Feb 16 2009
How Bogus Beliefs Persist (III): There is a Crisis in the Road Through Mid-life
[This is the 3rd part in a 4-part series. Intro here.]
The concept of the mid-life crises provides a whopper of a belief-net. In the example discussed previously, at least one of the two variables — sugar — can be strictly defined. But both mid-life and crisis are sufficiently abstract as to allow all sorts of data to be caught,
whether it be genuine butterflies, or moths, locusts, sparrows and the occasional twin-engine Cessna. Does mid-life consist of the years between 40 and 60? That’s a lot of years. And what about crisis? What constitutes a crisis? If recently divorced Dave across the street buys a boat that he obviously can’t afford, is this evidence of a crisis?
Armed with the belief in a mid-life crisis, a person can readily notice and acknowledge those instances of mid-life-ish persons behaving in a crisis-ish manner. My own mother, at the age of 55, following three decades of driving a series of station wagons, bought a black, two door Trans-Am. A few relatives may have gossiped about my mother’s otherwise hidden crisis, using this inkblot of unusual behavior as evidence. Someone with graying hair doing something odd — must be going through a mid-life crisis. Meanwhile, opposing cases fail to register. We fail to pronounce, “Hey, there’s a person who is happy and sane during the middle years of their life.”
As for alternative cases, who, after observing Brad, twenty-nine years old and recently divorced, dating a much younger woman and bringing home a boat he obviously can’t afford, is going to reckon, “gee, I guess twenty-somethings have crises as well.”
In mid-life, male and female hormone levels do change. And thoughts about one’s mortality may increase. In fact, it is a normative experience to enter middle adulthood (the years 40 to 65) with two living parents, and to leave with none. So there may be some are good reasoning as to why there could be a mid-life crisis. But how heavily should we weigh “good reasoning.” What does heavier information reveal?
Unfortunately, direct evidence is lacking. No double-blind, placebo-controlled experiments have been performed on the link between mid-life and crises. (I guess psychologists have yet to figure out how to use time travel in the university basement laboratory to project one group of subjects into their own future while the control group stays behind. Or something.) But there does exist fairly strong data, or information, that highlights opposing cases. For example, midlife is actually a time of remarkable stability in personality traits. In one study, Paul Costa, a leader in the field of personality and co-creator of the “Big Five” model, summarized his findings this way: “older Ss were slightly lower in neuroticism, extraversion, and openness.” He added, “There were no differences in personality scores that might be attributable to a mid-life crisis or transition.” (3)
In their review of common mid-life changes, Aldwin and Levenson write, “In contrast to these perspectives on the putative crisis of middle age, surveys routinely find individuals in midlife to have fewer psychological symptoms, higher levels of marital satisfaction, better life satisfaction and mastery, and, in general, to be in fairly good health.” (4)
Human minds could be described as perpetual reason-seekers. We like to attribute behavior, especially unusual behavior, to a cause. “A cause,” as in “a single cause.” Sometimes any old cause will do, as long as it allows us to park a striking observation in the web of our minds. Whether observations, the foundation for building beliefs, are deemed noteworthy can depend upon the beliefs we already hold. The resulting feedback process allows relatively vacuous propositions such as “mid-life is a time of crisis” to persist. Three decades ago Orville highlighted two contradictory aspects of the issue this way: “While the heuristic value of a concept of developmental periods is recognized, it is noted that data do not indicate that mid-life stages form an invariant progression of events.” (5)
Sure, there are potholes in the road through mid-life. But I suspect that early life and late life have their share. Furthermore, those in mid-life who hit one rarely suffer consequences worthy of the term “crisis.”
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(3) Costa, P. T. 1986. “Cross-sectional studies of personality in a national sample: II. stability in neuroticism, extraversion, and openness.” Psychology & Aging, 1 (2), 144-149.
(4) 4 Aldwin, C. M. & Levenson, M.R. 2001. “Stress, Coping, and Health at Mid-life: A developmental perspective.” In: Lachman, M. E. (ed.). Handbook of Midlife Development. New York., Wiley, 188-215.
(5) Brim, O. G. 1976. “Theories of the male mid-life crisis.” Counseling Psychologist, 6 (1), 2-9.
[Update: There is now cross-cultural evidence that males are more
likely to become depressed in middle adulthood. Evidence of a "crisis" . . . ? Hmm.]
[...] Bernardin from The Evolving Mind takes on more absurdity in his post, “How Bogus Beliefs Persist (III): There is a Crisis in the Road Through Mid-life.” Armed with the belief in a mid-life crisis, a person can readily notice and acknowledge [...]