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Various Aspects of Young Adults’ Functioning Various Aspects of Young Adults’ Functioning Edited by Katarzyna Adamczyk and Monika Wysota © Copyright by Authors Kraków 2015 ISBN 978-83-65148-05-6 Reviewer Dr hab. Elżbieta Rydz, Department of Developmental Psychology at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin Translation and language correction of texts in English Anna Czechowska Milena Kalida Joanna Matuszczak-Świgoń Elżbieta Pieńkowska Sylwia Salamon James West Małgorzata Zawlińska-Janas Biuro Tłumaczeń LINGWAY S.c. Design of the cover Magdalena Marchocka, student of the third year of Bachelor’s Degree studies in the field of Graphic Design at University of Arts in Poznań Typesetting Libron Wydawnictwo LIBRON – Filip Lohner al. Daszyńskiego 21/13 31-537 Kraków tel.: 12 628 05 12 email: [email protected] www.libron.pl Contents Preface / 7 Contributors / 11 Chapter 1 Ten Facts about Emerging Adulthood / 15 Małgorzata Rękosiewicz Chapter 2 Cognitive and Emotional Functioning of Young Adults on the Contemporary Labour Market / 31 Katarzyna Wojtkowska and Jan Jędrzejczyk Chapter 3 To Have to Better One’s Being: The Relationship Between Materialism and Self-Esteem, Satisfaction with Life and the Level of Anxiety Among Young Adults / 49 Magdalena Szawarska Chapter 4 The Construction and Validation Analysis of a Perceived Social Support Questionnaire Among Young Adults / 67 Anna Katarzyna Zaleszczyk Chapter 5 Becoming a Mother as a Challenge of Early Adulthood / 83 Joanna Matuszczak-Świgoń Chapter 6 The Feeling of Satisfaction and Self-Efficacy vs. the Parenting Styles of Mothers Active in the Labor Market / 101 Katarzyna Walęcka-Matyja and Marta Kucharska Chapter 7 The Future Time Perspective in Parenthood of Young Adults with Intellectual Disability / 119 Celina Timoszyk-Tomczak and Elżbieta Pieńkowska Chapter 8 Mid-Life Transition in Men and Women – Different Ways of Psychological Functioning in Middle Age / 131 Elżbieta Kluska and Piotr Łabuz Authors’ Notes / 147 Preface One year ago we invited Polish and foreign researchers to write texts concerning different aspects of young adults’ functioning in a changing world. As a result the book entitled “Functionng of Young Adults in a Changing World” was cre- ated. It was published by Libron Publishing House. In the course of its creation it turned out that the above topic does not cover all of the aspects regarding young adults and that there is still the need for the scientific discussion about young adulthood since this is a period in a person’s life, which, at present, is constantly influenced by significant changes and young contemporary adults’ functioning differs from the life of young adults ten or fifteen years ago. Nowa- days it is difficult to establish the beginning of this stage of human development and the criteria on the basis of which someone could be defined as an adult. Today young adults live in a different way that their parents or grandparents did. This is a result of the changes that took place in socio-cultural life within the last decades in many different countries. With the end of young adult- hood, which is also difficult to be defined, young people face next challenges such as mid-life transition. Young adults undertake developmental tasks of next periods in the life cycle having different resources than their parents or grandparents had. The period of young adulthood is an extremely interesting stage of human life cycle and its scientific analysis is necessary for the improvement of our knowledge of contemporary young people’s functioning which is still incomplete. Therefore, the idea of analyzing various issues of crucial significance for young adults was born. Thanks to joint involvement and effort of the authors the book concerning different aspects of Polish young adults was created. It brought up such topics as emerging adulthood as a new stage of development, cognitive and emotional functioning of young adults on the labor market, the connec- tion between materialism and self-esteem, satisfaction with life and the level of anxiety among young adults, motherhood and parenthood among young adults, different ways of psychological functioning in middle age, and finally 7 Preface development and validation of the Perceived Social Support Questionnaire in a sample of Polish young adults. Chapter 1, Ten facts about emerging adulthood by Małgorzata Rękosiewicz, discusses a new phase of the development of individuals in developed countries – emerging adulthood described by Jeffrey. J. Arnett. Ten facts about this phase of the development suggested by the author of this chapter are based on five traits distinguished by Arnett. Apart from that, the author discusses the results of studies conducted both in Poland and abroad. The author also presents the concept of identity development created by Koen Luyckx and colleagues, and the theory of social participation types developed by Heinz Reinders. Chapter 2, Cognitive and emotional functioning of young adults on the contem- porary labour market by Katarzyna Wojtkowska and Jan Jędrzejczyk, outlines that the global economic crisis and the subsequent recession in the euro area have contributed to the difficult situation on the Polish labor market. This situation significantly influences on the young people, because of high unemployment. Therefore, it is important to explore their cognitive and emotional functioning in the context of the current situation on the labor market. The aim of the study presented in this chapter was to evaluate the relationship between perceived stress, emotionality, cognitive regulation of emotions and hope for success in young adults. Overall, results suggest that in the group of young adults stress in the situation on the labor market is associated with frequent negative emotions feeling and frequent dumb thoughts to negative events in your life. In turn, the expectation of positive results of their own actions is associated with susceptibil- ity to frequent feeling positive emotions, thinking how you can become a better due to negative developments and planning how to deal with them. Chapter 3, To have to better one’s being: the relationship between materialism and self-esteem, satisfaction with life and the level of anxiety among young adults by Magdalena Szawarska, is dedicated to the issue of raising importance of meaning that material goods have in everyday life. The study conducted aimed at verifying if increased concentration on material objects and a tendency to regard them as a condition of happiness and a measure of life achievements, are connected with psychological functioning of young adults. Results showed that here is a relationship between materialism and subjectively assessed psy- chological deficits. It turned out, that materialism can be predicted on the basis of lower life satisfaction and higher level of anxiety, and, for men only, on the basis of lower self-esteem. In chapter 4, Becoming a mother as a challenge of early adulthood, Joanna Matuszczak-Świgoń characterizes the period of early adulthood in the context 8 Preface of becoming a mother. She describes the phases of building maternal identity and processes involved in this transition. Moreover, the author presents the results of her own research which shows that mothers-to-be build their expec- tations and beliefs about a child into coherent stories. This way they acquaint the unknown and prepare themselves for performing a new role. Chapter 5, The feeling of satisfaction and self-efficacy vs. the parenting styles of active mothers on the labor market by KatarzynaWalęcka-Matyja and Marta Kucharska, presents the study focused on a relation between life satisfaction and accomplishment of mother role by working women. The research results affirm that mothers who are satisfied with their lives, with high self-efficacy prefer democratic and liberal-loving parenting style. Furthermore, there are differences in choosing parenting styles which are determinated by place of residence, perception of material situation and age of respondents. In Chapter 6, The future time perspective in parenthood of young adults with intellectual disability, Celina Timoszyk-Tomczak and Elżbieta Pieńkowska in- troduce two quite broad psychological domains: one describing the temporal dimension and its constructing during the individual life span and another referring to challenges of parenthood of an intellectual disabled offspring in young adulthood. The authors focuses especially on the role the future time per- spective plays in a particular biography. The chapter considers a well-balanced time perspective as a potential resource that may facilitate processes of coping with difficult parental situations in the development of a disabled young person. The preliminary theoretical analysis is treated here as a preparatory base for the future empirical verification of the ways parents of intellectually disabled young adults construct their and their offspring’s future time perspectives. In Chapter 7, Mid-life transition in men and women – different ways of psy- chological functioning in middle age, Elżbieta Kluska and Piotr Łabuz present the results of research on different ways of experiencing mid-life transition. Mid-life transition is categorized as developmental crisis and happens usually at the age of 35 to 45. The purpose of the research was to discover and compare different ways of psychological functioning of men and women in midlife and to try to establish what role sex plays in experiencing mid-life transition. The results