Influence of Psychiatric Morbidity and Self-Efficacy on Midlife Generativity

Middle adulthood entails the height of social power and having access to a rich supply of social support (Dorner et al., 2005).Although the social networks are shrinking throughout adulthood, social satisfaction is steadily on the rise (e.g., Lansford, Sherman & Antonucci,1998). Naturally, self-esteem is quite at its peak around the age of 60 years (Robins, Trzesniewski, Tracy, Gosling, & Potter, 2002), the source of personal control and power is at its peak (Clarke-Plaskie & Lachman, 1999), and subjective well-being tends to be at least higher than in young adulthood (e.g., Cross & Markus, 1991;Heckhausen, 1999) without feeling overly grandiose or afraid (Dorner et al., 2005). Unlike many younger adults, most of them have made their peace with societal expectations and have found decent arrangements to meet both personal goals and environmental demands. Yet, in comparison to older adults, middle adults tend to be more egocentric and also more vital and vigorous in pursuing their concerns (Mc Adams, 2001; Stewart & Vandewater, 1998).