David Levinson's Seasons of A Man's Life

David Levinson's Seasons of A Man's Life

Introduction

Background

In May of 1977, Daniel Levinson constructed a model of the seasons of

a man's life. His developmental theory consists of universal stages or phases

that extends from the infancy state to the elderly state. Most development

theories, such as Freud's psychosexual development theory or Piaget's cognitive

development theory, end in the adolescent stage of life. Levinson's stage

theory is important because it goes beyond most theories assuming that

development continues throughout adult life.

Levinson based his model on biographical interviews of 40 American men.

These 40 men were between 35 to 45 years in age and they worked as either

biology professors, novelists, business executives or industrial laborers. The

biographical interviews lasted one or two hours and ranged from six to ten

interviews for each subject. The questions asked focused on the subject's life

accounts in their post adolescent years. The interviews focused on topics such

as the men's background (education, religion, political beliefs) and major

events or turning points in their lives.

Levinson's concept of life structure (the men's socio-cultural world,

their participation in their world and various aspects of themselves) is the

major component in Levinson's theory. The life structure for each person

evolves through the developmental stages as people's age.

Two key concepts in Levinson's model are the stable period and the

transitional period in a person's development. The stable period is the time

when a person makes crucial choices in life, builds a life structure around the

choices and seeks goals within the structure. The transitional period is the

end of a person's stage and the beginning of a new stage.

Levinson's model contains five main stages. They are the pre-adulthood

stage (age 0 - 22), the early adulthood stage (age 17 - 45), the middle adult

stage (age 40 - 65), the late adulthood stage (age 60 - 85) and the late late

adult stage (age 80 plus). Levinson states "the shift from one era to the next

is a massive development step and require transitional period of several

years."(Levinson, 1977) This would explain why there is an overlap in each of

these stages.

Levinson's first adult stage in his model is called the Early Adult

Transition Period. This phase is similar to Erikson's psychological theory in

that both concern the young adult's identity crisis or role confusion. It is

during this phase that the young adult first gains independence (financial or

otherwise) and leaves the home. This is a transitional stage because it marks

the end of adolescence and the beginning of adulthood.

The second stage would be a stable period because it marks the time