Give three examples of how culture may play a role in the experience of emerging adulthood.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Although emerging adulthood is not universal, it has been observed among young people in many cultures, including many countries in North and South America, Northern and Eastern Europe, Israel, China, and Japan. Each of these cultures endorses some similar criteria for adulthood as well as criteria that are unique. For example, each culture rates accepting responsibility for the consequences of one's actions as the most important criterion for adulthood, but other important criteria vary by culture. North American emerging adults also rate making independent decisions and becoming financially independent as criteria for adulthood. In Argentina, young people rated the capacity to care for young children as the second most important criteria for women. Israeli young adults listed being able to withstand pressure as a required attribute for adulthood, whereas Romanian young people reported norm compliance as an indicator of adulthood. Chinese emerging adults rated learning to have good control of your emotions as being necessary for adulthood. Yet none of these criteria were rated as necessary for adulthood by North Americans. It appears that emerging adulthood, the extended transition from adolescence to adulthood, often occurs in Western industrialized cultures. However, the specific features and characteristics with which young people define adulthood vary by culture and likely within cultures accompanying ethnic and socioeconomic differences. The extended transition to adulthood-and the contexts that support it - holds implications for physical and cognitive development.