FHS 1500-001

Baylee Warner
15 May 2018
Observation 4

18 years old
“Barbara”
Personal Home
Quiet room in a house with a few other children.

Physical Development
For this observation, Barbara was interviewed in her own personal home to for her
personal convenience. Barbara described that she has not grown for a very long time. She did say
that she felt extremely healthy and about as strong as she ever has. Other than that, all of the
other bodily functions are to be expected for her age group. Kathleen Berger explained the way
that emerging adults’ (those ages 18-25 years of age), body works. “Health has not changed,
except maybe to improve. As probably has been true for millennia, every body system--including
the digestive, respiratory, circulatory, and sexual-reproductive systems--functions optimally at
the beginning of adulthood” (394). Barbara had similar views about her body as were described
in Berger’s textbook.
Barbara also detailed about her views of her body image from now versus when she was
an adolescent. She said that she is much more confident now then she was then. She said that she
always wanted to impress people with how she looked and stressed about it, but now that she is
older she is more confident with herself. She doesn’t care as much about what others think of
her.
When asked why Barbara thinks emerging adults are more likely to take part in risky
behavior such as risky sports, drug use, etc. just for the fun of it she said that it was because they
have this new freedom. They have all the energy in the world and they also have this new
freedom from their parents so they can make more of their own decisions. That way they can do
all those risky things that they wanted to do before but didn’t because of the fear of their parents
catching and stopping them. Cosgrave described why emerging adults take these risks; “[p]eople
behave this way partly for the rush of adrenalin” (qtd. in Berger 397).

Psychosocial Development
Barbara described her self-esteem as pretty good, and a lot better than it once was. As
explained earlier, she doesn’t care nearly as much about what people think of her as she used to.
Blonigen et al. wrote, “Psychological research finds both continuity and improvement in
attitudes. For example, one longitudinal study found that 17-year-olds who saw life in positive
terms maintained their outlook as time went on, while those who were negative often changed
for the better.” (qtd. in Berger 413). She also talked about her anxiety that she has suffered with.
Twenge et al. explained, “[p]sychopathology may be increasing, and in some emerging adults
develop serious disorders that they did not have as children” (qtd in. Berger 413). Barbara further
explained that she did have some pretty bad anxiety when she was younger but it went away
after a while. It then got really bad in high school but she has since then got help for it and feels a
lot better now. But she does get her bad days every once in a while.
When asked if Barbara ever had a problem with vocational or ethnic identity, she said
that she never had much of a problem with ethnic identity because her parents were both white
and was raised in a part of the country that was very similar to her. Vocational identity on the
other hand, was a harder thing to find. It has been a long grueling process for Barbara and a lot of
pros and cons about what she would like to do with the rest of her life but she always knew that
she wanted to be in health care. As she took more health care related classes she realized that she
was fascinated with fetal development and wanted to possibly pursue a career in that. Since high
school she has been completing prerequisites to get into a radiographer program and later a
sonography program so that she can become an ultrasound technician.

Cognitive Development
Barbara then discussed how her thinking has changed since she was younger. When she
was younger she always thought there was a right and a wrong to every situation. A little later in
life she just liked to solve problems and there was only really one correct answer for each
problem. She now knows that every situation has many different possibilities to solve a problem.
Yan and Arlin wrote about the type of thinking many emerging adults have, “postformal thought,
characterized by “problem findings,” not just “problem solving,” wherein a person is more open
to ideas and less concerned with absolute right and wrong”(qtd. in Berger 399). In other words,
emerging adults have the capacity to be able to think in more ways than just one like they
previously had, just as Barbara described her experience throughout her life.
Culture and higher education obviously also have a big thing with cognitive
development. Barbara explained that in her culture that it is common for everyone to go to
college after high school. Those who don’t are thought to be unsuccessful or ‘losers’. That is
how culture helps cognitive development grow because it leads to the going of college. College
helps with cognitive development because it makes you think more. Barbara said that she is a big
believer in going to college. Berger wrote, “‘Does college education advance critical thinking
and postformal thought?’ Past research finds that the answer is yes”(404). So even research has
found that college leads young adults to being able to think more complex. Which makes sense
because that is what a student has to do in college, learn how to think differently and more
widely than they did before.