Peterson C C
Department of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.
Int J Aging Hum Dev. 1996;42(3):189-203. doi: 10.2190/MMDD-F9YP-NPN8-720M.
In two studies, beliefs about descriptive and prescriptive age norms for adult developmental transitions were examined in a sample of 214 Australian university students aged seventeen to fifty years. The results of Study 1 revealed a belief by the vast majority that descriptive age norms still exist for both family transitions (marriage, parenthood, grandparenthood) and career transitions (leaving school, retirement). While these results were in keeping with those of Neugarten et al.'s original study of age norms in the United States, the actual "best" normative ages recommended by this sample of contemporary Australian adults differed in every case from the U.S. age norms of three decades ago. Matching contemporary demographic trends, the present Australian young-adult sample advocated later ages for marriage and grandparenthood, a younger norm for leaving school, and a broader normative age range for retiring from work. Study 2 tested Neugarten's hypothesis that age norms today lack some of the prescriptive overtones implicit in original "social clock" concept. The results supported this suggestion. In fact, only a minority of contemporary Australian adults believed that there were prescriptive upper age boundaries for first marriage or university study. Furthermore, their prescriptive lower age limits for every transition except retirement fell at or below the onset of adulthood itself (18 years), in keeping with biological constraints on procreation and maturational constraints on social and cognitive development. The mean ranges of acceptability prescribed by this Australian sample for each key adult transition were likewise very wide, stretching from an average of twenty-four years (for motherhood) to forty-nine years (for a man's first marriage). This result also contrasts sharply with the ranges of no more than five years prescribed for the same transitions by the vast majority of Neugarten et al.'s sample three decade ago. The probable consequences for self-esteem, mental health and life planning of this heightened variability and reduced prescriptiveness in the timing of life events for contemporary men and women were discussed.
在两项研究中，对214名年龄在17岁至50岁之间的澳大利亚大学生样本进行了调查，以了解他们对成人发展过渡阶段的描述性和规范性年龄规范的看法。研究1的结果显示，绝大多数人认为，家庭过渡（结婚、为人父母、成为祖父母）和职业过渡（离开学校、退休）都存在描述性年龄规范。虽然这些结果与纽加滕等人在美国进行的关于年龄规范的原始研究结果一致，但这个当代澳大利亚成年人样本推荐的实际“最佳”规范年龄在每种情况下都与三十年前美国的年龄规范不同。与当代人口趋势相符，目前澳大利亚年轻成年人样本主张晚婚和晚育，离校年龄规范更年轻，退休的规范年龄范围更广。研究2检验了纽加滕的假设，即如今的年龄规范缺乏原始“社会时钟”概念中隐含的一些规范性意味。结果支持了这一观点。事实上，只有少数当代澳大利亚成年人认为初婚或大学学习存在规范性的年龄上限。此外，除退休外，他们为每个过渡阶段规定的规范性年龄下限都在成年开始年龄（18岁）及以下，这与生育的生理限制以及社会和认知发展的成熟限制相符。这个澳大利亚样本为每个关键成人过渡阶段规定的可接受平均年龄范围同样非常宽泛，从平均24岁（生育）到49岁（男性初婚）不等。这一结果也与三十年前纽加滕等人样本中为相同过渡阶段规定的不超过五年的范围形成鲜明对比。文中还讨论了当代男性和女性生活事件时间安排上这种更高的变异性和更低的规范性对自尊、心理健康和人生规划可能产生的影响。
