Emerging Adulthood Revisited

Abstract

Abstract There is a dispute as to how to understand and conceptualize the instabilities of emerging adulthood. Unlike earlier approaches which took a “deficit” perspective, this book, based on a 12-year study, describes the active journey that young people might take and the ways they navigate through these years. This chapter summarizes the conceptual frameworks employed for understanding this journey. In line with developmental systems theory, the author describes how the unstable experiences, in fact, served as an arena for learning and progress. The author also shows that personality changes during the emerging adulthood years are part of a comprehensive process of progression toward stabilization. The chapter summarizes that periods of instabilities, and even regressions, during the emerging adulthood years can be part of developmental reorganization and might be aimed at finding and developing new forms of behavior that address the need and potential for change and growth.