Adult Development, Definition, Culture, and Applications

Criteria for Adulthood

For years, researchers have examined various events (e.g., marriage, completion of education, starting a career) that are often considered markers of adulthood. More recently, however, researchers have begun to ask young people who are actually in the process of making the transition to adulthood what they perceive as necessary for adult status. Results find that emerging adults do not consider marriage and other events as necessary for adulthood. Instead, young people use more internal and individualistic qualities as the most important criteria for adulthood, [Page 47]including taking responsibility for one's actions, independent decision making, and financial independence from parents (see Arnett, 2000). These criteria consistently rank as the most important markers of adulthood in the minds of young people in the United States, including various cultural subgroups such as ethnic minorities (Arnett, 2003) and religious subgroups (Nelson, 2003). Taken together, independence and self-sufficiency are the general themes in the process of becoming adults for young people in Western cultures such as the United States.

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