Common themes and variations across the studies in the previous chapters are considered, with a focus on how culture influences conceptions of what it means to be an adult. NEW DIRECTIONS FOR CHILD AND ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT, no. 100, Summer 2003 © Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 91 7 Culture and Conceptions of Adulthood Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, Nancy L. Galambos For decades, even centuries, scholars of human development have devised theories about how the life course is divided into different stages or peri- ods. The Talmud contains a section titled “The Sayings of the Fathers,” written over two thousand years ago, that outlines the “ages of man” from five to one hundred years old. Solon, the Greek poet, proposed in 7 B.C.E. a theory of ten life course stages, each lasting seven years. In the twentieth century, Sigmund Freud divided childhood into discrete stages of develop- ment, although he believed little of interest happened in adulthood except for the reworking of neurotic fixations. Erik Erikson proposed a stage the- ory of the life course, and Daniel Levinson presented a stage theory of adult development. Each of these theories, both ancient and modern, had something to say about when a person reaches adulthood. However, it is only recently that attention has turned to how people think about their own position in the life course. Specifically, it is only within the past decade that studies have asked people what they believe makes a person an adult and whether they believe they have reached adulthood. These studies have contained some surprises for scholars, who may have been inclined to assume that adulthood is defined by entry into definite adult roles: finishing education and obtaining full-time work, entering marriage, and becoming a parent. Repeatedly, these role transitions have ended up at the bottom among a wide range of possible criteria for adulthood when young Americans have been asked about what they believe makes a person an adult. Instead, what has come up consistently on top in young people’s conceptions of the transition to adulthood are criteria that represent pro- cesses rather than discrete events—character qualities monitored and mea- sured by the individual rather than roles established and sanctioned by