Physical, Cognitive, Personality, and Social Development in Young

Adulthood

Physical, Cognitive, Personality, and Social

Development in Young Adulthood
Toni A. Turner
CCBC Catonsville
Professor King
October 21, 2015

Physical, Cognitive, Personality, and Social Development in Young

Adulthood

Characteristics
Physical Development
When reaching young adulthood, one will be about 18-25 years old and will face
many challenges. A recent study revealed that college students from low-SES
backgrounds engaged in lower levels of physical activity, ate more fast food and less
fruits/vegetables, and used more unhealthy weight control methods than their higher-SES
counterparts (VanKim & Laska, 2012). Social economic status does play a role in
physical development, if one does not have the money to provide the healthy food in
order to eat correctly, that person will most likely choose a fast food restaurant instead.
Another factor in physical development is regular exercise, if one does not exercise
regularly this could result in weight gain. If weight gain is continuously increased this
could possibly lead to obesity, which is a problem in young children and adults. In fact,
the longer someone is obese, the more of an impact this could have on this persons
health. Those who are obese could be at risk for heart disease later in life. Substance
abuse can also contribute to weight gain and change in physical development. Binge
drinking, when someone drinks 10 or more drinks in a row, peaks at about 21 to 22 years
of age. When someone drinks a lot of alcohol it can cause major organs to malfunction,
for example your liver can shut down due to excessive drinking. (Rubin & Zorumski)
Another serious complication of binge drinking is called a memory blackout, simply a
memory gap. Anything that happens during this time period can be very harmful to any
person in the area of the person who is experiencing this blackout. Regardless of how
much a person drinks, physical development can be damaged in any way.

Physical, Cognitive, Personality, and Social Development in Young

Adulthood

Cognitive Development
According to Piaget, young adults are more advanced in thinking because they
have more knowledge than adolescents. Piagets cognitive theory, formal operational
stage in which adolescents and adults can (Hemmelgarn) reason abstractly and think in
hypothetical terms. As young adults begin to find their careers, they can experience many
challenges. Work-related stress is one challenge a young adult could face, which happens
when someone spends a great deal of time in his or her workplace. As young adults seek
out their career jobs, many of them will be in college at this time. In order for some
students to help with the costs of schooling, but this could also place a barrier on the
students learning opportunities. The more the students work while in college, the less
time they have to focus on the studying. I can personally relate to this topic with my
experience so far in college, although I do not work in actual business place, I babysit for
my sister. Which in my opinion, I feel that I have it harder than others do. While working,
I have to decide when is the best time to do school work and if I truly can do it right then
and there. There have been times when I needed to sacrifice my schoolwork to focus on
my job. Although there can be many downfalls to working while in school, upsides can
quickly follow, some colleges can give students the opportunity to work through
internships in the field they are pursuing. This aspect can give you a head start to many
opportunities when the time comes to begin your career. If you are in a dual-earner
relationship, where both couples are working, balance can be very hard to maintain. Of
course things could change if a child is brought into the picture, of two working parents.
Many people will say that this can cause slight stress on a person, having to make sure
the kids are on time to sports, lessons etc. (Moen, 2009a, b) Many dual-earner couples

Physical, Cognitive, Personality, and Social Development in Young

Adulthood

engage in a range of adaptive strategies to coordinate their work and manage the family
side of the work family side of the work-family equation. I myself have seen this
happening first hand, as I was growing up both my sister and I were constantly involved
in sports so as my family and I would get home from a long day, we would have to rush
around to eat dinner and leave to a court, or field to play a sport. As all of these factors
play a role in cognitive development, and can influence individuals development
throughout the rest of their life.

Personality Development
As people grow older, our personalities will start to change, some for better and
some for the worse. According to Roberts and Mroczek, personality trait changes occur
between the ages of 20 and 40. This could possibly mean that young adulthood is the
most important period of ones life. During this time period, many young adults will make
big changes in their own life, between dealing with career choices and finishing college
they also have to face these personal changes. Potentially these personality changes could
affect the way ones life would turn out. If I compare these results to my own life,
although I am not yet 20, I am 19 I feel like I have already gone through some personality
changes of my own. These changes did not affect my career choice, but it has made a big
impact on the friends I have chosen to keep by my side. (Roberts and Wood, 2006)
suggested that as we age, people become more confident, warm, responsible, and calm/
mature. As all other stages in our lives, each person is individually different. Which is the
same for personality trait changes, some show a lot of positive change, some show
negative change, and others will remain the same. In those that do show change, the
amount of change varies between each individual. Gender roles, can play a part in

Physical, Cognitive, Personality, and Social Development in Young

Adulthood

personality trait changes. (Roberts and Mroczek) As women get older, they become less
emotionally dependent and more competent with age, whereas men become less
dependent and more competent than women. The studies of individual differences in the
change of personality traits are considered outcomes. Meaning that what happens with
our personality is due to the outcomes of other factors in our lives that brought us to that
point of change. Personality changes are results of things that happen to us in our life and
not just what we want to change, in my life I have changed multiple things because of
events that have occurred in my lifetime.

Social Development
Current research shows that the first 20 years of life are not meaningless in
predicting an adults socoiemotional landscape (Cicchetti & Toth, 2015; Thompson,
2015). This could possibly mean that all of the events we face and all of the actions we
make can have an impression on how we deal with our future. I can relate to this fully,
when my grandmother passed away, it took a toll on my body so now whenever I hear of
death or have to go to a funeral for a close friend, I automatically go back to this time in
my life. Temperament, an individuals behavioral style and characteristic emotional
responses, can play a major role in social development. Since young adults are more
mature than adolescence, they will have few emotional mood swings. I can relate to this
outlook on temperament because as I was going through the adolescence stage, I had
many crazy mood swings and now as I am growing older, I havent had many and I have
learned to control these mood swings better. Attachment occurs during infancy and plays
an important role in socioemotional development. There are three attachment styles,
secure attachment style, avoidant attachment style, and anxious attachment style, which

Physical, Cognitive, Personality, and Social Development in Young

Adulthood

one do you think you are? Well, (Zeifman & Hazan, 2008) about 60 to 80 percent of
adults describe themselves as securely attached, which means they have positive views of
relationships, find it easy to get close to others, and are not stressed about romantic
relationships. Studies have shown that there is a relationship to the adults current
attachment style and the aspects of their lives. If someone is securely attached, they will
be more likely to be satisfied with their close/ romantic relationship than those who are
insecurely attached. Attraction also leads to social development; we base everything we
do off of our first impressions of other people. Some impressions are made without even
talking to a person; just a glance of his or her face or hearing his or her name could give
you an impression. This could effect how we make friends, based on if we do not let
certain people in our life based on one assumption it could slow our development as a
whole. (Blieszner & Roberto, 2012) Friendship plays and important role in development
throughout the human life span. Almost every man and woman in the U.S. have a best
friend, and most have one of the same sex, and have known them for at least 10 years.
When men and women have a friendship, it causes both opportunities and problems.
Opportunities could involve getting to know more about common interests,
understanding beliefs and activities. Problems include, different expectations and unclear
sexual boundaries. I can relate to the friendship subject, especially of different genders, I
do have friends of other sex and there have been times where disagreements came about
due to different viewpoints. Over my life, I have also had issues with sexual boundaries
mainly with the guys not knowing where we stand in terms of friendship. This did not
take a toll on my social development much, although I do notice I tend to make more girl

Physical, Cognitive, Personality, and Social Development in Young

Adulthood

best friends rather than boy best friends. Having this mentality, I think that most guys try
to be a significant other rather than just a friend.

Conclusion
All factors, physical, cognitive, personality, and social development all play major
roles in young adulthood. As we mature, we need to focus on certain things that can
affect our development process; a lot of things that have happened in the past can
predict how our future will play out. Meaning as we go through all of our life events, it
all impacts on how we perceive ourselves in the long run. In my life, I can relate to all
these factors although I am not fully into this young adulthood stage I have dealt with
most of these factors already. As I relate these to my self, I can truthfully state that each
of these different stages has certain distinct reactions. But it isnt the reactions itself that
make our decisions; its what we make of them as we continue on in our life.

Physical, Cognitive, Personality, and Social Development in Young

Adulthood

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Adulthood

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