Reconstructing Adulthood: Revising the Markers of Adulthood Scale for Increased Ecological Validity

Young adults endorse more individualistic and internal adulthood milestones compared to prior generations. Arnett (1994) introduced the Markers of Adulthood (MoA) scale to capture this shift in the transition to adulthood using 38 markers associated with becoming an adult, including marriage, having children, and living independently. These items were based on psychological, anthropological, and sociological determinations concerning adulthood, and were arranged into subscales based on their theoretical association rather than statistical analysis. Since the scale was introduced, researchers have addressed crucial questions about the validity of the MoA scale’s milestones. A recurring theme was identifying items that could be sorted into reliable subscales. We examined a collection of original items and included new ones, such as “have a professional social media account” and “recognize personal capabilities and shortcomings” to configure a revised MoA model. A total of 861 participants in seven national locations responded to a demographic survey, the Inventory of the Dimensions of Emerging Adulthood (IDEA; Reifman, et al., 2007), and a collection of MoA items. We conducted a principal component analysis (PCA) to identify 22 items and four factors (role transitions, independence, legality markers, and relative maturity) which represented 55% of the total variance in the dataset. All factors except legality markers were identified by prior researchers. While four factors demonstrated the best fit for subscale configurations, the revised MoA was considered most reliable when used in its entirety. Our examination ends with a discussion of future directions for configuring items which may produce reliable subscales.