The Transition From Adolescence to Adulthood

The transition to adulthood is critical but often misunderstood. As societal and economic changes have created new demands and challenges for young people, particularly those in the 18- to 25-year-old range, we now recognize emerging adulthood as a distinct period separate from adolescence and older adulthood (Arnett, 2004). During this period, emerging adults experience new life roles.

Research by Arnett (2004) and others (Kroger, Martinussen, & Marcia, 2010) has shown the length of time for young people to actually create a personal identity has increased to the mid-to-late 20s. Emerging adulthood in Western culture is still a time of shifting identities. There is a continued risk of experimentation with unhealthy behaviors, posing perhaps an even greater risk for the young people in this later emerging adulthood stage. They are no longer minors and are faced with two additional life challenges: increased adult responsibilities and decreased familial support.

Autonomy: Emotional and Behavioral Components

A core element in the journey to adulthood involves the attainment of autonomy (Rice & Dolgin, 2008). During this time period, young people establish their uniqueness from others, and new interests, values, goals, and worldviews divergent from close others may emerge (Rice & Dolgin, 2008). As a normal developmental process, autonomy has been described as having two components: emotional and behavioral.

Emotional autonomy refers to becoming free of childish emotional dependence on adults (Rice & Dolgin, 2008). Parents can either foster an overdependence on the developing young person or provide the opposite, a lack of guidance and support. Clearly, a balance of both is the most preferred course of action (Rice & Dolgin, 2008). Behavioral autonomy refers to youth learning to become more skilled in their own self-governing behavior and independent enough to make decisions on their own accord (Holmbeck et al., 2006; Rice & Dolgin, 2008). Young persons are faced with the ultimate developmental conundrum: On the one hand, they are met with the task of exploring alternative behaviors and roles that smack of adultlike decisions, and on the other hand, they bear the new, yet daunting role of no longer being confined by parental and once-perceived societal regulations.

From the onset of puberty through age 25, the adolescent brain undergoes profound changes in structure and function (Wetherill & Tapert, 2013). Advances in developmental neuroscience and neuroimaging demonstrate regions of the brain develop at different rates—from birth to emerging adulthood (Mills, Goddings, Clasen, Giedd, & Blakemore, 2014). Recognizing how many adolescent behaviors can be attributed to a developmental mismatch between structural/functional imbalances in certain brain regions is a key to MI spirit. Recent research about two key brain regions has evidenced how structural changes affect functional behavioral outputs in youth (Feldstein Ewing, Tapert, & Molina, 2016; Luciana & Feldstein Ewing, 2015). Specifically, evidence is emerging on how the limbic regions are associated with reward and emotional regulation, and how regions such as the prefrontal cortex are associated with cognitive control. Other brain regions, associated with the activation and processing of social information, can actually enhance the development of adolescent cognitive executive functions, as compared to other developmental periods (Steinberg, 2008). For example, while impulsive behaviors may be seen as a lack of “cognitive control,” we concur some degree of risk-taking behavior may be necessary and important for youth to gain important life experiences required to assume adult roles.

This developmental period offers incredible opportunities. In contrast to older adults whose brains are no longer in a formative stage of development, the neural networks of youth are being reshaped with each learning experience. Understanding these processes can further help you to understand how to turn challenges into opportunities for growth.