ABSTRACT

The tenets of emerging adulthood are closely linked to changes imposed by the educational transition from high-school to university. Immersion in a new school context (university) seems to make personal perception on self, others, and the world, more focused on exploration and experimentation. In order to test these assumptions, we analyzed characteristics of emerging adulthood in a sample of Romanian high-school and university students. Firstly, we comparatively investigated gender (male versus female) and educational level (high-school versus university students) differences for emerging adulthood characteristics. Secondly, we analyzed how emerging adulthood characteristics are linked to an important well-being indicator, namely satisfaction with life, in the high-school student sample and respectively in the university student sample.

KEYWORDS: emerging adulthood, well-being, development, Romania

PAGES:357-367