Adult development is a branch of developmental psychology that deals specifically with how adults age through physical, emotional, and cognitive means. One simple breakdown of the field is to look at its three dimensions.
- Dimension 1: change: loss, stasis, positive adult development
- Dimension 2: types of change: maturation, learning, developmental stage
- Dimension 3: psychological processes in adult development.
For example, positive adult developmental may be divided into at least six parts: hierarchical complexity, (orders, stages), knowledge, experience, expertise, wisdom, and spirituality.
Nondevelopmental forms include adulthood and adult human behavior.
While adult development has long been a subject reserved for academia and medical professions, in recent years, adult development has become an integral part of leadership and executive development.
Read more about Adult Development: Studies, Four Adult Development Theories
Famous quotes containing the words adult development, adult and/or development:
“The cohort that made up the population boom is now grown up; many are in fact middle- aged. They are one reason for the enormous current interest in such topics as child rearing and families. The articulate and highly educated children of the baby boom form a huge, literate market for books on various issues in parenting and child rearing, and, as time goes on, adult development, divorce, midlife crisis, old age, and of course, death.”
—Joseph Featherstone (20th century)
“Because the young child feels with such intensity, he experiences sorrows that seem inconsolable and losses that feel unbearable. A precious toy gets broken or a good-bye cannot be endured. When this happens, words like “sad” or “disappointed” seem a travesty because they cannot possibly capture the enormity of the child’s loss. He needs a loving adult presence to support him in his pain but he does not want to be talked out of it.”
—Alicia F. Lieberman (20th century)
“The Cairo conference ... is about a complicated web of education and employment, consumption and poverty, development and health care. It is also about whether governments will follow where women have so clearly led them, toward safe, simple and reliable choices in family planning. While Cairo crackles with conflict, in the homes of the world the orthodoxies have been duly heard, and roundly ignored.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)