Levinson’s Seasons
The Seasons of a Man’s Life (Levinson, Darrow , Klein, Levinson, &
McKee, 1978), one of the most influential works on adult development,had its major impact before it was published. While he was still work -
ing on the book, Daniel Levinson discussed his ideas with Gail Sheehy ,
who went on to write the best-selling Passages (1976). Levinson and
colleagues’ research was based on 10–20 hours of interviews with eachof 40 men in the age range from 35 to 45. Four occupational groups—executives, workers, biologists, and novelists—were selected to providesome variation, since occupation has a decisive effect on shaping the lifecourse. The subjects were “normals”; that is, they were not recruitedfrom hospitals or psychiatric clinics, although several had been in psy -
chotherapy at some time in the past. (Much later D. J. Levinson and J.
D. Levinson, 1996, published a work claiming to replicate their findingsin women.)
In the course of their interviews with men, Levinson and his co-
workers began to see a pattern. Instead of finding that the life coursewas shaped by external events like marriage, job promotions, or illness,they believed they had found evidence of a universal, age-linked seriesof stages, organized into broader eras. Childhood, Early Adulthood,Middle Adulthood, and Late Adulthood (and possibly Late-Late Adult-hood) were the major eras, each lasting about 20 years, and each brokenfurther into alternating stages of transition and stabilization. The majortransitions, including the Midlife Transition at age 40–45, overlappedboth the preceding and following eras.
The names given to the different stages summarize their develop -
mental meaning. The Early Adult Transition (age 17–22) involves
breaking away from home and facing adulthood. This stage had alreadybeen heavily researched (e.g., Constantinople, 1969), since for many in -
dividuals it occurs at college, where most subjects for psychological
studies are recruited. Entering the Adult World comes next, as the manbegins to function as an adult, usually starting a career and family .These initial attempts at acting like a grown-up are likely to be clumsy ,because they begin without the benefit of experience and often with apremature haste to settle down and prove one’s adulthood; so betweenages 28 and 33 the Age Thirty Transition occurs, in which the early oc -
cupational and marital choices are reexamined and either rejected,
modified, or reaffirmed.170 PERSONALITY IN ADULTHOOD