Psychological Reports, 1999, 84, 1059-1069 O l'sychological Reports 1999

TOWARDS A PSYCHOLOGICAL MODEL OF MIDLIFE CRISIS ',"

PIOTR K. OLES

Catholic University of L~rbliia,Polaizd

Szrmmary.-Midlife crisis in men is seen as a process of intensive and subjectively

difficult transition of the self dealing with s reinterpretation of time perspective, the
confrontation with death as a future personal event, the re-evaluation of life values
and goals, and planning the second half of life. Midlife crisis arises on the relation-
ships between the changing sociopsy~holo~ical situation and internal predispositions.
This study was conducted in Poland, using a sample of 144 men (aged 35-45 years).
Measures were the Midlife Crisis Questionnaire, the Time Orientation Scale, the Ad-
jective Check List, the modified version of the Ways of Coping Checklist, and the
Value Crisis Questionnaire. The Findings indicated that the midlife crisis consists of
three relatively independent dimensions, extracted by factor analysis, namely, (i) inten-
sity of symptoms focused on changes in h e self-concept, (ii) psychological maturity,
and (iii) acceptance of time passing and death. Necessary and sufficient conditions of
the crisis appeared to be (1) value crisis, understood as diHiculties in hierarchization,
integration, and redzation of values, (2) emotion-focused coping versus problem-fo-
cused coping, (3) past versus future time orientation and lack of goals for the future,
(4) sense of time pressure, (5) some conscientiousness, introversion, and openness to
experience.

During the last 20 years interest in midlife crisis or midlde transition

has increased among psychologists. Nevertheless the psychological picture of
persons going through michfe crisis or transition seems to be incomplete.
Many open questions stdl exist, all dealing with the way individuals go
through middle age, whether they experience a crisis or not, and understand-
ing the conditions that are associated with rnidlife crisis.
The purpose of this paper is to present a model of midlife crisis in
men. More specifically, the aim is to spec& the variables that influence mid-
Me transition in Polish men. The article contains (a) a short description of
the phenomenon of midhfe crisis, (b) a description of research, (c) a presen-
tation of a theoretical model of m i m e crisis, (d) and a discussion of irn-
plications for further work on the midlife crisis. While women may also have
such a crisis (e.g., Loevinger, 1962; Levinson & Levinson, 19961, the specif-
ics of that process are not evaluated.
The midhfe crisis as described implies significant change in the self and
Me perspective in men entering middle age. According to Levinson (1986),

'Please address correspondence and reprint requests to Piotr K. Oles, Department of Clinical
Psychology and Personalit Catholic University of Lublin, Al. Racla\vickie 14, 20-950 Lublin,
poland or e-mail (oles@k~!i~blin.~).
Tables of means and SDs for sca es are on file in MD-1999-0008. Remit $6.25 for photocopy
to the Archive for Psychological Data, P.O. Box 7922, Missoula, MT 59807-7922.
1060 P. K. OLES

the typical age for such crisis is between 40 and 45 years, according to
Jaques (1965) or Gould (1978) at around 37 years. Ln an extensive review of
the literature Kearl and Hoag (1984) mentioned that average beginning age
for the crisis cited in psychological articles is 37.7 yr. Some theories empha-
size that midlife crisis is a common phenomenon for all or almost all men,
because every man arriving at his middle age has himself to confront with
similar difficulties, h e biological, psychological, and sociocultural signs that
lde is half over, changes in family roles and professional status, and growing
awareness of one's own mortality (Gould, 1978; Levinson, 1986). Other the-
ories, however, point out that midlife crisis occurs only in some men, while
many others pass this period of life without any explicit or implicit signs of
crisis (see, e.g., Colarusso & Nemiroff, 19811, whereas Costa and McCrae
(1978) or Kruger (1994) argued that midhfe crisis is rather like a chimera
than a real phenomenon in psychological research because no one has con-
vincingly shown there is higher anxiety or depression in a midhfe sample.
The notion of midlife crisis, like 'identity crisis', however, is applied to
a developmental rather than a pathological phenomenon, so it is manifested
by an essential change in one's point of view about Me and not a particular
level of any clinical variable, e.g., anxiety. And as conceptualized, it certainly
is a crisis, a period of transition, and a process of successive internal and
external changes. All these changes may constitute a period of internal tur-
moil and external distress, called 'midlde crisis', followed by a new Me atti-
tude described by Er~kson(1963) as generativity. A man has to build up a
new lde structure, which means he has to change or adapt his personal be-
liefs, values, expectations, feehgs, and ways of coping (Levinson, Darrow,
Klein, Levinson, & McKee, 1978; Ciernia, 1985; Wolfe, O'Connor, & Gary,
1990). On the one hand, midhfe crisis has to do with a re-evaluation of the
past and dissatisfaction with the present. O n the other hand, mi&e transi-
tion or m i u e crisis offers new opportunities to follow personal dreams and
to reformulate personal strivings.
Summing up, midlife crisis in men is a process of an intensive and ddfi-
cult transition of the self caused by the awareness that the adaptation style
which has been adequate in young adulthood has become inadequate in mid-
dle age. This process involves changes in time perspective from 'time since
birth' to 'time left to live' (Neugarten, 19681, the experience of one's own
mortality, a review of past and present achievements and losses, and a re-
evaluation of personal goals. Moreover, major social changes influence the
way in which a person goes through midlife (Riegel, 1975; Chiriboga, 1989).
Numerous investigations dealing with the problem of mi&fe crisis have
proven that the ways in which nlen go through midlife depend on the follow-
ing variables: ( I ) Valuation (Fiske & Chiriboga, 1990; Drebing & Gooden,
1991), (2) Time orientation (Bardwick, 1978; McAdarns, Ruetzel, & Foley,
 MODEL OF MIDLIFE CRISIS 1061

1986; Shmotlun, 1991), (3) Ways of coping (Kalish, 1989; Juhan, McKenry,
& Arnold, 1990), and (4) Basic structure of personality (Waskel & Coleman,
1991; Waskel, 1995). Thus, the question is which particular variables from
these four broad domains of Valuation, Time orientation, Coping, and Per-
sonality traits influence midhfe crisis.
METHOD
Measures
Midfzje Crisis Questionnaire.-Miwe crisis was measured by means of
the Midhfe Crisis Questionnaire developed by Oles (1994). The items were
formulated based upon the various symptoms of midhfe crisis described in
the psychological literature (see, e.g., Jaques, 1965; Gould, 1978; Sherman,
1987; Hunter & Sundel, 1989). The questionnaire has 76 items, which are
sentences answered by >-point scales ranging from 0: I definitely do not
agree to 4: I definitely agree. It was constructed and vahdated on a sample
of 120 men, aged 35-45 years, mainly with university education, represent-
ing various professions. Three general scales were extracted by means of
principal components factor analysis. The scale, Lntensity of Midlrfe Crisis,
has 52 items. The internal consistency is high (Cronbach alpha= .93). The
scale measures intensity of midlife crisis, especially with respect to changes
in the self. It covers a broad scope of problems associated with reaching mid-
dle age such as bodily changes, negative self-appraisals, personality change, a
negative overview of the past, a sense of disorganization of personal striv-
ings, re-evaluation of personal goals and life priorities, and a lack of plans
for the second half of life. Some sample items are "I definitely have less en-
ergy now than before," "I disperse my energy and I am wasting time on
meaningless activities," and "In my past I lost many chances in life."
The Psychological Maturity Scale has 18 items. The internal consistency
is good; a = 3 3 . The scale measures obtained maturity and deals with such
issues as engagement in important life goals and task reahation, seek~ngltfe
meaning, the problem of choosing meaningful activities and tasks, and the
readiness to share one's own knowledge and wisdom with younger people.
Some sample items are "I have a sense that I have gained much valuable life
experience," "I try to live in such a way that I continue to do something re-
ally important," and "I like to share my knowledge and experience with
others,"
The Acceptance of Fate and Death Scale has 10 items with an internal
consistency (Cronbach alpha) of .71. This scale measures personal attitudes
towards time passing and death. It deals with the philosophical reflection on
life and death, time, and fate. Sample items are "I accept my fate," "I feel
prepared for aging and death," and "I accept peacefully the fact that time
goes by."
1062 P. K. OLES

Two of the three dimensions of midlife crisis, namely, Intensity of the

crisis and Acceptance of fate and death, are very similar to those obtained
by Shek (1995). Another one measuring psychological maturity seems to par-
allel generativity measured by the Loyola Generativity Scale (McAdams, de
St. Aubin, & Logan, 1993). Validity of the dunension is confirmed by their
different correlates (Oles, 1995).
Value Criszs Questionnaire.-Value crisis is defined in terms of experi-
enced problems in the valuation process, regardless of the particular content
of the personal value system. Value crisis is described by (a) an inabhty to
organize personal values into a coherent and hierarchically ordered system,
(b) a sense of loss of values usually caused by significant re-evaluations, (c) a
lack of integration among the cognitive, affective, and motivational aspects
of the valuing process, and (d) a low sense of realization of values. Value cri-
sis is measured by means of the Value Crisis Questionnaire (Oles, 1991)
which consists of 25 true-false items referring to the difficulties in the valu-
ing process as described above. The internal consistency (Cronbach alpha)
for middle age men was .82.
Time Orientation Scale.-The Time Orientation Scale (Nosal, 1993) is a
measure of the basic dimensions of attitudes towards time. There are 82
items constituting six scales; five of these are relevant for the present study.
Two scales deal with orientarion towards the future, Telicity (Goals) which
measures how clear goals are and the endurance in striving for them and
Planning which measures the concentration on one's own future and role of
making plans. Two other scales deal with the orientation towards the
present, Time Pressure which measures the sense of urgency in everyday Me
and Present, that is, a focus on the present and here-and-now attitude. One
scale, called Past, assesses how oriented is a person towards the past.
Ways of Coping Checklist.-This inventory, introduced originally by
Folkman and Lazarus (1980), is a measure of the ways of coping described
as the person's cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage the internal or ex-
ternal demands of the transaction between the person and the environment
that is appraised as taxing or exceeding the person's resources. The ques-
tionnaire was modified for the present study. It contains 80 items and sever-
al scales; but only two general indces referring to Problem-focused Coping
(21 items) and Emotion-focused Coping (40 items) were used. The internal
consistency (Cronbach alpha) for these scales has been high, .85 and .87, re-
spectively.
The Adiectzve Check List.-The method, developed by Gough and Heil-
brun (1983), consists of 300 adjectives grouped into 37 scales assessing vari-
ous personality traits. In the present study, only five general scales, based
upon a varimax-rotated principal components analysis, accounting for 79%
of the variance, were used. The five factors were similar to the "Big Five" of
 MODEL OF MIDLIFE CRISIS 1063

Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness.

The extraction of these five factors from the Adjective Check List could be
regarded as a replication on a Polish sample of the Piedmont, McCrae, and
Costa (1991) study. The factor scores in five new variables for each subject
were used for further analyses (thus, for each scale, M = 0, SD= 1).
Subjects
The sample was incidental and consisted of 144 men, aged 35-45 years
( M = 39.7, SD = 3.5), who recognized in their lives "some age-related
problems." Of these 92% had a university education; 96% were married,
and 96% were professionally active in various professions, h e scientists,
physicians, teachers, officers, and others. The research was conducted in Po-
land during the sociopolitical-economic transformations in the middle 1990s.
It was assumed that unstable social conditions and the changes in work situ-
ations and Me perspectives might additionally cause or foster the midhfe
crisis.

There are two sources of the causal model of midlife crisis introduced
here, a theoretical evaluation of the phenomenon and the findmgs of previ-
ous investigations (Oles, 1995; Shek, 1995). The construction of our model
was based on a regression analysis with Intensity of midlde crisis, Psycholog-
ical maturity, and kcceptance of fate and death as dependent variables, and
the following 10 measures as independent variables: Value crisis, Problem-
focused coping, Emotion-focused coping, Telicity (Goals), Planning, Past
time orientation, Time pressure, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, and Open-
ness to experience.
All three dimensions of midlife crisis were postulated as influenced by
value crisis, telicity, and problem-focused coping because midlife crisis has
to do with re-evaluation of ltfe and inadaptive coping. The other inde-
pendent variables were regarded as specific for particular dimensions of
midhfe crisis. For intensity of midlife crisis, predictors were emotion-focused
coping, and time pressure, for a heightened sense of urgency combined with
such coping which tends to reduce emotions may cause even greater prob-
lems in the long run. For psychological maturity there were h k s with
planning, orientation towards the past, and conscientiousness because a gen-
erative attitude implies responsible use of past experience for future tasks. Fi-
nally, in the case of acceptance of fate and death, substantial predictors were
extraversion and openness to experience because for acceptance of the h i t -
edness of life some reflection (introversion) and openness for new and threat-
ening ideas is needed.
The model, resented in Fig. 1, was tested using LISREL 7 (Joreskog
& Sorbom, 1989; SPSS, Inc., 1990). Statistical criterion values demonstrated
1064 P. K. OLES

FIG. 1. Model of midlife crisis

the validity of the model (xI4*=19.85, ns; goodness of fit=0.98, adjusted

goodness of fit = 0.87). The squared multiple correlations for structural equa-
tions are as follows: for the Intensity of midhfe crisis R2= .47, for Psycho-
logical maturity R2= .45, and for Acceptance of fate and death R2= .23. So,
the proportions of explained variance of the three dimensions of midhfe cri-
sis were, respectively, 47%, 45%, and 23%. The total Coefficient of Deter-
mination for the structural equations was 0.77. Thus, midlife crisis regarded
as a three-dimensional phenomenon can be explained to a significant extent
by the influence of 10 other psychological variables.
DISCUSSION
As a starting point for the discussion, it should be stressed that the
study was done in Poland during the time of sociopolitical and economic
transformations which could result in an uncertain perspective for men who
enter middle age, implying changes in self-concept and re-evaluation of life
goals. Thus, on the one hand, conclusions need to be lunited to relatively
young Polish men experiencing midlife crisis caused (partly) by unstable so-
 MODEL OF MIDLIFE CRISIS 1065

cia1 conditions; on the other hand, the findings which are similar to che re-
sults obtained in different studies seem to allow in some aspects a broader
discussion. Although midlife crises occur in different cultures, the timing,
structure, and resolution of the crisis depend on sociocultural conditions.
According to the present model, the way in which Polish men enter
middle age can be explained by an intriguing combination of variables. First
of all, midlife crisis seems to be associated with the difficulties concerning
the valuing process. That is, conficts between different values, the disorgani-
zation of the valuing process, re-evaluations, and lowered sense of realization
- -

of values appear to contribute to m i m e crisis. Moreover, one might suggest

that midlife crisis is linked to a lowered meaning of Me, due to the facc that
the meaning of life is clearly related to value crisis (Baumeister, 1989; Oles,
1991). Lndeed, Shek (1994, 1995) reported such a relation between midhfe
crisis and lowered meaning of Me.
Another psychological variable, Telicicy (Goals) is also associated with
midlife crisis. Thus, m i m e crisis may arise from the unclear conception of
one's own future, especially undefined goals and strivings. The role of the
past and present seems co be not so important, although a sense of time
pressure may contribute to the intensity of the crisis; also past time orienta-
tion seems to contribute to psychological maturity. Moreover, future cime
orientation (goals, strivings, and planning) seems to have a dominant role in
midhfe crisis. The investigation of personal meanings associated with person-
al past, present, and future in midLfe leads to a similar conclusion. Regard-
less, the past and present are evaluated as positive or negative, the intensity
of crisis in midlife is clearly related to an ambivalent future outlook (Her-
mans & Oles, 1999; see also, Lomranz, Shrnotlun, Eyal, & Friedman, 1994;
Labouvie-Vief, Onvoll, & Manion, 1995). This fiiding appears to contradict
the common view that rnidlife crisis arises from a dissatisfaction with che
past as well as the present (e.g., Mayer, 1978). A much more specific reason
seems to be a lack of goals or an unclear conception of the plans for the sec-
ond half of Me.
The midhfe crisis is also associated wich employing ways of coping
which do not solve the problems. When a man is inclined to avoid problems
or only to reduce negative emotions, he becomes especially prone to inten-
sive m i m e crisis. Such a coping style is opposed to ego resiliency, which
means abhty for active, flexible, and creative coping and which recently has
been introduced as a crucial variable in adaptive coping with the problems
of middle age (Klohnen, Vandewater, & Young, 1996).
This is an important conclusion because dysfunctional coping, unclear
concepcion of one's own future, value conficts, and a lowered sense of value
realization suggest that the midlife crisis seems to be a period of serious in-
1066 P. I;.OLES

ternal problems. Note that effective striving for important and challenging
goals is clearly associated with life satisfaction and well-being (see, e.g.,
Wheeler, Munz, & Jain, 1990; Brunstein, 1993). Moreover, a positive orien-
tation towards the future is essential for mental health and well-being (Re-
ker, Peacock, & Wong, 1987; Taylor & Brown, 1988). Thus, psychological
functioning of men in intensive midlife crisis, is to some extent, unadaptive
and similar to that of mildly depressed people (see e.g., Kuiper, O h g e r , &
Swallow, 1987; Brandtstadter & Renner, 1990; May & Lipman, 1992).
Nevertheless, there is also a fundamental difference between the crisis
and depression. The crisis as developmental phenomenon involves a period
of difficult personal changes (Levinson, 1986; Wolfe, O'Connor, & Crary,
1990). Almost all participants were engaged in professional and family life,
and nobody has reported any problems with mental health. So, their possi-
ble "depressive state" means most likely sorrow associated with the lost
youth and doubts concerning the future which do not diminish personal
ability to "love and workH-the effect found, for example, in Born and Nel-
son's (1983-84) study. Midlife troubles may lead to a lowered mood and in
this way they are similar to depression. In contrast to depression, however,
they do not diminish person's activity but may contribute to even higher ac-
tivity by a sense of urgency. Moreover, an ambivalent future outlook is not
necessarily unadaptive, particularly during the time of social changes as in
Poland. The future perceived as uncertain provokes the formulation of vari-
ous and ambivalent future selves, and motivation to strive for personal goals
is even higher when desired and undesired possible selves are combined
(Cross & Markus, 1991; Ryff, 1991; Hooker & Kaus, 1994).
Some additional remarks are needed. Considering the model from the
perspective of the five-factor model, it is interesting to notice that the inten-
sity of midhfe crisis appears not to be assoc~atedwith the five basic person-
ality factors. Only Conscientiousness has a s~gnificantcorrelation with Psy-
chological Maturity, and Extraversion and Openness to experience contrib-
ute to the Acceptance of fate and death. The first trait has something to do
with the value-goal domain. The two other dimensions suggest that introver-
sion and openness to new experiences constitute predispositions for philo-
sophical reflection on life and death that may contribute to personal growth
and maturity. Moreover, existential reflection opens the possibility for per-
sonality change (Levinson, 1986; Kuuire, 1993; Jones & Meredith, 1996), that
is, to develop renewed identity (Kroger & Haslett, 1991; Whitbourne & Van
Manen, 1996) and the generative attitude crucial for successful resolution of
midlife crisis (de St. Aubin & McAdams, 1995; Peterson & Stewart, 1996).
Note, one of the implications drawn from the presented model is that for
the establishment of personal maturity, a balance between future and past
time orientation is needed.
 MODEL OF MIDLIFE CRISIS 1067

Knowing the specific correlates of midlrfe crisis in Polish men, it would

be interesting to look for a parallel phenomenon in women.
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Accepted May 10, 1999.