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464 Annals Am. Acad. Pol. & Soc. Sci. 9 (1982)

handle is hein.cow/anamacp0464 and id is 1 raw text is: PREFACE The articles in this volume reflect a reorientation in the ways that scien- tists have viewed human growth and development. This shift in perspec- tive has moved from a focus on early infancy and childhood toward the total life span, with increasing emphasis on the latter half of the life cycle. As Perlman noted well over a decade ago, there was a dearth of theoretical constructs, studies, or even isolated clinical accounts of the long developmental period between late adolescence and old age that bore the catchall label adulthood . . . compared to the close attention to, documentation of, and resultant conceptions about the development of children, and consequent useful notions about how to enhance child life, the scripts by which adulthood might be understood were markedly few and sketchy. It was as if human beings were con- sidered all done, fixed, upon coming of age. And then, alas, un-made, undone, bit by bit, by the decrements of old age.' Second, there has been a welcome shift from a crisis or problematic orienta- tion to an emphasis on role transitions-or turning points, markers, pas- sages, and seasons-and continual developmental tasks to describe common changes in adulthoood. In this new perspective transitions are viewed as normal situations that are likely to confront anyone. Whatever the situation, each transition encompasses a bridging period often characterized by feelings of uncer- tainty and instability. During this interval the person engages in various degrees of social and psychological adaptations to the changing situations in his or her life. While such transitional processes have long been characteris- tic of the human condition, it is only in recent years that social and behav- ioral scientists have begun to rectify our limited knowledge concerning how people and families negotiate a wide array of mid- and late-life transitions. As several of the authors in the volume note, the current preoccupation with the transitions of middle and old age has evolved from several histori- cal, economic, and demographic changes that have combined to shift our population toward the middle of the age structure and have produced new stages in the life cycle. The result is that today most Americans can expect to pass through these new stages including long-term survival, the empty nest period, universal retirement, and an extended term of widowhood in late life characterized by solitary living. Previous investigators appeared to be strongly influenced by psychologi- cal and psychiatric conceptions, whereas the contemporary researchers have given increasing attention to the impact of social and environmental factors. The imprint of psychoanalytic theory in particular can easily be detected in much of the early literature. Many of these initial developmen- talists concentrated on the stages of infancy and childhood. A major assumption was that personality was essentially fixed by early experiences. Today, however, the underlying assumption is that one's personality and behavioral patterns continue to change throughout the life cycle in response to a variety of events and conditions. 1. Helen H. Perlman, Forward, in Passing through Transitions, Naomi Golan (New York: Free Press, 1981) p. xv-xvi. 9

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