Is It Intrinsically Age-Related?
One of the most controversial features of Levinson’s theory is his use of
chronological age as the basis for his stages. Most other adult develop -
mentalists prefer to break up the life cycle with marker events such as
marriage, birth of the first child, and retirement. Sociologically , theyargue, the newlywed 18-year-old male is more like the newlywed 28-year-old than like his bachelor age peers. Levinson counters by notingthat the marriage of teenagers is likely to be as immature as they are; theevent is colored by the period in which it occurs, not vice versa. On theother hand, the teenage father in this culture may be immature becausehe has not had the work and family experience of the 28-year-old (per -
haps maturity comes sooner in less-developed cultures). Experience,
not age per se, may be the crucial variable.
Is It Discontinuous?
The notion of stages implies qualitative differences between one periodand another. Even if the changes that Levinson suggests actually comeabout, is there evidence that they do so in quantum leaps? Take, for ex-ample, the realization that one is growing older. Levinson is probablyquite correct in pointing out that the fact of aging requires readjust-ment. Time goes by continuously , but our conception of ourselves doesnot change at the same rate. We tend to think we are as we have alwaysbeen until something confronts us with our age and forces us to ac-knowledge the change. But it seems unlikely that this occurs in discrete,age-related stages. A thousand incidents may contribute to this insight:a first gray hair, a 20th anniversary or 40th birthday , the death of afriend or parent, a newsreel from one’s childhood with grotesquelydated fashions and expressions, the observation that college studentsget younger and more immature each year. Each of these small realiza -
tions may be something of a jolt, but is there any evidence that they all
occur together at precisely timed intervals? A man who still thought ofhimself as a teenager at age 39 probably would be in line for a midlifecrisis, but are there many men like that?
Is It Personality Change?
When Levinson is confronted with evidence of stability in basic person -
ality traits (Rubin, 1981), he tends to dismiss it. Dispositions such asThe Personal Interview 173