go. Another 20% are itinerant.

In other words, they find a job, they rent an apartment, and then the job is over. They cannot afford the apartment. They go back to live with mother or father. And then two years later, they find another job. And again, they have a period of one year that they are living alone, and then they go back to live with the parents.

So that's another 20 to 25%.

We can say, therefore, that a majority of people under age 35 in industrialized countries, especially in the United States, Italy and so on, we can say that majority of people under age 35 live with their parents, permanently or intermittently. That's a majority.

There has never been a period in recorded history like this. Never. This is unprecedented. This has never happened before. Never happened before.

And it presents a series of problems, of course.

One of the main markers of adulthood is living alone. Living alone. That's a sign of adulthood. Even if you share the apartment with roommates and so on, you're still independent. You have your room.

So, private living space is a crucial marker of adulthood.

And yet, something like 60% of people under age 35 don't have a private living space.

Can these people be considered adults? They not only live with the parents, but in the majority of cases, they get economic support, financial support from the parents. They leach. They are parasites. They live off the parents.

Additionally, in a majority of cases, the parents provide services. For example, mommy launders, you know, and cooks and so.

So the parents become like servants, servants of the, of course, when you live with your mother and father, you have no privacy. Even if it is separate, you know, you have your own room, it's nonsense. You have no privacy. They are spies. They're like spies.

So when there's no privacy, for example, the capacity to have sex is much reduced.

I'm not kidding you. When you don't have privacy, it's difficult to have sex.

I mean, you're 35 years old. What? You will have sex in a car. It's ridiculous.

So, the frequency of sex has declined dramatically by something like 40% in the past decade alone. People are having much less, young people under age 35, are having much less sex today than my generation because they don't have privacy.

And it impacts not only sex, of course.

There are many things you cannot do when you are under the supervision of your parents.

And in a sense, you cannot grow up. You're always a child.

This is a major catastrophic issue because you cannot take responsibility. You cannot plan for the future. You don't have a horizon. You cannot plan for the future.

So you don't think about having a family. You don't think about having a partner. You don't think about romantic relationships, an intimate relationship.

Because even if you date someone and you fall in love and so on, what are you going to do? You live with your parents.

And this creates what we call in psychology inhibition. It inhibits adult behaviors.

The fact that you live with your parents makes it very difficult to behave as an adult, to plan as an adult, to act as an adult, and to bear consequences as an adult.

There are no goals, there are no plans, and these people live from one day to the next, in a permanent present. There's no past, there's no future. They're stuck, physically stuck, in the age of childhood.

This is not a minor phenomenon, as I said. This is 60% of people under age 35. It's not a joke. It's a major, becoming a major, major problem.

But think about it from the point of view of the parents. I mean, forget the children from it. Think about the parents.

The parents wanted to have some freedom, they wanted to travel, they wanted to do nice things. And now that the children are grown up, they're gone. The parents wanted to have their own lives. And the parents cannot.

So both parties are frustrated. Both of them are, it's a very bad dynamic. It inhibits adult behaviors and it damages the parents' ability to enjoy life.

Now let us test the theory of Lydia.

Some theories don't work, that means the thermos is good, the therories is good.

In everything I've just described, there is another major phenomenon.

I'm introducing you to trends in modern adulthood, this is a trend, living with the parents is a major trend.

But I'll introduce you to another trend which would please you, please you no end.

Everything I've just described among adults is mostly about men, not about women.

There is a big gap opening between men and women, big gap in favor of women, not in favor of men.

For example, in industrialized societies in the West, and in China and in many other countries, women are more educated than men, among MS and PhD degrees for every man who obtains such a degree, 1.7 women obtain it.

In other words, women are almost twice as likely to obtain a high education degree, a postgraduate degree, than men.

Now, this has been going on for 40 years already.

Consequently, in the overall population, women are dramatically more educated than men, over our adult population.

Why is it so important?

Because the best predictor of income, lifelong income, is education.

The more educated you are, the more money you make throughout your life. Education and income, lifelong income, are intimately correlated, highly correlated.

So because women are much more educated than men, women are beginning to make more money than men.

For example, under age 25, this is known as a cohort, yes? You heard of the phrase cohort? Cohort is a group in the population, a demographic group.

So in the cohort of women under age 25, women make more money than men.

Overall, when we take the whole adult population, including my age and so on, women still make less money than men. But among the young women make more money than men, because they are more educated.

Consequently, in the United States, for example, 43% of primary bread winners, the main income in the family, 43% are women, not men.

Additionally, women are taking over certain professions.

I don't know if you know, but in the 19th century, nurses, medical nurses, were mostly men. The first famous medical nurse was Florence Nightingale.

When she was famous because there were no female medical nurses, medical nurses were men.

Today medical nurses are almost exclusively female.

In the 19th century, the overwhelming vast majority of teachers were men, women were not teachers.

Today, a majority of teachers, in some countries an overwhelming majority of teachers are women.

In the 19th century, all judges were men, judges and lawyers, were men, all.

Today, 43% of judges in the United States are women, and in the lower courts a majority of judges are women.

Among lawyers, also women are becoming dominant.

So what's happening is women are taking over professions that used to be masculine.

And the number of these professions is increasing all the time.

Women are absolutely on the ascendance.

When I discussed general trends of adulthood, the problem is mostly men, not women.

Okay, the problem is mostly men, not women.

Hot or not, I'm going to drink it.

No.

So when I say that one third of people under age 35 live with their parents and so on, that's actually majority men, not women.

Women are much more autonomous than men.

In general, there is a decline in masculinity among adults, anyone above age 20.

There's a decline in masculinity, in the sense that masculinity is beginning to be considered mostly negative, in negative terms.

You heard maybe of toxic masculinity.

So masculinity is beginning to be perceived negatively, femininity is beginning to be perceived positively, and women are much more adults than men.

If I were to use definitions of adulthood, which are classical, or definitions which are modern, women would be much more adults than men.

By the way, that's always been true, I think. I think women have always been more mature than men.

One final thing about women, although there's never a final thing about women, but I'll try. One final thing about women is that women describe themselves as men.

In 1980, we conducted a big study and we asked women to describe themselves.

And they described themselves using nine adjectives. Of these nine adjectives, eight were feminine adjectives, loving, caring, compassionate, empathic, etc. Feminine adjectives.

Today we conducted the same study again, 2020, to be precise. We conducted the same study and women used eight masculine adjectives to describe themselves, ambitious, ruthless, competitive, etc.

The image, self-image of women became much more masculine, while the self-image of men became problematic, toxic or men are trying to be feminine and they don't know how.

Men are in a mess.

So everything I'm telling you, you need to bear this in mind. It applies mostly to men actually and less to women.

Women seem to be more well adapted to the modern environment of networking and empathy and so.

Consequently, because there is this huge mismatch between men and women, and now I'm talking only about heterosexual relationships, you realize that 15%, that's one, five percent, of all relationships, are not heterosexual. They're either homosexual or bisexual or unusual relationship types, like swinging or polyamory.

There are many, many variants of relationships nowadays. The situation was very different about 80 years ago, 1950s let's say, where there were only heterosexual marriages. That's it.

Today we have a whole menu. You can choose whatever you want, you know.

And the numbers are not small. For example, 3% of all relationships are polyamorous and involve multiple partners. That's not a small number.

But in my lecture today, I will talk mainly about heterosexual relationships.

The dynamic in homosexual relationships is in some respects different. In some respects, although functionally they are the same like heterosexual couples, the psychological dynamic is different. So I will not deal with it today.

When we talk about heterosexual relationships, there's a big gap between men and women. There's a lot of misunderstanding and miscommunication. In some parts, there's a war between men and women.

There are groups of men who are very misogynistic and they are anti-women, so groups like men going their own way, I don't know if you heard of this group, or incels and so. These groups are men who regard women negatively and have disengaged.

There are another huge group of men who simply cannot afford. They don't have the income, the stable income and the living conditions to create a couple.

The consequence is that relationships, couple, dyad, dyadic relationship, dyadic means couple. Dyadic relationships start today, nowadays, 10 years later than 30 years ago.

Today people become a couple, 10 years later than they used to. So the average age today for forming a couple, a cohabiting couple, couple that lives together, live together. The average age today is about 28 years old.

Similarly, the average age of having children, the first child, depending on the country, is between 26 and 34 years old, depending on the country.

So everything is delayed, everything is postponed because there are no conditions. The economy is also in bad shape.

And so instead, because people need to have some kind of relationship, they cannot have a couple, they cannot get married, they cannot have children, they cannot create a family, but they still would like to be with each other, so there are new types of relationships developing in adulthood.

By the way, I'm mentioning all kinds of things that are very new and so on. If you don't understand some of these words or some of these concepts, ask me and I will explain.

So I mentioned, for example, polyamory. I don't know if you know what it is. If you don't know what it is, you could ask me.

Relationships are being delayed, and there are new types of relationships, which are relationships without commitment, without, in most cases, cohabitation, without sharing the same living space.

And these relationships are kind of a hobby. They're not serious.

So we have, for example, friends with benefits. I don't know if you heard of this type of arrangement. This is a non-committal relationship with a friend, which also involves sex from time to time.

We have, for example, casual sex, hookups, and so on. These are all attempts to have a relationship without paying the cost of our relationship. To have sex without paying an emotional cost.

So this is an attempt to square the circle.

I don't have an apartment, I don't have a job, I don't have money, I cannot afford a family, I cannot have children, I cannot, but I want to have a companion, a girlfriend, something, so we're going to have casual sex.

In studies by Lisa Wade and others, people your age were asked, what is their biggest fear? What are they most afraid of in relationships?

I'm sorry.

And they said catching emotions.

The biggest fear of people your age in the United States, college students, freshmen, your age in the United States, college students, freshmen your age, in the United States was that they will fall in love.

That was the biggest fear.

They said that falling in love is like having unwanted pregnancy.

Because if you fall in love, it destroys your career.

And so they call it catching feelings. To catch feelings, like you catch a cold, like me, common cold, catch a cold, so catching feelings.

And we have arrangements such as long-distance relationships. Long-distance relationships through the Internet, including sex through the Internet.

So we have this kind of arrangement. We have, I mentioned casual sex and so on and so forth.

So people are coming up with solutions.

These adults, technically they're adults. They're talking about people 20 years old, 25 years old, 35 years old, even 40 years old. These are adults.

But they're trying to adapt to an impossible situation where they live with their parents, they don't have a job, they don't have education and so on.

And so what they created is an environment of temporary transient relationships which involve no commitment, no investment, and no future.

And then even when these people do end up having a relationship, their relationships nowadays are much shorter than they used to be 40 years ago.

And this is known as serial monogamy. Serial monogamy means that you have a girlfriend and another girlfriend and another girlfriend and another girlfriend and so on. It's serial monogamous, like serial killer. Serial monogamy.

Generally, this whole sphere of temporary fake relationship, these are pseudo-relationships, they're not real. This is known as situationships. This is a situation. You find yourself in a situation and you have a relationship that is not really a relationship, etc.

That's a situationship.

And, of course, the main driver of situationships and casual sex and so on and so forth are dating apps. Dating apps are the technological reflection of the needs of this new generation of adults.

So we went to young adults. Young adults are under age 29. We went to young adults and we asked them, what do you think does it mean to be an adult? We asked them to define adulthood.

So, okay, we are psychologists, forget it. What do you think would make you an adult?

And here are the answers. These are two major studies in Denmark and the United States. And here are the answers. There was another study in the United States. And here are the answers. There was another study in the United Kingdom. And this is what young people say, they think, they consider adulthood. Taking responsibility, emotional control, you don't go into temper tantrums, you don't lose it, you don't, you don't, you know, emotional control. Independence, caring for others, and becoming financially well off. Now this looks very impressive and so on, but the truth is that when they were asked to weigh, to put weights, what is more important in this list? Like there are five elements here. What is most important? What do you think is the only thing that defines adult, even if we throw away the other four.

They said money. In a study by Pew Center, which is the major polling organization in the United States and the most scientifically rigorous, in a study by Pew Center, young adults were asked, what would you prefer a loving, long-term, committed relationship with love, yes? Or money and career? More than 80% said that they wouldn't mind spending their entire life without a single relationship and without love as long as they had enough money. So, studies show that regardless of the culture and the society, because Denmark could not be more different than the United States. There are two totally different cultures and societies. Studies show that young adults nowadays, they value money more than anything, more than relationships, more than love, more than anything, because money would give them independence. Money would allow them to care for others.

They regard money as the condition for adulthood. If you don't have money, you cannot be an adult. You cannot find a job. You cannot take someone on a date, you cannot establish a family, you cannot care for your elders, let's say your mother or your father. You cannot do anything if you don't have money. And they say, okay, most important is to have money, and if this means that I will have nothing else except money, that's okay. It's acceptable to me. This is the view of young adults nowadays.

So I'm going to introduce it to three new concepts. They're relatively new.

One is known as emerging adulthood. It was coined by Arnett, adulting, and delayed adulthood, mainly by Twenge, mainly, but not only.

Now I'll start with adulting and then I will read to you the definition of emerging adulthood from the APA dictionary that I mentioned before and we will discuss delayed adulthood. Adulting is when people who are chronologically or should be chronologically adults are actually not. They haven't grown up. They haven't matured. They haven't evolved. They're still children. They still live with the parents. They still don't have a job. They still, you know, they're still kids. But they pretend to be adults. They fake adulthood. So this is called adulting. And you can find this online. There are actually many videos dedicated to adulting and so and so forth.

Adulting is most common among the generations of millennials and generation Z. It's most common among these two generations. So this is adulting. Let me read to you the definition of emerging adulthood. As I mentioned, the concept of emerging adulthood was proposed in the year 2000 by Jeffrey Arnett. Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, he is a developmental psychologist. Why did he feel the need to introduce this new concept? Because people were becoming adults much, much later. I told you, everything was postponed by 10 years. People who are today 25 years old are like people who were 15 years old in my time. So everything is like 10 years delayed. Twenge, Tuenge and others, many others, discovered in their studies that adolescents nowadays extends up to age 25. The brain finishes its maturation at age 25.

So prior to age 25, you are missing parts of the brain, not parts, but functions. And parts, by the way, and also parts. You are missing some parts of the brain and some functions of the brain, and the brain finishes its process of maturation and functionality at age 25.

So Tueny and others said, well, this is adolescence. We should now extend adolescence up to age 25.

And because everything is delayed by 10 years, people remain adolescents, they remain children much longer.

Arnett said, okay, so let's introduce a middle stage between adolescence and adulthood. So we will have childhood, adolescence, emerging adulthood and adulthood.

So it's a new concept, a relatively new concept. And this is what the dictionary has to say.

Emerging adulthood is, no, first let me read to you what Arnett had to say.

What Arnett had to say about this concept.

He said that emerging adulthood involves identity exploration, instability, self-focus, by the way, is not narcissism. Self-focus means personal autonomy, self-control, open possibilities, transformational opportunities, and a feeling of being in limbo between adolescence and full-fledged adulthood. Like you don't know where you belong. Are you still adolescent or are you an adult? You're not quite sure.

Now, this is very, very reminiscent of Erickson. Erickson has a stage called moratorium.

According to Erickson, adolescence experiment. They all the time experiment. They experiment with identities. They experiment with orientations, including sexual orientations. They experiment with social roles.

So adolescence is a phase of experimentation, which Erickson called moratorium.

Emerging adulthood sounds a lot like moratorium.

But in Erickson's work, moratorium is unique to adolescents. Adults don't have moratorium.

While in Arnett's work, adults also have moratorium. As if adolescence is extended with the experimentation, with the uncertainty, with the unpredictability, with the chaos, with the confusion, it's extended up to age 25.

When we say confusion, disorientation, uncertainty, what are we talking about?

You don't know how to behave. You just don't know how to behave.

Sometimes you are treated as adolescents and sometimes you are treated as adults. Sometimes there are expectations that you should behave as adolescents and sometimes you are treated as adults. Sometimes there are expectations that you should behave as adults and sometimes when you try to behave as adults you're punished or ignored or so you're very confused. It's a stage of enormous confusion according to Arnett. That's why he called it emerging adulthood.

And here is how the dictionary defines it 20, 18 years later.

A developmental stage that is neither adolescence nor young adulthood, but is theoretically and empirically distinct from adolescence and from young adulthood. It's not the same.

Spanning the late teens through the 20s with focus on ages 18 to 25 and in some recent work, 29, actually.

What this says is that we remain essentially adolescence until age 29, which is shocking where I come from.

In my childhood, people at age 29, they already had a family with three children, two dogs, and one car, or two cars and one dog. And they were responsible, they were, you know.

This is especially true in the country I come from, I come from Israel, where everyone goes to the army at age 18. I went to the army at age 17. I was a soldier until 20 plus, 20 and a half.

So when you're in the army, especially when you're a combat soldier and so on, you become adult very fast. You're responsible for the lives of other people. You learn that the world is dangerous and you mature, you grow up very fast.

So in my childhood and adolescence, it would have been very bizarre to think of someone age 29 as adolescent. It would have been unthinkable.

But today it's becoming more and more common, including in Israel, by the way, not limited to.

The dictionary continues to say, emerging adulthood is distinguished by relative independence from social roles and from normative expectations.

Having left the dependency of childhood and adolescence, and having not yet taken on the responsibilities that are normative in adulthood, emerging adults engage in identity exploration, a process of trying out various life possibilities, love, work, worldviews.

They gradually move towards making enduring decisions.

During this period, individuals have the highest rates of residential instability.

In other words, they change apartments all the time, of any age group.

And they see themselves neither as adolescents nor entirely as adults.

So this is emerging adulthood.

Okay, everything we discussed until now is the classical view, even these are new concepts, even this is the classical view.

The modern view, which is dominant in the past, let's say, five or six years, this is super, what I'm telling you is super new. It's like the cutting edge, most recent developments.

The modern view is very different.

The modern view says that to determine whether someone is an adult or not, we should study them psychologically.

So there is no rule that applies to populations.

If I want to know whether you are adults, I have to talk to each one of you individually. I have to test each one of you individually, psychological tests. I have to have structured interviews with each one. I have maybe to live with you, to share a life with you. I have to witness you in a variety of situations.

So it's an individual focus, whereas the classic view is what we call a cohort focus, a population, demographic population focus, with socio-demographic markers, marriage, children, job, you know, this is to be adult.

So this is a classical view.

The modern view says, never mind if you get married, never mind if you have a job, never mind if you had sex or not, never mind if you drink, if you... All this is nonsense, the modern view says. All this is nonsense.

What is important is your psychology.

In other words, in the modern view, which is also my view, adulthood is a state of mind. A state of mind, not external reality, but internal reality.

Now, of course, it could be that your state of mind, your psychology, is so problematic that you are unable to function in external reality. So it could be that you are a child mentally, emotionally, you're a child, or you're intellectually an adolescent, and so on, and consequently, you cannot get married, you cannot have a job, you cannot, you know.

So external reality is connected to psychological reality.

But we cannot generalize. There's no general rule.

Each person by himself.

So we need to study each person. Each person has his own clock, his own period of, his own transition period. Each person has his or her own duration. Everyone is a ticking clock and your clock is not my clock, is not your clock, is not your clock. The clocks are different for each and every human being.

So we have 8.3 billion clocks. And there will be 8.3 billion transitions from adolescence to adulthood.

Each one of them, not coordinated, not synchronized. There's no synchronicity.

So the modern view is that psychological traits and behaviors, psychological traits and such psychologically influenced behaviors are the key to diagnosing, if you wish, adulthood.

You can think of adulthood as a diagnosis. Yes, we diagnose mental illness. We diagnose schizophrenia, we diagnose personality disorders, okay? So we can diagnose adulthood.

If it's a state of mind, it's a diagnosis. We can diagnose it.

And if it is a state of mind, it is contagious. In other words, if you have in a group, one person who is adult, the others will become gradually more and more adult. It's like the adulthood will infect the group. There is contagion and there are vectors of transmission. The adulthood is transmitted via behaviors, via decisions, via choices, via emotional expression and regulation and so on. There are many ways that we communicate adulthood to each other.

So adulthood is a state of mind. It's a diagnosis. And it's also a communication thing, communicated. It's communicable, like communicable disease. It's communicable.

That is where we come to the concept of leadership. The leader communicates to a group and transforms the group with this communication.

If the leader is adult, the group will become much more adult.

If the leader is adolescent, stupid, narcissistic and so on, the group will become adolescent, stupid, narcissistic and so on.

Remember the previous lesson? Social learning theory? We imitate. We imitate adulthood also.

It's important to understand that adulthood is not just something that happens inside, has its own clock, independent of anything and so on.

Adulthood is also not only external events.

But adulthood is the interplay, and most of this interplay is social.

Adulthood, therefore, is a psychosocial construct, like gender. Same with gender.

We communicate femininity and masculinity. When you are born into a family, the family teaches you how to be a woman, teaches you how to be a man.

And so this is communicated. It's a psychosocial construct.

Adulthood is exactly like gender. Adolescence is exactly like gender.

These are communicable and communicated social constructs.

How do we know that?

Because there are societies, cultures in history and today where there is no phase of adolescence. People don't go through adolescence.

So we know that it is a social construct.

There are civilizations and societies and cultures where people never become adults in effect.

An example perhaps is the United States.

So these are not realities. This is not tangible. It's not a table. It's an agreement. It's a convention, it's an agreement, social contract between people.

This is how we will define and see each other. I will see you as an adult because I expect you to behave in a certain way. I expect you not to misbehave in a certain way. My expectations define your adulthood.

If I were to put you in an island from age two, you would never become adolescent and you would never become adults.

Society is crucial in this sense.

So what defines adulthood, I'm sorry, in this sense.

So what defines adolescent, adulthood, I'm sorry, in this new modern view, is independence, independence, personal autonomy, agency, self-efficacy.

In other words, the ability to make decisions uninhibited, unobstructed by others, so if you make a decision, you will carry it out and you will guarantee favorable outcomes from the environment.

So in the modern view of adulthood, adults are autonomous. In other words, everything comes from inside. Everything comes from inside.

They are independent. In other words, no one tells them what to do and what to not do and so on and so forth.

So they're independent.

Oh, nice, but they're independent.

They are agentic. They have agency.

In other words, when they make a decision, they can act on it. They have the capacity to act.

And they are self-efficacious.

So here's the sequence.

You wake up in the morning, you wake up in the morning, something happens inside you.

Remember, adulthood is a state of mind. Something happens inside you.

So you say, for example, today I want to travel to Bittola. I don't know where you would say it, but okay. Today I want to travel to Bittola.

This is the autonomous part. Decision to travel from Bittola comes from inside. No one comes to you and says, today we'll travel to Bitola.

It emerges from inside, autonomous.

Then when you decide to travel to Bitola, no one will obstruct you. No one will prevent you. No one will attack you. No one will criticize you. You're independent. If you decide to travel to Bitola for some reason, you will travel to Bitola.

This is your independence.

You're agentic. You're capable of acting.

When you do decide to travel to Bitola, you have various options. You can use a car, you can use a bus.

So your agent means you are able to translate your decision into action, agency.

And finally, you are self-efficacious.

Statistically, whenever you decide to travel to Bitola, you travel to Bitola.

Because there are many people who make decisions and never, nothing comes out of it.

For example, I constantly decide to lose weight. Nothing comes out of it. I am not self-efficacious when it comes to losing weight. Because I like food.

So I am autonomous.

I decide to lose weight from inside. I'm independent. If I want to lose weight, I will lose weight. I'm agentic. I can decide to go on a diet.

Gym.

No, no. There's a limit. There's a limit to everything.

Walking stairs.

I'm agentic, but I'm not self-efficacious.

One could say that my relationship with my weight is not an adult relationship.

This element is missing. I keep failing.

Adults don't fail most of the time, statistically. Adults don't fail. It's one of the key features of adulthood, the ability to affect yourself and the environment.

We say that adults extract favorable outcomes from the environment.

And this is self-efficacy.

The belief in the modern view of adulthood is that adulthood is a positive impact on mental health.

In other words, that mentally ill people or mentally problematic people or people with mental health disorders are not full-fledged adults.

There is adulthood failure somehow, impaired adulthood.

So I read to you a study that was published, I think a few weeks ago. A study was published a few weeks ago.

Tavakoli, Valarzo, Garcia.

I have a theory, by the way, that the overwhelming vast majority of psychologists became psychologists because of their family names. The family names are so catastrophic, they must have suffered horribly through life, and then they became psychologists.

That's my theory.

So here's a study, Tavakoli, Valarzo and Garcia. Study is titled Perceptions of Adulthood and Mental Health. It was published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

Not long ago, but a few weeks ago.

Here's what they have to say.

I'm going to read to you extended excerpts from this study because it's a very, very important study. Lesson six on the classroom, a Google Classroom, has the bibliographic reference. So you can find it online. I think it's available free online.

So here's what they have to say, the authors.

By the way, I met the author of this study because we both participated in an interview, talk show in the talk show in the United Kingdom.

So, um?

Online talk show.

I mean, I was interviewed online and she was interviewed also and I met her through this.

My interview is available on my YouTube.

It's with Liam Pinstedt?

Yes.

Yeah, I watched it.

Yes.

So, immediately after me, she appeared. And then the Tricia introduce us to each other. So I had a chance to talk to her about this study.

Anyway, it's a brilliant study, very nice study.

And here's what she and others have to say.

Following emerging adulthood, the phase of established adulthood is suggested to span the ages of 30 to 45, succeeded by midlife, which covers ages 46 to 59, and culminating in older adulthood, beginning at the age of 60 and beyond.

A psychologically centered approach has been consistently applied to describe successful adaptation during these specific age stages.

For instance, key factors identified for perceiving successful aging include health and independent functioning.

Psychological aspects such as cognitive, emotional, and motivational functioning, engagement in social roles and activities, financial and living situations, and the quality of social relationships.

A thorough review of the literature reveals a range of psychological indicators that signify a successful transition into adulthood.

So the authors are saying that we should not look at external reality, we should look at psychological indicators.

And they are mentioningsome of the indicators.

These indicators of adulthood encompass physical health, psychological and emotional wellness, life skills, ethical conduct, the maintenance of healthy family and social relationships, educational attainment, which is what you're doing, constructive engagement in educational and occupational activities, and civic involvement.

The majority of these aspects are psychological, highlighting the significance of an individual's ability to integrate effectively within society, for example through emotional well-being and the quality of relationships, and to be productive, evidenced by educational achievements and the cultivation of pro-social behaviors.

Okay, that was a long excerpt. And now we will discuss a few components, a few ingredients in the modern view of adulthood that are missing from the classical view.

The first thing is known as family.

This is a very interesting concept because in classical theory, in classical theory of adulthood, if you live with your parents, you're not adult. You're a child. Anyone who live with their parents, they haven't grown up, they haven't become adults, so they're not adults.

According to the modern theory, if you live with your parents, but you take care of them, you contribute financially, you help around, you fulfill all kinds of chores and tasks and obligations, and so on so forth, you are an adult.

According to the modern theory, it doesn't matter that you are living with your mother and father if you're functioning as an adult.

For example, if you're taking care of your mother and father, that's an adult chore. So clearly, you're acting as an adult. If you're contributing financially to the household with your salary, that's an adult thing. So you're clearly an adult.

So they say, the moderns say, the family emotional climate is much more important. If the family is loving, caring, helpful to each other, support each other in times of trouble and so on so forth, then children within such families are likely to become adults, even if they continue to live with the parents.

So that's an example of how the modern theory is very different to the classical theory.

Next thing is culture and society, according to the modern theory, as I just explained to you before, adulthood is a socio-cultural construct.

In some cultures and societies, the definition of adulthood is very different.

For example, in India, to be adult means to get married. If you don't get married, you're not adult. End of story. You could be multi-billionaire. You can employ 20,000 people. You can be rich and famous. You name it. If you don't get married, you're not an adult. Period.

In Judaism, you're not allowed to be a rabbi. You're not allowed to be a spiritual leader of the community if you're not married. You could be the greatest scholar, you can be amazing, you could be, you know, but if you're not married, you're not allowed to lead other people. You're not allowed to be spiritual leader.

So, in different cultures and societies, the definition of adulthood is so different that actually why are we talking about adulthood? It's nonsense. It depends.

So for example, in the United States, if you get married too early, you're not an adult. That's a childish act.

Exactly opposite of India. In India, ifyou get married too late, you are not an adult.

In America, if you delay the marriage, that's proof that you're an adult. Because only stupid people get married, you know, when they're 18. That's stupid. That's destructive. That's sabotage of career and so. So you can see enormous differences between...

Now, according to the modern theory of adulthood, what the most important element in adulthood is meaning.

You need to find meaning.

You need to have a vision of yourself. You need to ask yourself, how can I make a difference? How can I contribute? What will I be remembered for? My legacy? How can I impact the lives of other people to make them better? How can I care for other people? How can I fit into the community?

So it's a communal view.

And meaning in the modern theory of adulthood is the key.

You could live with your parents, you could never have sex, never have a girlfriend or a boyfriend, never get married, never have children, so on and so forth.

But if your life has meaning, if what you do impacts other people positively, improves the environment and the community, leaves behind something, if you change things, transform them somehow, with social activism, for example, then you're an adult.

According to this, someone like Greta Thunberg, you know the Swedish girl that is climate activist, she's pro-climate, I mean against climate change and so on, according to this, she's an adult.

Because her life is full of meaning. She's impacting the environment. She's changing the world. She's an adult.

She's not married. She didn't graduate university. She's nothing. She's 18. She didn't do anything yet.

But according to the modern view, she is a super adult because her life is extremely meaningful, not only to herself, but to everyone around her.

So this is the key today to the perception of adulthood. And this was first proposed a long, long time ago of course by a Jew.

And so the guy who proposed it was Victor Frankl.

Victor Frankl is an amazing story.

The Nazisput him in Auschwitz. And he survived three and a half years in Auschwitz.

It's unbelievable because the average life expectancy in Auschwitz, if you were not immediately burned in the gasped and burned, your average life experience was about six months.

No one survived. There was no food. The guards were killing randomly people and so on.

He survived for three and a half years.

When he left Auschwitz, when he was liberated, in 1946, he started to write series of books about meaning.

And he said that what kept him alive was that he invented a meaning for his life. He invented a reason to get up in the morning. He invented a story, a narrative, a vision which made sense of his life and drove him forward.

In short, you could say that Victor Frankel became an adult in Auschwitz for the first time in his life.

And so everything in modern theory of adulthood, a lot is based on Viktor Frankl's work.