Tesis sobre el tema "Emerging adults"

The purposes of this study were to: (1) examine the use of religious/spiritual coping by emerging adults coping with perceived life stressors; (2) assess the relationship between positive and negative forms of religious coping, and overall religious/spiritual coping with perceived stress; and (3) identify the specific religious/spiritual coping behaviors used by emerging adults when in times of perceived stress. The study analyzed self-report data collected from 715 emerging adults from a diverse undergraduate public university in California. Frequency analysis indicated that emerging adults commonly use prayer for self and others, count their blessings, and try not to sin when under moments of stress. Additionally, many of the respondents reported frequently seeking G-d's love and care, asking for forgiveness for sins, and meaning making as a means of coping with stress. Zero-order correlations revealed a positive and significant relationship between negative religious coping and perceived stress. Furthermore, when comparing differences between religious views (conflicted, secure, doubting, seeking, and not interested) t-test results found decreased use of religious coping, spiritual coping and positive religious coping for those who endorsed "conflicted" religious views. Conversely, those who indicated feeling "secure" reported higher use of religious coping, spiritual coping, and positive religious coping. Emerging adults who identified themselves as "doubting" were less likely to use of religious coping, spiritual coping, and positive religious coping and reported greater use of negative religious coping. "Seeking" emerging adults, identified using less spiritual coping. Finally, those who endorsed "not interested" reported less use of religious coping, spiritual coping, and positive and negative religious coping. Clinical implications for emerging adults and clinicians are discussed.

The path to adulthood has traditionally been marked by demographic transitions, such as graduating from college, attaining employment, becoming married, and having a child. Previous models of development have conceptualized adolescence as a time of identity exploration and consolidation. However, in the US, as well as many other countries, the timeline for attaining the aforementioned markers has been delayed. Additionally, a significant portion of individuals between the ages of 18 to 29, across several counties, report not seeing themselves fully as adults, and ascribing internal changes, such as taking responsibility for one’s actions, as more indicative of adulthood status. Emerging adulthood has been conceived as a distinct developmental period between adolescence and adulthood. It has been conceptualized as a time for self-focus, identity exploration, possibilities, instability, and feeling in-between. Research on emerging adulthood has shown this to be a time of increased well-being, as well as increased risk for mental health issues. However, little research has been conducted connecting emerging adulthood with psychotherapy.

The purpose of this study was to qualitatively investigate what themes occurred related to the transition to adulthood among emerging adults who were receiving psychotherapy. The sample consisted of 10 videotaped therapy sessions from an archival database; two sessions for each of five client participants who received services from an outpatient community counseling center. Using an open coding and content analysis approach to analyze transcripts of the taped sessions, two Parent Themes emerged from the sessions, Self-Development and Interpersonal Relationships. These themes and their corresponding content supported existing models of emerging adulthood, and demonstrated that the developmental processes related to this period are relevant to clinicians. Additionally, the findings pointed to potential areas of future research including the need to study emerging adults who are parents and whether and how feeling in-between adolescence and adulthood relates to clinical presentations in this population.

While not all emerging adults engage in risky behavior, for those who do, there may be a pattern based on family structure, socioeconomic status, and religiosity. The goal of the present study was to investigate gender differences in addictive risk-taking behavior while examining the relation between family structure, socioeconomic status, religiosity and addictive risk-taking behavior in emerging adults. Although many risk-taking behaviors are not addictive in nature, the focus of the present study was of those which are. Addictive risk-taking behaviors, for the purposes of this study, were defined as alcohol use and smoking of cigarettes and e-cigarettes; also known as vaping. Participants filled out a self-report questionnaire measuring alcohol use and smoking habits. Religiosity was considered as a covariate of risky behavior. The Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test (MAST) was used to examine alcohol use. The Severity of Dependence Scale (SDS) was used to measure addiction. The National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS) was used to assess smoking behavior. The Duke University Religion Index (DUREL) was used to measure dimensions of religious involvement and religiosity. The Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (M-C SDS) was used to assess response bias. The Family Affluence Scale II (FAS) was used to measure socioeconomic status. The Brief Sensation Seeking Scale (BSSS-8) was used to measure sensation seeking. Analyses of data were conducted utilizing regression analysis, t-tests, ANOVA, and Chi-square tests of association. The results of the study confirmed several of the factors that have been identified in previous research as being related to increased involvement in risk-taking behavior by emerging adults, and identified further gaps in research. The key findings were that males smoke and use e-cigarettes more than females, that males are more likely than females to become problem drinkers, that coming from a single-parent or two-parent household is not significantly related to engaging in risky behaviors, that having a higher socioeconomic status correlates with higher drinking rates, that religiosity does not significantly correlate with engagement in risky behaviors, that sensation seeking is significantly correlated with risky behaviors, and that race/ethnicity is not significantly correlated with risky behaviors. The most unusual findings were those related to the relationship between family structure and engagement in risky behaviors and the correlation between higher SES and higher drinking rates, as they diverged from previous findings in the literature. Overall, the study also yielded a combined model of SES, gender, and family structure that was significantly predictive of both drinking and smoking. The results of the study were not significantly skewed by social desirability. This study has both academic and practical significance in that it can inform prevention and education programs which can target these youths so this population does not engage in addictive risk-taking behaviors such as using alcohol, and cigarettes, further validate the instruments utilized in this study, and add to the body of literature relating to the theory of emerging adults and engagement in addictive risky behavior.

Emerging adulthood is recognized as a growing developmental stage that varies within and across cultures. Existing research generally characterizes this period as one of identity exploration, instability, self-reflection, and optimism. For many in this cohort, life events that were once organized into a stable sequence such as entering the workforce, marriage, and having children are increasingly a highly individualized and somewhat unstructured trajectory. This lack of structure provides opportunities and potential challenges to those transitioning from adolescence to adulthood. To this end, experiential acceptance may be an important target skill for intervention in guiding emerging adults through this tumultuous period.

Experiential acceptance is multiply defined in the literature, but is generally understood to be a present-focused approach that encourages a willingness to engage with one’s moment-to-moment experience, nonjudgment of moment-to-moment experiencing, and nonattachment to thoughts or feelings. This focus may be useful for both therapists to use as an intervention tool in helping clients to form an integrated sense of self; a developmental task that is predictive of mental health in young adults. Despite the apparent fit between experiential acceptance and the emerging adult age range, no studies to date have explored experiential acceptance as an intervention with this population.

Accordingly, the purpose of the current study was to qualitatively explore how therapists facilitate experiential acceptance with emerging adult clients. A sample of 5 client-therapist pairs from community counseling centers was selected, and two videotaped therapy sessions for each participant pair were analyzed. Inductive content analysis was employed, using open coding and abstraction methodology to create a hierarchy of themes. Results indicated that experiential acceptance, overall, was rarely employed by trainee therapists in psychotherapy sessions with emerging adults. The one parent theme that emerged across participants was termed Increasing Awareness. Comments aimed at increasing flexibility in thinking were also observed, but not across participants. It is hoped that this study will provide foundational information on experiential acceptance use in psychotherapy with emerging adults, which could be used to promote more attention to skill and theory integration in clinical training and spur future research on experiential acceptance use in therapy-as-usual.