Adulthood Exam 1

By 2015, the percentage of people in the United States population 65 years and older is:

14.9

Which of the following would be considered a "social" age-related factor in the biopsychosocial perspective?

Becoming a grandparent

Of the following areas of aging, which would be considered a "biological" component of the biopsychosocial model?

Changes of muscle mass

The number of years a person can expect to live with relatively little disability is known as:

Health expectancy

The role of the Institutional Review Board (IRB) in the research process involves which procedures?

Requiring that researchers protect the rights of their participants.

Because the _____________ are the individuals we study in later life, researchers caution that the findings may not be true for everyone born in a given period of time.

Survivors

How does the fact that older adults are survivors influence research on aging?

The available samples are positively selected on important characteristics.

Tests that are intended to measure personality need to show that they actually do relate to personality. These criteria refer to a test's:

Validity

Which of the following statements most accurately describes what happens to intelligence with age?

We get smarter in some ways and our abilities decline in others.

Rachel had her college psychology class with Dr. Wiley. When Dr. Wiley lectured for the entire 50 minutes about research findings, Rachel did not really understand most of the information. One day, Dr. Wiley included personal stories in his lecture to illustrate the research concepts. Rachel found that she was better able to understand the material and think critically about it. She learned more when Dr. Wiley used _______.

a combination of analysis and emotion, integrating subjectivity & objectivity

In the process called identity ______________, people are able to accept negative information about themselves as part of their sense of self without feeling unduly disturbed or devastated.

accommodation

While subjective thought ________, objective thought ______.

arises from personal experiences; follows abstract, impersonal logic

When people are first confronted with new ideas or approaches, they often resist accepting them and instead use their existing schemas or ways of responding. According to Piaget, this process is called:

assimilation

Researchers studying the volume of the hippocampus within the brain showed the importance of examining individual differences in aging by finding that:

at least some older adults studied had equal or higher brain volume than some young adults.

When complex actions and the thoughts that they involve have become routine (for example, when you see the letter combination g-r-e-e-n you naturally attend to the meaning of it), the actions are described as being

automatic

Sex refers to the __________, whereas gender refers to the _________

biological dimension: social/cultural dimension

The changes that take place over time, according to Bronfenbrenner's ecological model of development, fall into the realm of the:

chronosystem

Expertise

comes with time and practice.

The ________________ principle of adult development and aging proposes that changes build on themselves over life in a cumulative fashion.

continuity

Asking someone to write a story entitled "The Shark's Bicycle" would be a way of testing _________ intelligence.

creative

groups of people differing in age are studied at the same point in time.

cross-sectional design

in Bronfenbrenner's ecological model of development, the macrosystem includes:

culture, nationality, and the economic structure

the telomere theory proposes that the cause of aging is due to

destruction of the ends of chromosomes

Kate is a medical intern who believes that all people deserve access to medical care, but she also knows that throughout her career she will have to make decisions about which patients will receive a scarce, life-saving medication depending on the specific situation. Reconciling these two thoughts requires _______.

dialectical thinking

In general, the increased diversity of the college atmosphere _________.

encourages intellectual challenges and cognitive development.

During midlife (age 40-65), most adults begin to

experience life-threatening health episodes—if not in themselves, then in their partners and friends.

Which of the following research methods permits inferences about cause-and-effect relationships?

experimental design

Cognitively, what is needed to counter over-generalization and stereotypes?

flexibility

Which of the following is NOT one of Sternberg's three fundamental forms of intelligence?

fluid

The behavioral genetics method in which genetic researchers study the genomes of family members who seem to have a higher risk of developing a particular disorder is known as what type of study

genome- wide linkage

The behavioral genetics method in which genetic researchers scan the entire genome looking for signs of genetic disorders is known as what type of study?

genome-wide association

A psychologist is conducting a study on the effect of intergenerational contact on happiness ratings, focusing on how such contact can be beneficial to older adults. In one condition, she pairs an older adult with a young child and in the other she pairs two older adults with each other. Both sets of pairs meet for 30 minutes at a time. In this study, the dependent variable is the:

happiness ratings of the older adults

John is a 20-year-old African American showing great intellectual potential, however, he believes that success in school is just for females and whites. He may be experiencing:

identification

A 70-year-old who refuses to think of herself as hearing impaired even though she truly has difficulty hearing conversations at ordinary levels, would be considered to show which identity process?

identity assimilation

The dependent variable is the one the investigator expects to

influenced by independent variable

Ethical guidelines require that researchers obtain ________________ in which they provide information about a study's risks and benefits to each participant and then obtain their signature indicating they understand it:

informed consent

75-year-old Mrs. A. has difficulty with her vision due to cataracts but her friend Mrs. B., also 75, can see perfectly. However, Mrs. B.'s arthritis makes it difficult for her to walk while Mrs. A. recently ran a senior marathon. This example illustrates which principle of adult development and aging?

inter individual differences

An intelligence test has high reliability if

it yields similar results when given twice within a short period of time.

All of the following beliefs reflect cognitive flexibility EXCEPT __________.

life plans are static

The view that development is best viewed as continuous throughout life is referred to as the __________ perspective.

life span development

participants are studied repeatedly at different ages, and changes are noted as they get older.

longitudinal design

In Erikson's theory, which of the following behaviors would be considered specific to a person high in generativity?

mentoring a younger colleague

In the Bronfenbrenner ecological model of development, which type of system is it when work-related stress spilled over at home?

mesosystem

A 77-year-old man has loved to jog for his entire life, and he is still able to keep up a pretty good pace. However, he is suffering hearing loss which makes it difficult for him to enjoy the music he likes to play while out on his run. In addition, he's noticing that it's getting harder for him to see the street signs unless the sun is brightly shining. This man illustrates which principle of aging?

multidiectionality

Which of the following is most affected by brain shrinkage in late adulthood?

multitasking

Sarcopenia is associated with age-related changes in the ___________

muscles

In a study examining the factors that influence whether drivers of different ages are likely to speed through an intersection, researchers set up recording devices at several major traffic lights in one town. They then estimate their ages and estimated speeds from the recordings. This would be an example of what type of study?

observational

In the condition known as ______________, the individual has difficulty controlling urination and feels the need to urinate more frequently than normal (see textbook P. 80).

overactive bladder

During emerging adulthood, people usually acknowledge the value and limitations of their subjective experiences while working towards objectivity, such thinking demonstrates ______ thought.

postformal

Todd is 26 and has progressed into postformal stage, so his thinking is more likely to be

practical, flexible, dialectical.

The ethical principle of debriefing requires that a researcher who uses deception in an experiment is obligated to:

provide a complete description of the study's purposes and answer any questions.

The _____ approach defines, measures, and analyzes intelligence via IQ tests and other tests.

psychometric

Which model of development emphasizes the influence you have on the other people in your home, school, and community (p. 25)?

reciprocal

Gerontologists recommend that older adults at risk of falling receive which type of intervention?

reduce the fear of falling

In general, with each year of college, thinking becomes more _______.

reflective, flexible, and expansive

Following the typical developmental trend, Robert, who is 25 years old, is better able to _____ compared to when he was 18 years old.

see life's answers as provisional

When the unhealthy members of a sample die out, the scores of the survivors seem to "rise" even though they may not change in reality. This research problem in studies on aging is referred to as:

selective attrition

The changes that individuals experience in income and residence when they retire and move out of the home where they spent their working lives would fall into the ____________ domain of the biopsychosocial model

social

The idea of being "on-time" or "off-time" in achieving major life goals is considered an important element of adjustment in the __________ model.

social clock

Subjective thought is particularly useful for solving problems involving

social understanding

The term life ______ refers to the maximum number of years that a species lives, reflecting its genetic inheritance.

span

Research on taxi drivers found that the part of their brains most likely connected to _________ were more active than in the average person.

spatial recognition

The possibility that one's age, gender, race, SES background will be misused to confirm oversimplified prejudiced attitudes is called:

stereotype threat

The rapid loss of functioning that individuals may experience at the very end of their lives is known as _________ aging:

tertiary

The trend toward increasing average IQ with each generation is called:

the Flynn effect.

As proposed by terror management theory, the cause of ageism can be traced to:

the anxiety of death

What do many developmentalists believe is essential for successful aging?

the capacity to expand the mind whenever disequilibrium requires new thinking

Which research approach looks at multiple cohorts over time?

the cross-sequential approach

Dr. Johnson is exploring if women perform worse on a math test when they are asked to indicate and highlight their gender prior to taking the test. Dr. Johnson is exploring the concept of _______.

the stereotype threat

Dr. Blume is interested in methods for lowering blood pressure. He recruits 120 adults with high blood pressure and assigns them to one of three treatment groups—one group will take a daily pill, one group will be placed on a special diet, and one group will participate in an exercise boot camp. The independent variable is __________ and the dependent variable is __________.

treatment type; blood pressure

The modernization hypothesis of ageism proposes that attitudes toward older adults will be most negative in societies that:

value people for the amount they can produce and contribute to society.

Researchers studying the effects of videogame training on the cognitive abilities of older adults expose one group of participants to a training condition and the other group of participants to a no-training condition. In this study, the independent variable is:

video game training