Comparison of Adulthood Criteria Endorsed by Emerging Adults and Their Parents in Greece: A Mixed-Method Study.

Although there is extensive research on the adulthood criteria endorsed by emerging adults, there is very limited evidence on the comparison between emerging adults and their parents regarding this issue. Moreover, in these comparison studies, only quantitative methodology was used. Therefore, the present study uses a mixed-method design to investigate similarities and differences in the prevalence of the endorsed adulthood criteria between emerging adults and their parents, between male and female emerging adults, and between fathers and mothers. Participants were 251 emerging adult students, aged 18.0 to 25.9 (M = 19.9; 50.2% females), and 341 parents of these emerging adults, aged 33.6 to 61.9 (M = 50.4; 58.4% mothers). They completed the Markers of Adulthood Scale and named the three criteria that they considered most important for a person to be considered an adult. An inductive-deductive coding scheme was used. The analyses exhibited a high consensus between emerging adults and their parents in the endorsement of adulthood criteria. Only criteria related to Independence and to the Self were reported more frequently by emerging adults than their parents. A strong agreement between genders in both age groups was also found. The contribution of this study is twofold. First, it supports the idea that in Greece adulthood is a construct that is largely shared by emerging adults and their parents. Second, it illustrates how a mixed-method design can complement quantitative studies and extend their findings.

What Is Adulthood? A Comparison of the Adulthood Criteria of Greek Emerging Adults and Their Parents.

Extensive research has investigated the criteria that emerging adults consider important for adulthood. Limited research has investigated this topic between adults from different age groups. This study aims to compare the criteria that emerging adults and their parents use to define adulthood. Participants included 73 Greek emerging adult and parent dyads. The emerging adult participants aged 18.5-23.6 (54.8% females), and the parent participants aged 41.3-59.5 years (82.2% females). All participants provided socio-demographic data and completed the Greek version of the Scale of Conceptions of the Transition to Adulthood. Results revealed that a) the most widely endorsed criteria for both emerging adults and their parents included accepting responsibility for one's actions, avoiding committing petty crimes, and avoiding drunk driving, b) emerging adults assigned on average less importance than did their parents on the adulthood criteria, and c) emerging adults and their parents agree strongly on the ranking of the adulthood criteria. These results extend previous findings from China and the United States, which evidenced both congruence and disagreement between emerging adults and their parents in the criteria for adulthood.Supplemental data for this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/00221325.2021.1957761 .

Are identity styles important for psychological well-being?

A successful identity formation is related to being psychologically well (Erikson, 1963). This link seems to be lost in the identity style literature that focuses either on the maturity of the identity styles, or on adaptive and maladaptive behaviour correlates of identity styles. In this study, we address this lost link. We administered the Identity Style Inventory (Berzonsky, 1992a) and the scales of Psychological Well-Being (Ryff, 1989) to 230 Hellene (Greek) University students. The Hellenic (Greek) translations of the scales functioned appropriately. The findings suggest that avoiding facing identity issues is negatively related to psychological well-being, while, when such issues are faced, the way of facing them is not important.