The timing of psychosocial changes in women's lives: the years 25 to 45.

Sixty women, aged 30, 35, 40, and 45, participated in a retrospective interview concerning psychosocial changes in their adult lives. Subjects' responses provided self-report data concerning specific psychosocial changes, and judges who read the interview protocols provided independent ratings of major psychosocial transitions. The distributions of self-reported changes and rated transitions across both chronological age and family cycle phases were examined statistically. Rated transitions were found to be reliably related to chronological age but not to family cycle phase. Specifically, 78% of the subjects manifested a major transition commencing between ages 27 and 30. That transition was characterized initially by personal disruption, followed by reassessment and finally by increased psychological well-being. Both chronological age and family cycle phase were reliably related to a variety of self-reported changes. The implications for conceptions of adult developmental changes are discussed.