Positive adult development is a subfield of developmental psychology that studies positive development during adulthood. It is one of four major forms of adult developmental study that can be identified, according to Michael Commons; the other three forms are directionless change, stasis, and decline. Commons also further divided the concept of positive adult development into six distinct areas of study: hierarchical complexity (i.e., orders or stages), knowledge, experience, expertise, wisdom, and spirituality.
The development of people has focused on children and adolescence with several theories as proposed by Freud, Piaget, and Binet. Research in positive adult development supports the theory that development occurs during adulthood. Recent studies indicate that such development is useful in predicting things such as an individual's health, life satisfaction, and degree of contribution to society. Current research supports the idea that personal adjustment and personal growth are two main themes in positive adult development research. Personal adjustment refers to how well an individual can master and adapt to their environment, while personal growth refers to having the ability to have deep insight into oneself, others, and the world around them. One other benefit is allowing for changes in social policies to create effective, efficient interventions to help optimize the aging process to as many of our aging generation as possible. In these studies, adults that were older rated higher than these categories then those that were younger, thus supporting that there is indeed a positive development that occurs in adulthood.
