Young adults at the self- aware level begin to understand and accept individual differences and to distinguish the variations in feeling and that make us unique.
Thus , Loevinger echoes Erikson's Theory that individuals require a clear sense of themselves before they can form truly intimate relationship with others.
However Loevinger concluded from her research that because most people spent a lifetime developing this ability, the progress from one stage to the next is determined by an individual's psychological clock, not by chronological age or the social enviroment.


The Family Life Cycle

It is a stage when parents and children must separate one another so that young adults can accept emotional responsibility for themselves. According to the family life-cycle theory, three developmental tasks must be mastered for this to happen.

1. Young adults must form an identity separate from that of the family of origin. This process of INDIVIDUATION requires young adults to "sort out emotionally what they will take along from the family of origin, what they will leave behind, and what they create for themselves." (Carter & McGoldrick, pg.13)
2. Young adults must develop new intimate relationship with peers outside the family to provide the social and emotional support they need.
3. Young adults must make their first tentative commitment to a career or workplace role.

Parents play important role in development of the adult at this stage. Parents must be tolerant of differences of opinion as young adult makes occupational choices. Daniel Levinson's Theory of the Seasons of Life

Daniel Levinson has proposed that era of early adulthood lasts 25 years, beginning at about 17 years of age and ending with transition to middle age in the early forties. During the early adult transition, from the ages of 17 to 22 years, his research suggest, an individual must leave behind adolescent life and begin to prepare an adult LIFE STRUCTURE. During period from the age of 22 to about 28 years, the individual is ENTERERING THE ADULT WORLD> Early adulthood is a time for building the structure of one's life. According to Levinson "the life structure is the pattern or design of life, a meshing of self-in-world" ( 1978,p.278). He identified 4 major tasks of this period :

1. Forming a dream and giving it a place in the life structure
2. Forming mentor relationships
3. Forming an occupation
4. Forming love relationship, marriage, and Family

The DREAM is the individual's sense of self in the adult world and is the core of the life structure (Levinson, 1978). Men are more likely to described Dreams involving occupational accomplishment, but some men and many women describes Dreams related to community and family (Levinson,1996).
From the ages of 22 to 28, young adults build and test a preliminary life structure that integrates work, love, and community to attain their Dreams.
The age 30 TRANSITION occurs between the ages of 28 to 33 years.