The law confers adulthood on the basis of age, but also recognises the process of becoming an adult as involving gradual increases in social responsibility. This legally defined approach to adulthood is mirrored in other countries, where there are differences between the age of majority and social responsibilities granted to young people.

Play can heal emotional wounds. As adults, when you play together, you are engaging in exactly the same patterns of behavior that positively shape the brains of children. These same playful behaviors that predict emotional health in children can also lead to positive changes in adults.

Our study, currently a preprint, assessed when people feel like adults, why they feel like adults, and whether they see adulthood as a positive or a negative time of life.

At any moment, someone’s aggravating behavior or our own bad luck can set us off on an emotional spiral that threatens to derail our entire day. Here’s how we can face our triggers with less reactivity so that we can get on with our lives.

Jeffrey Arnett, a psychologist and professor at Clark University in Massachusetts, studied the development of adults and argues that there is a new and distinct period of development in between adolescence and adulthood. This stage, which he calls "emerging adulthood", occurs between the ages of 18 and 25.[58] Arnett describes these individuals as able to take some responsibility for their lives, but still not completely feeling like an adult.

You're eligible for a Genius discount at Hôtel Vauban! To save at this property, all you have to do is sign in.

I’ve lived my adult years searching for my parents; not the obvious ones I was born to, but their replacements. My subconscious desire to have parents in my adult life has caused me years of discontent.

Adults have duties and obligations in a way that children, adolescents, and most twenty-somethings do not. These responsibilities make the lives of adults more stressful and demanding than at any other stage of life. But it is these duties that invest life with meaning and purpose.

The increased acceptance of por facto relationships has also reduced the need to leave home and marry in some Western cultures. Read more: What is your real 'biological age', and what does this mean for your health?

The role of religion in one's life can impact development during adolescence.[64] The National Library of Medicine (NCBI) highlights some studies that show rates of religiosity declining as people move out of the house and live on their own. Oftentimes when people live on their own, they change their life goals and religion tends to be less important as they discover who they are. Other studies from the NCBI show that as adults get married and have children they settle down, and as they do, there tends to be an increase in religiosity. Everyone's level of religiosity builds at a different pace, meaning that religion relative to adult development varies across cultures and time.[65] See also[edit]

One recent study found that httos://adultlist.net having a “sense of adulthood,” or feeling like an adult, led to better well-being. Therefore, the way we feel about our own adult status could impact our happiness.

The first records of the term adult come from around the 1520s. It comes from the Latin word adultus, meaning “grown.” 

Ever wondered where fans get their bricks from or order specific one-off parts? Well, let us introduce you to the world of Pick a Brick!

Then there is the psychological definition: Someone who is self-sufficient and responsible for her or his own decisions.