Human behavior in Late adulthood stage Essay

The paper will be focusing on the stages of psychosocial development specifically that of the Later Adulthood Stage. Though this stage of adulthood does not share the same significance to the other developmental stages in adulthood, especially to the earlier stages, at least in terms of how the individual sees his or her world in the context of one’s closing days of life and vice versa. Nevertheless, the Late Adulthood Stage remains of utmost significance for the reason that it holds one crucial aspect in the final development stage of an adult: the integrity of the ego. It must be noted at this point that the ego in the Late Adulthood Stage has already absorbed within the span of the individual’s life processes and life in general a considerable degree of experience. What remains in this stage are the radiations of past experiences that have not withered away with the forgetfulness of human memory, as well as the individual’s reformed perceptions of his or her world that have adapted to the series of changes in one’s environment and that have also shaped the very structure of the environment where one dwells in. A look into some of the significant details of this stage reveals the weight of this particular phase in contrast to the other stages in adulthood whereby the unique strands of psychosocial precepts that properly belong to this stage identifies it as more than just a culminating phase. Theoretical backgrounds In Erikson’s Eight Stages of Psychosocial Development, the Late Adult Stage summarizes its major tasks in the development of the adult in terms of introspection. This is primarily because this phase is essentially the stage wherein the individual is only able to perform fewer activities in contrast to the early years of one’s life where the person is actively participating, to a certain extent, in either leisure or work. Whereas younger people constantly interact with their surroundings and with other individuals, older people who belong to the last stage of human development are, in many cases, physically unable to meet the necessities required by leisure and work. For the most part, although the aged people can barely enjoin themselves in these physically challenging activities, the Later Adulthood stage in Erikson’s theory tells us that these individuals spend most of their time instead on recollecting in their memory the experiences they had in the early chapters of their lives. Thus, as one can observe among the elderly, their acts of relating stories of previous meddling with past events and persons reveal one aspect of human introspection. It manifests their attempt, at the very least, to cope with their physical inability or lacking in terms of mobility by contemplating on whatever is remaining in their memory. More importantly, the Later Adulthood stage highlights the inevitable fact in human life: death. As with the aged people, the wisdom they have acquired in their many endeavors during their younger days all point them to the inescapable fact of death thereby insinuating a sense of fear in their minds. As this fact is instilled in their thoughts, the elderly are eventually placed in a rather uncomfortable situation as their days are drawn closer to its closing chapters. This is the point wherein their views on both life and death are further defined by themselves, testing their maturity and emotional capability to accept such fact and to acquire the sufficient integrity and belief in their selves so as not to succumb to the fear of dying. Robert Havighurst, in his perception on the developmental tasks in the life of the individual, points our attention to his interpretation on the later maturity stage of the individual. He asserts that after the time of retirement from one’s occupation, the individual eventually undergoes several adjustments in the sense that the person begins to adapt a new lifestyle that fits the conditions that beset the individual. These conditions, especially after finally closing the window for a previous occupation, are reflected in many ways. A few of these conditions include relocating to a smaller house or the reduction in one’s income among many others. These circumstances ultimately brings changes, either drastic or gradual, to the living conditions in the life of the person that one is in turn prompted to realign one’s manner of living with new measures. In essence, Havighurst suggests that the elderly are more after the attempt at â€Å"holding on† to life rather than the actual seizing of the things that life has to offer. That is, the state of life of the elderly can be seen as one that is inclined to â€Å"maintain† life or the things that one already has in life rather than the expansion of it. To be taught of news ways of living entails not only the adoption of new approaches in dealing with the necessities brought about by age and one’s physical deterioration. It also entails the idea that these elderly people are bound to attempt at putting more effort in â€Å"holding on† to life, quite apart from the idea that they ought to broaden their perception of the world and their perception of both life and death. In the context of the theories that revolve around the analysis on the stages of human development in terms of the psychosocial perspective as well as the patterns of behavior exhibited by the elderly, we can fairly extract the idea as hypothesis that these patterns of behavior are the results of the developed perceptions of the elderly with the further realization of death or, at the very least, the deterioration of one’s health and living conditions. Methodology The participants in the interview are composed of 20 non-working elderly from the male and female genders with age 60 and above randomly chosen. All of the participants can understand and speak the English language, their primary language, and are residents of the United States of America. The religious orientation of the participants is Roman Catholicism as well as they are financially dependent on the insurance money they receive every month, apart from the medical assistance they are able to acquire from it. Moreover, the participants are now living on their own, with their families living in their respective homes separate from their elderly.