Midlife Crisis

 

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Let’s quit our jobs, sell the house and move to the country!

Right in the middle of life, you get hit by a midlife crisis. At least some do; not as many as you’d think. But many people get hit by divorce, burnout, unemployment and economic downturns.

Here’s what is included in this lesson:

• Delayed gratification
• Changing careers
• Divorce
• Burnout
• Self concept
• Midlife crisis

Mind Map

Notes

• Changing Jobs
  • Age 18-42
    • Most change jobs 10+x
  • Over life
    • 7 careers?
  • Definition problem
• Why change careers
  • Money
    • Job outlook (market dwindling)
    • Economy downturn
    • Want more money
    • Better offer
  • Work environment
    • Co-workers & Boss
    • Boring-challenge
    • Stress
    • Glass Ceiling
      • Socio-Political term
      • Less women & minorities at highest levels of corporations
      • Glass = unbendable
  • Life Changes
    • Have a baby
    • Sandwiched generation
      • Care for your parents
      • Care for your kids
    • Skipped-generation family
      • Grandparents raising children
  • Unemployed
    • Older you are, longer not hired
    • Baby Boomers
      • 40% of work force
      • Born 1946-1964
• Burnout
  • Psychological issue?
    • Not in DSM
  • 40% of workforce?
  • Symptoms
    • Less interested in work
    • Less pleasure in accomplishments
    • Exhaustion
  • Maslach Burnout Inventory
    • 3 dimensions
    • Exhaustion (energy)
    • Cynicism (involvement)
    • Inefficacy (efficacy)
  • 12 phases, not necessarily sequential (Freudenberger & North)
    • 1. Compulsion to Prove Self
    • 2. Working Harder
    • 3. Neglecting Personal Needs
    • 4. Displacement of Conflicts
    • 5. Revision of Values
    • 6. Denial of Emerging Problems
    • 7. Withdrawal
    • 8. Obvious Behavioral Changes
    • 9. Depersonalization
    • 10. Inner Emptiness
    • 11. Depression
    • 12. Physically collapse
  • Burnout Prevention
    • Organization
      • Healthier work life
      • Workload, control, reward,
      • Community, fairness & values
    • Individual coping
      • Resting
      • Temporary less work hours
• Midlife Crisis
  • Midlife transition
    • Reassessment related to age
    • Life halfway over or more
  • Triggered by:
    • Andropause or Menopause
    • Death of parent
    • Unemployment
    • Underemployment
    • Never wanted to be a lawyer
    • Reassess achievements
    • Reconsider dreams
    • Want to make significant changes
  • Midlife Crisis occurs in about 10%
    • Many people reassess
    • Not based on age
• Divorce
  • John Gottman
    • Marital Stability
    • Reconnections
      • How fight
      • How make up
    • Happy couples
      • have unresolved conflicts
      • 69% have “very same” ones 10 years later
    • 4 predictors of divorce; 4 major behaviors not to do
      • Criticism of other’s personality
      • Stonewalling (withdrawal)
      • Contempt (disgust)
      • Defensiveness
    • 7 Principles of what to do
      • 1. Enhance Your Love Maps
        • store info about partner (dreams, hopes)
      • 2. More Fondness & Admiration
        • Respect & appreciate diff.
      • 3. Turn Toward Each Other
      • 4. Let Partner Influence You
      • 5. Solve The Solvable Problems
      • 6. Overcome Gridlock
      • 7. Create Shared Meaning
• CARL ROGERS (1902 – 1987)
  • Self
    • Self gradually emerges
    • From interaction w/ sig. others
  • Self-concept
    • Part of phenomenological field
      • gradually become differentiated
    • Object of perception
    • Real self vs self as perceived
      • Experiences are symbolized, ignored, dined or distorted
      • Become subconscious
    • Shouldn’t threaten integrity of child’s self-concept
      • Accept child’s feeling
  • Congruence
    • Symbolized experiences reflect all actual experiences
    • When congruent, person is free from inner tension
  • 2 basic needs
    • positive regard by others
    • positive regard by self
  • Self-regulation
    • 3 steps to control own behavior
    • 1. Self-observation
      • Track own behavior
    • 2. Judgment
      • Compare what see w/ standard
      • Rules of etiquette
      • Personal rules
    • 3. Self-response
      • Reward self
      • Punish self
  • For some
    • Self-regulation is self-concept
    • Self-regulation is self-esteem
• Humanism
  • Reaction to behaviorism
    • Which was a reaction to Freud
  • Focus on:
    • Growth & fulfillment of individual
      • genuineness
      • acceptance
      • empathy
• Self Control
  • Compliance = do what told
  • Respect
• Walter Mischel
  • Delayed Gratification
  • Marshmallow Study
    • 1 small reward now or 2 small rewards if wait 15 min.
    • Little kids can’t wait
      • Can wait longer as get older
      • Can wait longer for preferred items
    • 4 yr olds (600 children)
      • Few ate immediately
      • Most delayed 3-5 min, then age
      • 1/3 delayed 15 min & got 2nd marshmallow
    • By 5
      • Use active distraction
      • Use self-talk (tell self rule)
    • By 12
      • Use abstract thinking
      • Distract from reward
  • Elderly
    • Less self-regulation
    • Less impulse control
    • Decline in reward-delaying strategies
  • Self control or strategic thinking

Terms

• abstract thinking
• active distraction
• Baby Boomers
• basic needs of love
• Big Five personality traits = Costa & McCrae; based on factor analysis, proposes 5 dimensions: (OCEAN) openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism
• burnout
• burnout prevention
• compliance
• compulsion to prove self phase
• congruence
• contempt (disgust)
• create shared meaning principle
• criticism of other’s personality
• cynicism-involvement dimension
• defensiveness
• delayed gratification
• denial of emerging problems phase
• depersonalization phase
• depression phase
• displacement of conflicts phase
• distract from reward
• divorce
• enhance your love maps principle
• exhaustion-energy dimension
• feminization of poverty
• generativity vs stagnation = Erikson’s 7th stage of development; virtue is care
• glass ceiling
• humanism
• inefficacy-efficacy dimension
• inner emptiness phase
• job outlook
• judgment
• kinkeeper = usually mother, act as hub of family info, care and interaction
• let partner influence you principle
• life changes
• marital stability
• Marshmallow Study
• Maslach Burnout Inventory
• midlife crisis
• midlife transition
• more fondness & admiration principle
• neglecting personal needs phase
• obvious behavioral changes phase
• overcome gridlock principle
• parental imperative theory = Gutmann’s theory, parents push gender roles when children are young but later reclaim a broad perspective
• phases of burnout
• phenomenological field
• physically collapse phase
• positive regard by others
• positive regard by self
• possible selves = part of self-concept; what you might become
• predictors of divorce
• principles of marital stability
• reaction
• real self
• reassess achievements
• reconnections
• revision of values phase
• reward-delaying strategies
• sandwich generation
• self
• self as perceived
• self control
• self-concept
• self-esteem
• self-observation
• self-regulation
• self-response
• self-talk
• skipped-generation family
• solve the solvable problems principle
• stonewalling (withdrawal)
• strategic thinking
• subconscious
• turn toward each other principle
• unemployed
• withdrawal phase
• work environment
• working harder phase

Quiz

• 1. For Gottman which is a predictor of divorce:
  • a.           delayed gratification
  • b.           self-observation
  • c.           stonewalling
  • d.           efficacy
• 2. Humanism a reaction to:
  • a.           cognitive therapy
  • b.           psychoanalysis
  • c.           existentialism
  • d.           behaviorism
• 3. For some theorists self-esteem is the same as:
  • a.           self regulation
  • b.           self criticism
  • c.           self analysis
  • d.           all of the above
• 4. What percentage of people have a mid-life crisis:
  • a.           10%
  • b.           20%
  • c.           45%
  • d.           67%
• 5. Which studied delayed gratification:
  • a.           Maslach Burnout Inventory
  • b.           Boston Children’s Program
  • c.           marshmallow study
  • d.           rouge test

Answers

• For Gottman which is a predictor of divorce:
  • a.           delayed gratification
  • b.           self-observation
  • c.           stonewalling
  • d.           efficacy
• 2. Humanism a reaction to:
  • a.           cognitive therapy
  • b.           psychoanalysis
  • c.           existentialism
  • d.           behaviorism
• 3. For some theorists self-esteem is the same as:
  • a.           self regulation
  • b.           self criticism
  • c.           self analysis
  • d.           all of the above
• 4. What percentage of people have a mid-life crisis:
  • a.           10%
  • b.           20%
  • c.           45%
  • d.           67%
• 5. Which studied delayed gratification:
  • a.           Maslach Burnout Inventory
  • b.           Boston Children’s Program
  • c.           marshmallow study
  • d.           rouge test

Summary

Bonus

Photo credit

Photo by Rana Sawalha on Unsplash