NU145 Unit 7 Emerging Adulthood Interview Example

"Not Really an Adult Yet, but Not a Kid": An Interview Write-Up With a Composite Twenty-Four-Year-Old Living Back at Home, Testing Her Answers Against Arnett's Five Features and Erikson's Intimacy Versus Isolation

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

NU145: Psychology Across the Lifespan

Unit 7 Interview Write-Up

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The participant is composite and the interview is written as a model; a real interview, its consent and its notes stay with the student who conducts it, and the participant is identified only as P.

Method

The interview lasted about an hour at a coffee shop of the participant's choosing. Verbal consent to take notes and to use her answers in a class paper was given and recorded at the start, with the right to skip any question or stop. She appears here only as P. Twelve open questions were used, grouped under work, relationships, living situation and age (see Appendix). Notes were taken by hand and summarized the same day. Any real interview, its consent and its notes remain with whoever conducts it.

Results by Theme

Work. P. works at a garden center and calls it "temporary, until I figure out what I'm doing." She started college in biology, switched to graphic design, then left after two years. She is considering a horticulture certificate. Relationships. She ended a two-year relationship last spring. She says she is "not looking for anything serious right now" because she wants to "know who I am first." Her closest relationships are with two friends from high school. Living situation. She moved back to her parents' home eighteen months ago to save money. She pays a small rent and does her own laundry and meals, but says, "It's weird being in my childhood bedroom at twenty-four." Age. Asked whether she feels like an adult, she said, "Not really an adult yet, but not a kid." She named financial independence and "knowing what I want to do" as the markers she has not reached. She said she feels hopeful: "I think it'll work out. I just don't know how yet."

Discussion: Arnett's Five Features

Arnett proposed emerging adulthood as a distinct period from the late teens through the twenties in industrialized societies (Arnett, 2000) and later described five features (Arnett, 2015).

1. Identity explorations. Strong fit. Two changes of major and a new interest in horticulture are explorations in work; her decision to stay single "to know who I am first" is exploration in love.

2. Instability. Strong fit. In four years she has changed schools, majors, relationships and homes.

3. Self-focus. Good fit. Her decisions center on her own direction, with few obligations to others.

4. Feeling in-between. Exact fit. "Not really an adult yet, but not a kid" is almost a definition.

5. Possibilities and optimism. Good fit. "I think it'll work out" shows the hope Arnett described, despite uncertain work.

Her own phrase, "not really an adult yet, but not a kid," does more for Arnett's theory than any definition in the paper.

Discussion: Erikson's Sequence

Erikson placed intimacy versus isolation in young adulthood and argued that true intimacy, a close and committed relationship, depends on first resolving the identity crisis of adolescence (Erikson, 1968). P.'s own words fit the sequence: she has stepped back from a serious relationship until she knows who she is. In that sense Erikson predicts her choice. But the timing fits poorly. Erikson expected identity to be largely settled by the end of the teens. At twenty-four, P. is still exploring work and love together, not in order. Arnett's view, that identity work has stretched into the twenties for many people in societies like hers, explains her timing better. Her case also suggests that the sequence may be looser than Erikson proposed, with exploration in work and closeness in friendship running alongside each other.

Conclusion

P.'s account fits Arnett's emerging adulthood on all five features, most clearly on feeling in-between. Erikson's link between identity and intimacy fits her reasoning but not her age. One interview cannot test a theory, but it can show how well a theory describes one person's experience in her own words.

Limits of the Interview

P. is one person from a middle-income family in a country where living at home in the twenties has become common, which is the setting Arnett's theory was built to describe. A twenty-four-year-old who began working full time at eighteen to support siblings, or who married at twenty, might fit Erikson's sequence better and Arnett's features poorly. Arnett himself limited emerging adulthood to societies where young people have the time and resources to explore. A single interview, and a participant who chose the questions she wanted to answer fully, also cannot show whether her account would be the same a year from now.

What I Would Change as the Interviewer

I asked about work first, which may have framed the hour around her uncertainty. Starting with what she enjoys might have brought out more of the optimism she expressed at the end. I also did not ask about money directly, though it explained her move home.

Appendix: Interview Guide

Work: What do you do now? How did you get here? What would you like to be doing in five years? Relationships: Who are the most important people in your life? What do you want from a relationship? How has that changed? Living situation: Where do you live and why? What is that like? What would change it? Age: Do you feel like an adult? What would make you feel like one? How do you think people your age are different from your parents at your age?

References

Arnett, J. J. (2000). Emerging adulthood: A theory of development from the late teens through the twenties. American Psychologist, 55(5), 469-480. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.55.5.469

Arnett, J. J. (2015). Emerging adulthood: The winding road from the late teens through the twenties (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.

Erikson, E. H. (1968). Identity: Youth and crisis. Norton.