Psychosocial Development and Subjective Well-Being in an Age Cross-Section of Adults

Abstract

Though often cited, Erikson's theory has been relatively neglected in empirical studies of adult development, partly because few measures operationalize his psychosocial constructs. The present research examined the internal consistency and construct validity of an expanded version of the Inventory of Psychosocial Development (E-IPD) which included the generativity and ego integrity scales created by Boylin et al. [1]. Participants were seventy-nine adults with a mean age of forty-two and mean educational level of fifteen years. Total E-IPD scores were found to have high internal consistency but many individual stage scales did not. Men's E-IPD scores showed discriminant validity with respect to social desirability and women's E-IPD scores showed convergent validity with a measure of subjective well-being. Psychosocial development scores were largely unrelated to age, indicating that the E-IPD may have little validity as a measure of adult development.