6 Emerging Adults 145
task of movement toward self-sufficiency (Arnett, 2004, 2007). No longer is
this seen as the typical time for establishing an intimate relationship and
“settling down”; instead, it is viewed as a time of relationship exploration,
occasional exploration of gender and attraction identities, and a time of hia-
tus where those who marry are out of the norm. Expectations of lucrative
employment and an independent household were declining due to the pro-
longed nature of adolescence (Arnett, 2007), but with the Great Recession
emerging adults moved back home after college in ever increasing numbers
(Davidson, 2014). Many of the expectations of adolescent development are
now pushed off until age 25 or later. Arnett (2007) classifies the subtasks
of emerging adulthood as (a) accepting responsibility for oneself, (b) mak-
ing independent decisions, and (c) becoming financially independent, and
notes that this is a time of great instability and explorations of love, work,
and worldviews.
Marcia’s (1966) older terms of identity development remain relevant
when describing the possibilities of emerging adulthood. It is often a time
of moratorium (a time of exploring identities yet not committing to one).
It can also be a time when Marcia’s other identity processes may function
including: foreclosure (commitment to an identity without much explora-
tion), identity-diffusion (characterized by avoiding exploration and com-
mitments related to identity), or achieving identity (following exploration,
commitment to a stable identity). This developmental period includes many
possibilities for identity development as emerging adults try different iden-
tities (and the social groups that support them), leaving some while main-
taining others.
Social Development
Social scientists have also reconsidered the span of early adulthood,
recognizing that society will need to “revise upward the normal age of full
adulthood, and develop ways to assist young people through the ever-
lengthening transition” (Furstenberg, Kennedy, McLoyd, Rumbaut, &
Settersen, 2004, p. 34). Popular culture has taken up the notion of “quar-
ter life crisis” to mirror “midlife crisis” and describes the time around age
25 as one of feeling depressed and as if life’s options have thinned out. The
popular site Buzzfeed has a tongue-in-cheek quiz about quarter life and its
discontents (www.buzzfeed.com/jessicamisener/10-signs-youre-having-
your-quarter-life-crisis). This speaks to the maturational losses emerging
adults feel as they lose the socially sanctioned dependence of adolescence
without feeling fully adult (Arnett, 2000). The Huffington Post has devel-
oped a HuffPost, “The Quarter Life Crisis,” at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
news/quarter-life-crisis for daily stories about the challenges, ennui, and
frustrations of life as one approaches 25, chronicling the widespread sense
of inadequacy, in-betweenness, and sense of loss in comparison to previous
generations. Emerging adults’ explorations of love, work, and worldview
lead to the losses inherent in instability and insecurity. The constant transi-
tions characterize emerging adulthood and set the stage for the experience
of loss in its other forms.
