According to Levinson, the middle-aged person must seek new ways of being both young and old. Explain what this means and how U.S. midlifers go about confronting this developmental task

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Levinson believed that middle-aged adults must confront four developmental tasks to reassess and rebuild their life structure as they pass through the transition into middle adulthood. In the young–old task, the middle-aged person must seek new ways of being both young and old. This means giving up certain youthful qualities, transforming others, and finding positive meaning in being older. Perhaps because of the double standard of aging, most middle-aged women express concern about appearing less attractive as they grow older. But middle-aged men—particularly non-college-educated men, who often hold blue-collar jobs requiring physical strength and stamina—are also highly sensitive to physical aging. In one study, they were more concerned about physical changes than both college- and non-college-educated women, who exceeded college-educated men.
Compared with previous midlife cohorts, U.S. baby boomers are especially interested in controlling physical changes—a desire that has helped energize a huge industry of anti-aging cosmetic products and medical procedures. And sustaining a youthful subjective age (feeling younger than one's actual age) is more strongly related to self-esteem and psychological well-being among American than Western-European middle-aged and older adults. In the more individualistic U.S. context, a youthful self-image seems more important for viewing oneself as self-reliant and capable of planning for an active, fulfilling late adulthood.