Human Growth and Development / Unit 11 HGD 1502 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Arnett's Five Features
The idea
Arnett described five features. Identity exploration: trying out possibilities in love and work. Instability: frequent changes of residence, job and relationships, as in "last hired, first fired." Self-focus: fewer obligations to others, and more freedom to decide for oneself. Feeling in-between: sensing oneself neither adolescent nor fully adult. The age of possibilities: optimism about the future, even amid difficulty.
In practice
A twenty-four-year-old who says she is "sort of an adult," has moved three times in two years, and is sure her life will turn out well.
Where people slip
Exam items describe an emerging adult and ask for the feature: frequent moves point to instability, "sort of an adult" to feeling in-between, and optimism to the age of possibilities. Emerging adulthood is found mainly in industrialized countries, where most young people attend tertiary education and marry and have children around thirty.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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