PSYC 235 Week 1 DB Forum 1 Example

Discussion Board Forum 1: Thread and Two Replies

PSYC 235 Psychology of Adulthood, Discussion Board Forum 1 (thread and two replies)

Thread by [Student Name]

The prompt, the writer's examples and the classmates' posts are composites standing in for the course's own forum; the textbook, Scripture and published studies are real; the requirements follow Liberty's public course guide for PSYC 235.

Thread

Three moments from my own adult life illustrate the three sources of change described in our first chapter. At 22, I started my first full-time job. At 26, the world shut down in March 2020. At 29, my company eliminated my position with two weeks' notice. Each changed me, but in different ways.

Bjorklund (2015) describes normative age-graded influences as changes linked closely to age that most people experience, either because of shared biology or because society times social roles by age. Starting full-time work in one's early twenties is a social example; the gradual changes in vision or metabolism that come in midlife are biological ones. These changes are predictable, which makes them easier to prepare for. Friends who started jobs the same summer I did compared notes on rent, bosses and budgets, and that shared timing made the transition feel normal.

Normative history-graded influences are events that shape a whole cohort at the same point in history, such as a war, a depression or a pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic is a clear case. Ernst et al. (2022) combined 34 studies with 215,026 participants and found that loneliness rose compared with prepandemic levels, though the effects were small and varied widely between studies. A 26-year-old, a 50-year-old and an 80-year-old lived through the same months, but the event may leave a different mark on each cohort, depending on where each was in life. For me, it delayed a planned move and changed how I think about work and friendship.

Nonnormative influences are the events unique to one person, such as my layoff, and they often matter most precisely because no one else around us is going through them at the same time.

The third chapter of Ecclesiastes lists times to plant and to uproot, to mourn and to dance, and that picture of appointed times shapes how I read these influences. Age-graded seasons are expected; history-graded and nonnormative seasons are not. Yet Scripture presents every season, planned or not, as within God's knowledge and care, which gives me a way to interpret even unwelcome change as part of a larger story (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016).

Classmates: which source of change has shaped your adult life most so far?

Reply to Megan

Megan, your description of being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at 31, when none of your friends were dealing with anything like it, captures exactly what makes nonnormative events so powerful. Bjorklund (2015) notes that nonnormative influences are unique to the individual and therefore lack the social scripts and peer support that come with age-graded changes. Your friends could not tell you what to expect, because they had never faced it, and the timing set you apart at a stage when most of them were planning weddings and promotions.

That lack of shared experience is part of why the body of Christ matters. Paul's picture of believers as members of one body, in which one member's suffering is shared by all, offers a model for what a church or a group of friends can do when one person faces something no one else does (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016, 1 Corinthians 12:26). They may not understand the diagnosis, but they can carry part of its weight. Did you find a support group of others with the same diagnosis, and did it change how you adjusted?

Reply to Andre

Andre, you wrote that the pandemic must have been hardest on older adults, since loneliness is mainly a problem of old age. I wondered the same thing, but recent data suggest a more complicated picture. Surkalim et al. (2022) reviewed nationally representative studies from 113 countries and territories. In Europe, where data were richest, loneliness was more common among older adults in some regions, reaching about 21% in eastern Europe, but it was also substantial among young and middle-aged adults, and adolescents in many regions reported it as well.

That suggests loneliness is not one cohort's problem, even if its causes differ with age, from moving away for school to losing a spouse. The biblical idea that it is not good for a person to be alone (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016, Genesis 2:18) applies across the lifespan, to the 20-year-old studying in an empty dorm as much as to the 80-year-old living alone. Data outside Europe were thin, so the picture for the United States is less certain. Do you think young adults are less likely to admit loneliness than older adults are?

References

Bjorklund, B. R. (2015). The journey of adulthood (8th ed.). Pearson.

English Standard Version Bible. (2016). Crossway. (Original work published 2001)

Ernst, M., Niederer, D., Werner, A. M., Czaja, S. J., Mikton, C., Ong, A. D., Rosen, T., Brähler, E., & Beutel, M. E. (2022). Loneliness before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review with meta-analysis. American Psychologist, 77(5), 660-677. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0001005

Surkalim, D. L., Luo, M., Eres, R., Gebel, K., van Buskirk, J., Bauman, A., & Ding, D. (2022). The prevalence of loneliness across 113 countries: Systematic review and meta-analysis. BMJ, 376, Article e067068. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2021-067068