Continuity in Psychosocial Change from Adolescence to Young Adulthood

Abstract

This chapter is concerned with the degree to which developmental change between adolescence and young adulthood shows continuity or stability. It argues for a significant degree of stability despite major changes in personality, the perceived environment, and behavior across the intervening years. Data are presented from a longitudinal study of junior high school cohorts and college freshmen, all in their adolescent years, followed for four consecutive years, and then followed up again, after a 6 year hiatus, when all were young adults. The findings revealed impressive developmental change across those years but continuity in the place that individual participants occupied in the various distributions. Further, stability coefficients for the multiple measures employed across the 6-year time interval were significant and often substantial; outcomes in young adulthood were predictable from measures obtained in adolescence; and the timing of a transition behavior—early or later time of initial sexual intercourse experience—was predictable from a pattern of antecedent personality, perceived environment, and behavior attributes. These multiple research strategies all demonstrate the stability or continuity of developmental change across the adolescent to young adult segment of the life course. In addition, the research supports the importance of the psychosocial dimension of conventionality/unconventionality in forecasting the direction of developmental change from adolescence to young adulthood in these cohorts.

Reprinted with permission from:

Jessor, R. (1983). Chapter 18: “The stability of change: Psychosocial development from adolescence to young adulthood.” In D. Magnusson & V. L. Allen (Eds.), Human development: An interactional perspective (pp. 321–341). New York: Academic Press.