This symposium focuses on understanding developmental experiences in the adult lives of women, including the nature of psychosocial changes and their relation to chronological age, family-cycle phase, and historical time. Harris, Reinke, and Ellicott report on a research program oriented to hypothesis testing. They interviewed 124 middle-class women randomly selected from seven age-groups (30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, and 60) about their life experiences retrospectively. Noteworthy findings included major transitions associated with ages 27–30 and with the preschool, launching, and postparental phases of the family cycle. In particular, the family cycle, which implies a context of relationships and social roles, illuminated many psychosocial regularities across women’s lives. In her discussion, Hancock describes some theory-generating research which suggests that women’s developmental crises, precipitated by ruptures in relationships, challenge assumptions about relationships and impel women toward active self-emergence.

Sixty-four middle-class women from four cohorts aged 45, 50, 55, and 60 participated in a retrospective interview concerning psychosocial changes in their adult lives. Their responses provided self-report data relating to specific psychosocial changes, and judges who read the interview protocols provided independent ratings of major psychosocial transitions. The results indicated that major psychosocial transitions were more likely to be associated with phases of the family cycle than with chronological age; within the family cycle, transitions were more likely to occur during the preschool (28% of the women), launching (42% of the women), and postparental (33% of the women) phases than during the no children, school-age, or adolescent phases; transitions associated with the preschool and launching phases were characterized by dissatisfaction, personal disruption, marital unhappiness, and decreased personal development, whereas transitions associated with the postparental phase were characterized by personal mellowing and improved marital relations; and finally, numerous self-reported psychosocial changes were associated with family cycle phase, and a small number of changes was associated with chronological age.

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