P464 Exam 2

Baltes study

- 4 hypothetical dilemmas were read and the wisdom of the dilemmas were measured. - they wanted to test if older adults provided answers with more wisdom compared to younger adults according to 5 criteria of wisdom (Baltes) - findings: - older participants were no more or less wise than younger participants, supporting perspective that wisdom is not just a function of age. - only 5% of the responses were rated as wise - both younger and older adults showed more wisdom about situations closer to their own age

psychodynamic perspectives of personality development

- Freud: believed personality was stable after childhood - erikson: psychosocial development: stages of intimacy, generativity, ego integrity - Vaillant's Ego defense Mechanisms: immature to mature he theorized that individuals moved from immature (more reactive) to mature defense mechanisms (using humor etc) - Adult attachment theory: infant attachments → adult attachments

laboratory measurements

- Task-switching method first identify numbers that are odd, then identify numbers that are even see how much individuals perseverate and make mistakes when that switch occurs - verbal-fluency list as many words that start with k

Article 7

- certain ethnic, religious and national-origin groups are doing strikingly better than Americans overall. - The most comforting explanation of these facts is that they are mere artifacts of class — rich parents passing on advantages to their children — or of immigrants arriving in this country with high skill and education levels. Important as these factors are, they explain only a small part of the picture. - The fact that groups rise and fall this way punctures the whole idea of "model minorities" or that groups succeed because of innate, biological differences. Rather, there are cultural forces at work. - It turns out that for all their diversity, the strikingly successful groups in America today share three traits that, together, propel success. The first is a superiority complex — a deep-seated belief in their exceptionality. The second appears to be the opposite — insecurity, a feeling that you or what you've done is not good enough. 3 The third is impulse control. Any individual, from any background, can have what we call this Triple Package of traits. But research shows that some groups are instilling them more frequently than others, and that they are enjoying greater success. Recent studies suggest that Asian-American youth have greater rates of stress. (more asians were recruited in schools)

Age-related changes in executive functioning

- maintained well until mid age but shows more rapid declines in executive functioning in later adulthood - older adults tend to perseverate on verbal fluency tasks (retrieve the same word that starts with k) - but changes do not always coincide with self-perceptions of cognitive function - many older adults seem confident with their daily abilities and are still able to perform them

cognitive perspectives of personality development

- possible selves theory tension is created when we can't achieve our optimal self - coping and control: how people cope with different life stressors emotion focused coping problem focused coping is used more once individuals age and their sense of control changes as they age too - identity process theory: deals with how individuals cope with different threats to identity, do they assimilate and ignore negative info and do not incorporate into identity or do they accommodate and incorporate new info into sense of identity?

Psychological perspectived on intimate (LT) relationships

- socioemotional selectivity theory → with age, prioritize positive aspects of relationships over negative - social exchange theory → relationships are evaluated according to costs and benefits - equity theory → balance is sought between what each contributes to the relationship - similarity hypothesis (more well-supported in comparison to the need complementary) → couples/ friends who are similar are happier - need complementarity hypothesis → couples/friends who are different are happier

Dimensions of the intergenerational solidarity model (integrating all dimensions well leads to filial maturity)

- structural (distance apart) closer to parents = more likely to reach filial maturity form closer bonds - associational (frequency of interaction) more frequent interactions = closer relationships more likely to reach filial maturity and solidarity - consensual (values and lifestyle agreement) how matched they are in terms of lifestyle and values - functional (exchanges of help) involves exchanging help and assistance when needed - affectual (feelings of emotional closeness) engage in more exchange of feelings and expressions = reach filial maturity - normative (feelings of obligation) social context of obeying parents (stronger or weaker depending on society)

3 traits propel success

- superiority complex (deep belief that one's group is exceptional) - insecurity (not good enough, inadequate) immigrants as outsiders: another source of insecurity - impulse control (habits of discipline) delay of gratification studies if overdone, can undercut abilities for joy, contentment potential costs of above 3 traits high stress compromised self-esteem excessively focused on money and prestige discouraging cultural narratives (slavery, poverty)

predictors of loneliness (by age group)

- younger than 30 y.o. less income working full time - 30-65 y.o. less income (more drastic) not working/working part time single status - older than 65 y.o. less income single status

Source memory

. Remembering where you heard or saw something is sometimes as important as remembering the informa- tion itself. Source memory is the recall of where or how an individual acquires information.

Socioemotional factors and risk online deception

1/123 emails are spear phishing attacks little research on age and susceptibility to deception online overall less awareness of such attacks among older adults but are older adults more susceptible? Study methods cognitive testing brief test of adult cognition by telephone daily mood: positive and negative affect schedule over 21 days online phishing test: spear-phishing emails sent daily during internet browsing.

how many in the US are married?

2016: 50% of 18+ population currently married marriage rates have decline from 1960 to 2016 74% ever married in whole population

Results of MIDUS Survey on the Mid-Life Crisis

26% stated they had one BUT this included "awareness of the passage of time" No peak occurred among people in their 40s Even people in their 60s reported currently having a mid-life crisis

Consumption of fish effects

A second health-related behaviour relevant to mem- ory involves diet and specifically the consumption of fish. You have probably heard the saying that fish is "brain food"; evidence suggests that it can be, particularly fish high in omega-3 fatty acids. Controlling for a host of relevant factors, the rate of cog- nitive decline in individuals who consumed one or more fish meals a week was reduced by 10 to 13 percent per year. people with higher social status are more likely to include fish in their regular diets, suggesting that socioeconomic status may also play a role in the relationship between cognitive performance and fish consumption

Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm.

A test of false memory where individuals are presented with a list of words from the same category. But the category name is never included in the list. The criti- cal trial occurs in the recognition test, where the experi- menter presents the category name (sweet) along with words that were on the original list (e.g., honey) as well as distractor words that were not in the original list (e.g., water). Most people think that they were presented with the word "sweet" because the other words in the cate- gory primed them to think of things that were sweet. Very few people are immune to this effect, but when warned, younger participants are better able than older adults to avoid the false memory implantation.

Well-maintained procedural memory

A well-maintained procedural memory contributes to the ability of older adults to compensate for some of their loss of speed and working memory in diverse areas, including bridge playing, chess, reading, cooking, gardening, and typing

Does intelligence show plasticity?

ADEPT (adult development and enrichment project) systematic and intensive training for older adults to improve their fluid abilities (more sensitive to age-related changes) - women improved in spatial orientation - men improved in inductive reasoning - effects persisted over 7 years - Point: cognitive training interventions can reverse decline and improve abilities

Ego psychology

According to Freud's theory, the mind is made up of three structures, which he named id, ego, and superego. Psychologists in the area of ego psychology believe that the ego plays a central role in actively directing behaviour.

scaffolding theory

According to scaffolding theory, older adults are able to recruit alternate neural circuits as needed by task demands to make up for losses suffered elsewhere. Thus, working memory may decline in later adulthood, but older individuals can circumvent these declines by bringing compensatory mechanisms into play.

Intellectual development and aging

Adult IQ: classic aging-pattern most decline occurs in nonverbal performance. Once they reach around the age 74, they begin to show a more negative decline on intelligence. There are exceptions depending on what intelligence you are measuring and the individual you are measuring the majority of individuals are able to show functioning in at least one aspect of intelligence, rare that an individual will show decline on all 5 aspects.

Undergraduate population

Adult students are becoming larger proportion of undergraduate population increasing inter-age group contact 16% of undergrads are 35+ 44% of adults 17+ engage in some form of adult education increased level in engagement to higher education 27% of adults taking courses relevant to work majority of 60+ taking personal interest courses

Greater experience and problem-solving (positive)

Age differences minimized when problems are interpersonal Older adults better at heuristics (mental shortcuts)

Mature

Altruism—turning unacceptable feelings into behaviour that is helpful to others Sublimation—expressing unacceptable feelings in productive activityHumour—being able to laugh at an unpleasant or disturbing feeling or situation

Intelligence test

An intelligence test provides an assessment of an individual's overall cognitive status along a set of standardized dimensions. The scores on an intelligence test may be used in a research context, particularly when investigators are seeking to understand the effects of aging. They are also used by clinicians as part of a larger neuropsychological evaluation in which clinicians need to establish a diagnosis of a neurological or psychiatric disorder. Psychologists working in human resource departments may also use intelligence test- ing as part of a larger process of personnel selection or evaluation.

Solutions to old age and driving

As the number of older drivers continues to grow with the increased longevity of the Baby Boomer generation, appropriate safeguards for older drivers, such as driving tests and safety classes, are being considered by public officials. Highway safety experts are also explor- ing alternatives to the traditional intersection

5 pathways through adulthood

Authentic Road (Achieves solid identity commitments through exploration and change) Triumphant Trail (Overcomes challenges Is resilient) Straight and Narrow Way (Maintains consistent life pattern Is defensive about change) Meandering Way (Fails to settle on a course in life Constantly searches for identity) Downward Slope (Shows self-defeating behaviour Makes poor decisions)

Equity theory

Balance is sought between what each contributes to the relationship

avoidant attachment style

Being neglected in infancy may also produce adults who show the avoidant attachment style, with a fear of abandon- ment so intense that they stay away from close relation- ships altogether.

Bilingualism and aging

Bilin- gual speakers must add the step of deciding which lan- guage to use in a given situation. As a result, bilingual individuals continually practise and therefore build their executive functions. In working memory tasks, bilingual older adults seem to have greater difficulty with verbal than spatial stimuli, even after controlling for vocabulary. Imaging studies suggest that the advantage con- ferred to bilinguals reflects better connectivity among net- works in the brain. bilingual older adults had a later age of disease onset and were older when they first attended the memory clinic when com- pared to their monolingual counterparts.

Cohen's formula for creativity

C = me^2 C = creative expression m = mass of knowledge e = combined life experience

Personality vs health

Cardiovascular risk factors related to Type A behaviour and anxiety Lower BMI related to higher levels of conscientiousness Drug use and smoking related to lower levels of conscientiousness Lower mortality related to higher levels of openness Higher risk of Alzheimer's disease related to low conscientiousness and high neuroticism

Driving and aging

Changes in basic cognitive functions, such as reaction time and attention, threaten to impair the older adult's ability to perform this vital task. changes in the visual system that can impair the performance of older drivers, including loss of visual acuity, increased sensitivity to glare, and difficulty seeing in the dark. Physical changes may also limit the older driv- er's ability to get in and out of a car, fasten a seat belt, change the seat position, turn the steering wheel, or cope with a breakdown. Finally, many medications used to treat chronic conditions in older adults can impair their driving ability because of side effects such as drowsiness, confusion, and dizziness. Crashes involving older drivers often occur at inter- sections, particularly when the driver is making a turn that must take him or her across traffic. Older drivers also have more difficulty when they are required to merge or yield to oncoming traffic. 50-54 year-olds show highest fatality rates while driving.

Blended families

Changes in the family living situation in recent decades are often discussed in terms of blended fami- lies, also known as reconstituted families. Within these family situations, at least one adult is living with a child who is not a biological child of that adult. These family situations often develop after a divorce and remarriage (or cohabitation), when two adults establish a house- hold together.

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Memory and health-related behaviors

Cigarette smoking is known to cause deleterious changes in the brain.

ToM divided into 2 aspects

Cold (cognitive) Hot (affective)

Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) model of intelligence

Combining these theories, the Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) model of intelligence proposes that intelligence has a three-tiered structure. At the bottom of the structure are the individual abilities (shown in the right-hand col- umn), such as inductive reasoning or spatial relations. These make up the second level of abilities (the left-hand column), which includes Gf and Gc. The third level in the CHC model is g, or general ability.

Ego development

Conformist stage (very basic understanding of themselves, other people, and the reasons for following society's rules.) Conscientious-Conformist stage (people first have an internalized sense of right and wrong and are able to be aware of their own motives as well as those of other people.) Conscientious stage (people develop a true conscience, one that is an internal- ized understanding of society's rules and the reasons for those rules.) Individualistic stage (an appreciation and respect for individual- ity emerges.) Autonomous stage (even more clearly articulated inner standards) Integrated stage (proposed would be reached by rela- tively few people, is one in which the individual has a clear sense of self, is able to recognize inner conflicts, and highly values individuality.)

Article 4

Contrary to common stereotypes, loneliness is not restricted to old age but can occur at any life stage. In this study, we used data from a large, nationally representative German study (N 16,132) to describe and explain age differences in loneliness from late adolescence to oldest old age. The age distribution of loneliness followed a complex nonlinear trajectory, with elevated loneliness levels among young adults and among the oldest old. The late-life increase in loneliness could be explained by lower income levels, higher prevalence of functional limitations, and higher proportion of singles in this age group. Consistent with an age-normative perspective, the association of income, relationship status, household size, and work status with loneliness differed between different age groups. In contrast, indicators of the quantity of social relationships (social engagement, number of friends, contact frequency) were universally associated with loneliness regardless of age. Overall, these findings show that sources of loneliness in older adults are well understood. Future research should focus on understanding the specific sources of loneliness in middle-aged adults

Less risky behavior by older adults when driving

Counteracting the effects of age on rapid, complex decision-making is the fact that older adults avoid many of the causes of motor vehicle accidents that injure, or take the lives of, younger adults. Many older drivers are able to self-regulate their behaviours to compensate for the changes they experience in their visual and cognitive abilities. They avoid driving during rush hour, at night, or in bad weather At a tactical level, they are more likely to avoid in-vehicle distractions such as talking on a mobile phone, and they leave greater distances between their cars and the car ahead of them. older drivers have decades of experi- ence behind the wheel that can compensate for slower reaction times, particularly if they don't need to make a response within a fraction of a second.

Need complementarity

Couples who are different are happier

Similarity

Couples who are similar are happier

Improves with age

Declarative memory episodic - autobiographical - flashbulb - procedural memory semantic - facts - language - social customs - implicit memory perceptual memory conditioned responses habits

Declarative memory

Declarative memory (more susceptible to changes due to aging): intentional and conscious remembering - episodic and semantic

Psychotic

Delusional projection—attributing one's own bizarre ideas and feelings to others Denial—disclaiming the existence of a feeling, action, or eventDistortion—significantly exaggerating and altering the reality of feelings and events

Role reversal

Discredited view that parents and children switch roles

Neurotic

Displacement—transferring unacceptable feelings from the true to a safer object Repression—forgetting about a troubling feeling or eventReaction formation—expressing the opposite of one's true feelings

Divided attention

Divided attention requires more mental effort and, when attentional tasks are harder and there are more of them, errors are more frequent.

general factor (g)

Earliest theory of intelligence. proposed the existence of g or general factor, defined as the ability to infer and apply relationships on the basis of experience. According to Spearman, g could not be directly observed, but could be estimated through tests that tap into specific mental abilities.

Elderspeak

Elderspeak is a speech pattern directed at older adults similar to the way people talk to babies. If you have ever heard an older adult referred to as "cute," or being called "honey," or "sweetie," you have heard one form of elderspeak. More generally, elderspeak involves simplifying your speech much as you would talk to a child by leaving out complex words or talking in a patron- izing or condescending tone of voice. Younger people who speak in this manner do so because, either consciously or unconsciously, they equate the older and perhaps frailer adult as being equal in status to a child. Offering unneces- sary help, making personal comments about clothing or appearance, or talking in short, simple sentences are just some examples of this type of speech pattern. infantilizing and patronizing speech (honey, dear, cute) leads to lack of stimulation from being treated as dependent child.

Episodic memory and brain connections

Episodic memory also depends on the integrity of connections among the frontal cortex, temporal and parietal lobes, and areas of the subcortex, including the thalamus. Age-related damage to the white matter, which show up as white matter hyperintensities, may be associ- ated with memory changes in these regions

Episodic memory

Episodic memory is long-term memory for events ("episodes"). It is a type of memory that is fundamen- tal to the everyday tasks that we perform and is often assessed by recall tasks (e.g., remembering word lists without cues) or recognition tasks

Identity achievement vs identity diffusion

Erikson's conception of the stage of identity achievement versus identity (or role) diffusion portrays adolescents as struggling to define themselves in the face of physical changes associated with puberty, cognitive changes, and particularly role changes, where they are expected to find a place for themselves in society.

Erikson

Erikson's theory of psychosocial development pro- poses that it is the ego that matures throughout life as the individual faces particular biological, psychological, and social forces. He defined each point in the ego's devel- opment in terms of a push and pull that leads the indi- vidual toward a favourable outcome (such as attaining a sense of identity) or an unfavourable outcome (such as not attaining a sense of identity). As each stage is navi- gated, the individual moves on to the next set of issues following the epigenetic principle, as each stage unfolds in a predetermined order.

Experience and sustained attention

Experience can compensate for age-related changes in sustained attention. In a simulated air traffic con- trol experiment, older adults who showed deficits on laboratory attentional tasks were able to perform well on the complex tasks required in the situations they encountered on the job on a daily basis

Training with video games

Experimental studies using action video games as a training tool show that they can enhance a variety of skills, including peripheral attention (seeing a target in the outer edges of a display), ability to process a rap- idly changing stream of information, and keeping track of multiple targets

Parent-adult child relationships

Filial maturity Filial anxiety Filial obligation

Distant figure grandparents

Finally, the dis- tant figure is the grandparent who has infrequent contact with the grandchildren, appearing only on holidays and special occasions.

resolve the polarities of personality

Finally, the man must resolve the polarities of his personality, involving masculinity and femininity, feelings about life and death, and the needs for both autonomy and dependence on others.

Characteristics of Friendships in Adulthood

Follow a trajectory from formation to dissolution May be distinguished in terms of closeness Vary in terms of friendship styles Throughout adulthood are related to well-being and self-esteem

Plasticity and executive functioning

Following similar models as studies on brain plasticity, researchers are showing that physical exer- cise can benefit executive functioning in older adults. Not only do people who exercise have better executive functioning, but experimental studies show that aerobic exercise training improves performance on tests of men- tal flexibility, attention, and inhibitory control.

Formal grandparents

Formal grandparents provide occasional services and maintain an interest in the grand- child, but do not become overly involved.

Developmental schism

Gap between parents and children in how much they value the relationship and seek independence

Identity process theory

Identity balance and assimilation help older adults maintain self-esteem Identity accommodation is related to poorer self-esteem and cognitive performance

Financial exploitation

Illegal or improper use of an older adult's funds, property, or assets

Implicit memory

Implicit memory is long-term memory for infor- mation that people acquire without intending to do so. It is another long-term memory process that does not appear to be affected by the aging process

Ego

In Freudian theory, the ego is the part of the mind that controls rational thought. Its job is to negotiate a way for people to meet their biological needs without putting themselves at risk of violating society's expectations or falling short of their ideals.

Levels of ambivalence

In addition to differing in the six solidarity dimensions, families may also vary in their levels of ambivalence. This means not only that families may have ambivalent feelings toward each other, a possibility that the ISM would allow for, but also that they may not be sure exactly how to interact with each other.

Extended GfGc

In addition to these two factors, the "extended" Gf-Gc theory proposes that there are eight other broad factors that incorporate cognitive skills such as memory, speed, sensory processing, reading, writing, and mathematical knowledge. Each of these broad factors is mea- sured by a specific test or tests that tap narrower, related abilities. In the extended Gf-Gc model, each broad ability has its own predictive power rather than each reflecting different aspects of g.

Semantic memory

In contrast to episodic memory, there are no declines in normal older adults in semantic memory, or the abil- ity to recall word meanings and factual information. Semantic memory is also spared from the negative effects of the aging process (Wiggs, Weisberg, & Martin, 2006). Older adults are able to remember word meanings and a broad array of factual information on a comparable level with younger adults.

Dyadic withdrawal

In fact, as people enter long-term inti- mate relationships, many engage in dyadic withdrawal, which is the process of reducing the individual friend- ships of the couple and increasing the joint friendships

Working memory and normal aging

In normal aging, the structural changes in areas of the brain involved in working memory are compensated by heightened activation of the prefrontal cortex

Remote memory and aging

In one study, older adults were asked to recall events from television shows. Their memory for recent programs was superior to their ability to remem- ber programs from many years ago

Affect regulation

In psychological terms, we would say that through this process you are engaging in affect regulation, or increas- ing your feelings of happiness and well-being.

Doing gender

In some cases, marital satisfaction is affected by the process referred to as doing gender, a term that refers to the tendency of women and men to behave in stereotypi- cally gendered ways. Parenthood sets up a dynamic that leads the parents to feel that they are now a "traditional" family (Vespa, 2009). For a couple who may have shared housework in a more egalitarian fashion before the child was born, this shift into gendered roles can place strain on the relationship

Berlin Wisdom Paradigm

In the Berlin Wisdom Paradigm, wisdom is a form of expert knowledge in the pragmatics of life (Baltes & Smith, 2008). For many people, wisdom evolves in the later years of life as they become aware of the role of cul- ture in shaping their lives and personalities (called "life- span contextualism").

Adults learning

In the classroom, adult learners may attain mastery of the material through using strategies such as taking more copious notes and relying on them more heavily as they are trying to acquire new information. The adult learner is also more likely to challenge the instructor to go beyond the information and explore alternative dimensions.

Widowhood effect

In what is called the widowhood effect, there is a greater probability of death in those who have become widowed than in those who are married. The widowed are at higher risk for health problems, particularly in the period shortly after they lose their spouses. These problems may be a result of risky behaviors such as eating fewer fruits and vegetables and more foods with higher fat content, and engaging in less physical activity.

Sleep effects

In young adults, long-term memory is strongly linked to slow-wave sleep. Experimental subjects allowed to sleep in between learning and testing consistently achieve bet- ter memory performance than subjects who spend an equivalent period of time awake (Diekelmann, Biggel, Rasch, & Born, 2012). However, neither middle-aged nor older adults show a similar benefit (Scullin, 2012). It is possible that failing to benefit from the memory advan- tage offered by sleep contributes in some way to age- related changes.

Incidental learning

Incidental learning involves learning that occurs without any intent to learn. Research participants are not aware that they will be tested on the material.

Psychological abuse

Infliction of anguish, pain, or distress on an older adult through verbal or non-verbal acts

Intentional learning

Intentional learning involves knowing that you must learn something, perhaps because you know you will be tested on it.

Emotions effects

Interference of emotions, such as feelings of depres- sion, may also contribute to poorer performance in older adults by depleting valuable cognitive resources

MCI

Interventions aimed at improving episodic memory can be beneficial even for individuals suffer- ing from the clinical condition known as mild cognitive impairment (MCI). A review of non-pharmacological interventions aimed at enhancing memory function among individuals with MCI suggests that cognitive interventions may prove beneficial in improving memory function.

Dietary habits

Investigators have established a link between enhanced memory performance in older adults and other dietary components, including vitamin B12, vitamin B6, and folate (Smith & Refsum, 2009). Conversely, homo- cysteine, an amino acid found in the blood and acquired mainly from eating meat, is negatively related to memory performance (van den Kommer, Dik, Comijs, Jonker, & Deeg, 2008). Vitamin D is another dietary component thought to be linked to cognitive functioning. Flavonoids, found in certain foods ranging from fruits and vegetables to red wine and dark chocolate, can also have a beneficial influence on cognition.

What is intimacy (perspective 1)

It involves interactive processes with 3 components: Self-expression personal thoughts and feelings being able to express personal thoughts and feelings Partner's responsiveness to expression degree to which partner is responsive to others initial expression, he must be responsive in a way that is positive regarding what his partner is experiencing Person's perception of the partner's response when all of these processes aline, intimacy is built, when there is a mismatch in communication this can constraint the relationship and prevent intimacy to form

Formal operations

Jean Piaget's concept of formal operations, the ability of adolescents and adults to use logic and abstract sym- bols in arriving at solutions to complex problems.

Stability

Levinson believed that during periods of stability, the man builds his life structure around the decisions he made in the previous stage. If he chose to pursue a cer- tain career path, he continues in that path throughout the period of stability. However, as the period reaches its close, the man becomes driven by both internal and exter- nal factors to question his previous set of commitments. For the next four or five years, during the transitional period that ensues, he explores different alternatives and seeks a new life structure or a modification of the existing one. Levinson believed that these transitional periods are inevitable.

Life structure

Levinson proposed that development involves primarily changes in the life struc- ture, or the way that the individual's life is patterned at a given point in time.

Disillusionment pathway

Like couples who experience emergent distress, those who fit the disillusionment pathway start out happy and in love. Over time, they gradually fall out of love and begin to develop mixed feelings about their part- ner. Part of what happens with these couples is that they take each other for granted. They become less interested in seeking their partner's love and approval than they were at the beginning, and as the patina fades they drift farther and farther apart.

Procedural memory

Long-term memory also includes your ability to remember actions. Procedural memory is recall of the actions involved in particular tasks, such as sew- ing on a button, playing the piano, and riding a bike. Like semantic memory, procedural memory holds up well with age.

Reaction time and age

Lower reaction time for younger individuals. People vary greatly in the rate at which they expe- rience slowing of reaction time. Despite this increasing variability in reaction times with age, the net effect of the changes is negative across adulthood, particularly for choice reaction time tasks - larger age differences are seen in choice reaction task compared to simple reaction time task

Memory and problem-solving

Memory problems can also contribute to difficulties in problem-solving. If you are unable to remember the steps you've taken to try to solve a problem, you'll be more likely to repeat ineffective solutions.

The fathers

Men who feel that they will be good fathers during the transition to parenthood also become more involved in parenting. Moreover, the way that mothers perceive their husbands in the father role can help shape the way that fathers see themselves. The extent to which a single father is able to adjust to the role of solo parent is affected by the characteristics of the children, including their age and gender, and his own characteristics, including his age and educational level. The father's adjustment to this role is also affected by his ability to juggle the roles of parent and worker and maintain a relationship with his former wife or partner, as well as by his original desire to have custody (Greif, 1995). Overall, however, single fathers spend less time caring for their children than do single mothers, but more than married fathers

Generativity

Mid-life adults must also come to terms with issues relating to generativity, according to Erikson's theory. Because Erikson defined generativity as show- ing care and concern for guiding the next generation, it would follow that parents would be higher in generativity than non-parents. indeed, parents higher in generativity not only felt closer to their university-age children, but also had chil- dren who were happier, more likely to be able to plan for the future, higher in prosocial personality attributes, and higher in social interest, as indicated by their interest in politics, a feature of generative mid-life adults as well. By being generative, in other words, you are benefiting your own development as well as the people you are helping. In truly generative behaviour, though, the balance shifts more toward concern about others than concern about your own personal accomplishments. generativity goes beyond even good parenting to extend to concern with larger society.

An alternative (less supported) model

Myers-Briggs type indicator it is so widely used due to very successful marketing grounded in theory by Carl Jung categorized people into different learning styles extraversion vs introversion seeing vs intuition thinking vs feeling judging vs perceiving Inspector, protector, counselor, mastermind, crafter, composer, healer etc. it is not fully supported because it categorizes people into categories and our personality falls into a continuum.

Non-declarative memory

Nondeclarative memory (unconscious remembering, ability to do something (negligible aging effects)

Article 5

Objective: Personality traits are characterized by both stability and change across the life span. Many of the mechanisms hypothesized to cause personality change (e.g., the timing of various social roles, physical health, and cultural values) differ considerably across culture. Moreover, personality consistency is valued highly in Western societies, but less so in non-Western societies. Few studies have examined how personality changes differently across cultures. Method: We employed a multilevel modeling approach to examine age-related changes in Big Five personality traits in two large panel studies of Americans (n 5 6,259; Mage 5 46.85; 52.5% female) and Japanese (n 5 1,021; Mage 5 54.28; 50.9% female). Participants filled out personality measures twice, over either a 9-year interval (for Americans) or a 4-year period (for Japanese). Results: Changes in Agreeableness and Openness to Experience did not systematically vary across cultures; changes in Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Conscientiousness did vary across cultures. Further, Japanese show significantly greater fluctuation in the level of all the traits tested over time than Americans. Conclusions: The culture-specific social, ecological, and life-course factors that are associated with personality change are discussed.

Article 3

Objective: Research in psychosomatic medicine includes a long history of studying how responses to anger-provoking situations are associated with health. In the context of a marriage, spouses may differ in their anger-coping response style. Where one person may express anger in response to unfair, aggressive interpersonal interactions, his/her partner may instead suppress anger. Discordant response styles within couples may lead to increased relational conflict, which, in turn, may undermine long-term health. The current study sought to examine the association between spouses' anger-coping response styles and mortality status 32 years later. Methods: The present study used data from a subsample of married couples (N = 192) drawn from the Life Change Event Study to create an actor-partner interdependence model. Results: Neither husbands' nor wives' response styles predicted their own or their partners' mortality. Wives' anger-coping response style, however, significantly moderated the association of husbands' response style on mortality risk 32 years later, β = −0.18, −0.35 to −0.01, p = .039. Similarly, husbands' response style significantly moderated the association of wives' response style and their later mortality, β = −0.24, −0.38 to −0.10, p < .001. These effects were such that the greater the mismatch between spouses' anger-coping response style, the greater the risk of early death. Conclusions: For a three-decade follow-up, husbands and wives were at greater risk of early death when their anger-coping response styles differed. Degree of mismatch between spouses' response styles may be an important long-term predictor of spouses' early mortality risk

Article 1

Objectives: Fraud in the aged is an emerging public health problem. An increasingly common form of deception is conducted online. However, identification of cognitive and socioemotional risk factors has not been undertaken yet. In this endeavor, this study extended previous work suggesting age effects on susceptibility to online deception. Methods: Susceptibility was operationalized as clicking on the link in simulated spear-phishing emails that young (18−37 years), young-old (62−74 years), and middle-old (75−89 years) Internet users received, without knowing that the emails were part of the study. Participants also indicated for a set of spear-phishing emails how likely they would click on the embedded link (susceptibility awareness) and completed cognitive and socioemotional measures to determine susceptibility risk profiles. Results: Higher susceptibility was associated with lower short-term episodic memory in middle-old users and with lower positive affect in young-old and middle-old users. Greater susceptibility awareness was associated with better verbal fluency in middle-old users and with greater positive affect in young and middle-old users. Discussion: Short-term memory, verbal fluency, and positive affect in middle-old age may contribute to resilience against online spear-phishing attacks. These results inform mechanisms of online fraud susceptibility and real-life decision-supportive interventions toward fraud risk reduction in aging

Attachment and aging

Older adults do appear less likely than younger adults to experience anxious types of attachment (Segal, Needham, & Coolidge, 2009). Moreover, older adults who reported secure attachment with their parents state that they are currently happier on a daily basis than those who reported less-secure attachment (Consedine & Magai, 2003). Although attachment style might seem to be a stable feature of personality, there is evidence that it can change even in as short a period as a few years

Attraction effect

Older adults may also make choices that are better founded and less subject to extraneous factors. One study on decision-making found that, in general, older adults avoid what is known as the "attraction effect." In tests of the attraction task, participants must choose from either two (A versus B) or three (A versus B versus C) alter- native options. A and B remain the same, but C is the least desirable of all three. The addition of choice C should have no effect on people's decision to choose either A or B, but it does. Even though no one would choose C, its presence drives them to be more likely to pick the alternative between A and B that seemed the closest to C. A comparison of older and younger adults on the attraction effect in the case of shopping for groceries showed a greater susceptibility of younger adults to demonstrate the attraction effect, meaning that their choices. were less rational than those of older adults

Coping and control

Older adults may be more rather than less capable of coping with stress

Greater difficulty on memory tasks

Older adults seem to have greater difficulty with memory tasks when they must judge where they saw an item on a previous occasion (Thomas & Bulevich, 2006). They are also more susceptible to false or illusory memories in which they say they remember something that never happened (Dodson, Bawa, & Slotnick, 2007). They may think that one person said something when in reality it was said by someone else or perhaps not said at all.

Default network and aging

Older adults show less activation of the default net- work than do younger adults (Andrews-Hanna et al., 2007). They are also less able to deactivate the network during memory tasks, when they need to focus on the incoming input. This would mean that they would have fewer resources to devote to the information they need to retain.

Intergenerational stake

Older generations value relationship with adult children more than children value relationship with parents

Prospective memory and aging

Older people do indeed appear to have more prospective memory slips than do younger adults. In one study involving a simulated shopping task, older adults forgot more items on their grocery list than did younger adults. the more heavily a pro- spective memory task involves planning, and hence the frontal lobes, the more disadvantaged older adults seem to be

Verbal fluency tests

On tests of verbal fluency, older adults show a greater tendency to perseverate, meaning that they continue to produce the same words, such as "King," "Keel," "Kept," "King," "Kite," where "King" counts as a perseveration. However, the tendency to perseverate is less evident in people with larger vocabularies.

Decisions in real-life settings

On the other hand, older adults have greater experi- ence in making decisions in real-life settings, which can benefit them when they scan actual environments. When compared with younger adults on a search task that included context to guide their attention, older adults were more likely than younger adults to benefit from background cues

Cigarette smoking effects

One longitudinal study conducted in Scotland provided impressive data showing that people tested as children who eventually became smokers had signifi- cantly lower memory and information processing scores when followed up at ages 64 and 66 years, controlling for early life intelligence

IPD

One of the earliest measures used to investigate psychosocial development across a range of stages was the Inventory of Psychosocial Development (IPD) the questionnaire used in the Rochester Adult Longitudinal Study (RALS).

ACTIVE

One of the most ambitious cognitive training interventions is a multi-site study known as Advanced Cognitive Training for Independent and Vital Elderly (ACTIVE). The participants were trained in one of three types of cognitive skills—memory, reasoning, or speed of processing—while a control group received no train- ing. These cognitive functions were selected because they show the most improvement in laboratory work and are related to everyday living tasks. the majority of participants in the speed (87 percent) and reasoning (74 percent) groups showed improvement; about one-quarter (26 percent) in the memory group showed improvement. Two years later, the gains were still evidenced, although they were larger for participants who participated in booster sessions.

IGF-1

One possible route through which metabolic factors can affect psychomotor slowing and memory involves insulin growth factor-1 (IGF-1). IGF-1 is one of three growth hormones involved in insulin regulation that also have a protective effect on neurons. women with low lev- els of IGF-1 showed slower decreases with age in cognitive functioning than women with high levels of this substance

Relationships after college

One question was whether people who were in a committed relationship right after college would show more or less growth of intimacy in the ensuing decades. As it turned out, those who became involved in marriage or a cohabiting relationship after the age of 31 started out with lower intimacy scores in college. However, over the subsequent two decades, these late-bloomers showed a steeper growth curve than did the individuals who mar- ried or cohabited within a few years of college graduation.

Openness to experience

Openness to experience also relates to early life experiences. In one study, young adults high in open- ness reported a higher number of stressful life events in childhood. However, individuals with high openness scores showed less physiological reactivity to a labora- tory stressor in which they were asked to discuss a recent highly stressful event. Unlike their low openness peers, those high in openness even showed a slight boost in positive affect while experiencing the stressor

Trail making test

Other tests, such as the Trail Making Test, also called "Trails," were developed specifically to assess the individual's so-called frontal lobe functioning, which includes attention and the ability to scan visual stimuli and follow a sequence of numbers. The examiner shows the test-taker a pattern of numbered circles, with the instruction to draw lines to connect the circles in order. - similar to connect-the-dots, except dots are numbered and must be connected in numerical order individuals with dementia have higher problem to connect the dots

Peripheral ties

People may main- tain peripheral ties, which are not characterized by a high degree of closeness, for many years (Fingerman & Griffiths, 1999). Peripheral ties include people such as neighbours, co-workers, professional contacts, gym bud- dies, friends of friends, or the parents of one's children's friends. These relationships may be amicable and cordial but never progress beyond this level.

Socioemotional selectivity theory (relationships)

People prefer long-term relationships to maximize their positive affect

Over-the-hill

People who fall prey to the "over- the-hill" form of identity accommodation are more likely to succumb to society's negative stereotypes about aging and suffer more severe age effects than people who are able to maintain a positive view of their abilities using identity assimilation. The "over-the-hill" believers start on a downward spiral that causes them to be painfully aware of each instance of forgetting and to become even more pessimistic about their memory performance in the future.

anxious attachment style

People who, as infants, were either abandoned or felt that they would be, develop an anxious attachment style in which they imagine that their adult partners will also abandon them.

Article 6

Personality traits predict substance use in adolescence, but less is known about prospective substance use in middle age and beyond. Moreover, there is growing interest in how personality change and the multiplicative effects among personality traits relate to substance use. Participants included approximately 4000 adults aged 25-74 who participated in two waves of the Midlife in the US (MIDUS) study. Higher levels of neuroticism, extraversion, openness, and lower levels of conscientiousness and agreeableness predicted longitudinal substance use. Increases in neuroticism and openness predicted increased substance use while increases in conscientiousness and agreeableness predicted decreased substance use. Higher levels of conscientiousness moderated two of the other trait main effects. Personality, trait change, and interactions among traits reliably forecasted 10-year substance-use behaviors

4 components of working memory

Phonological loop (auditory memory) Visuospatial scratch pad (visual memory) Episodic buffer (retrieving info from LT memory) Central executive (allocated cognitive resources)

Immature

Projection—attributing unacceptable ideas and feelings to others Hypochondriasis—expressing psychological conflict as exaggerated physical complaints Acting out—engaging in destructive behaviour that expresses inner conflicts

Vaillant's Theory of Defence Mechanisms categories

Psychotic Immature Neurotic Mature

What is the basic measure of processing speed?

Reaction time

Neglect

Refusal or failure to fulfill any part of a per- son's obligation or duties to an older adult

Social exchange theory

Relationships are evaluated according to costs and benefits

Social aspects of languages

Reminiscences about the past may also serve a func- tion for older adults in solidifying relationships and build- ing shared identities with others from their generation. As they do so, they can enhance and strengthen their relation- ships with their long-time friends and family members. Younger adults seem to be better able to focus their speech in such situations

Remote memory

Remote memory involves recall of information from the distant past. In general, information stored and not accessed from remote memory becomes increasingly dif- ficult to retrieve with passing years.

Working memory and age

Research has consistently demonstrated that work- ing memory capacity is greatest in young adulthood and declines over the life span. The components of working memory seem to be linked to particular cortical brain regions.

Quicker decisions

Research on adults' decision-making speed confirms that older people are able to reach answers more quickly than younger people who lack either the knowledge or the ability to categorize that knowledge. However, older persons are also more apt to make quicker decisions in areas in which they may not have expertise.

Episodic memory and aging

Research on episodic memory and aging has a long history and there is considerable evidence that older adults experience impairments in episodic memory, both in encoding and retrieving information (Old & Naveh- Benjamin, 2008a). However, there are factors that can increase or decrease age differences in episodic memory and researchers have employed a variety of memory tasks to better understand in what types of memory situ- ations older adults are more impaired.

Exercise effects

Research on exercise and cognition repeatedly illustrates that attention, memory, accuracy, and information pro- cessing all improve with each heart-pumping activ- ity session, although the mechanisms by which these improvements occur remains unclear.

Grandparents relationships

Research shows that such contact may be important to the mental health of the older gen- eration. Grandparents who are unable to maintain con- tact with their grandchildren because of parental divorce or disagreements within the family are likely to suffer a variety of ill consequences, including poor mental and physical health, depression, feelings of grief, and poorer quality of life

Assessing working memory

Researchers assess working memory by assigning participants a task that prevents them from consciously rehearsing the information they are supposed to remember.

Communication predicament model of aging

Researchers investigating elderspeak have proposed that its use fits into the communication predicament model of aging. The predicament is that older adults are thought of as mentally incapacitated, leading younger people to speak to them in a simplified manner, which over time can have the effect of reducing the older adult's actual ability to use language. In addition, failure to encourage independent behaviours in the older person, a part of the communication predicament, leads to a further spiralling downward of the older per- son's abilities. leaving out details, or neglecting to fully engage them in a fully dynamic conversation it can lead to further decline

Simple vs conjunction visual search

Researchers propose that simple visual search relies on parallel processing, meaning that you can scan the whole array at once, just looking for the one feature that matches that of the target. Older and younger adults perform at similarly high levels in simple visual search tasks, finding the targets quickly and accurately. Conjunction search relies on the more time-consuming task of serial processing, because each stimulus must be examined to determine whether it has all the qualities of the target. The larger the number of stimuli to scan, the longer the participant will take to decide whether the target is present or not. Comparisons of older and younger adults on con- junction search show that both age groups perform less efficiently than they do on simple search tasks. However, the cost to performance is higher for older adults

What predicts loneliness?

SES factors Health factors Life course factors: relationship status, household size, work status quantity of social relationships: social engagement number of friends contact frequency

Aging and executive functioning

Scores on measures of executive functioning appear to show steady declines in later adulthood, declines that research shows are important, because they are related to negative changes in a number of everyday cognitive functions needed for daily life. the same older adults experiencing these declines do not perceive themselves to be affected by these changes in their own self-reports of their abilities to manage their daily tasks (Tucker-Drob, 2011). It is possible that this self-perception reflects the process of identity assimilation and the desire that older adults have to see themselves as cognitively in control of their lives. performance on the executive functions in this task was correlated with the thickness of the cortex in the brain regions that the test seems to tap. A thicker cortex was related to better accuracy

Factors that contribute to preservation language

Semantic memory is retained or greater Ability to get the "gist" of a story No problem with paralinguistic elements of speech More activation of the right hemisphere Greater experience with language More cognitive complexity

Serial caregiver

Serial caregiver is the more appropriate term (rather than sandwich generation), as most women care for children, parents, and spouses, in that order.

Factors that contribute to decline language

Slower reading rate Changes in hearing and speech perception Slowing of cognitive functions Retrieval deficits Simpler grammatical structures Working memory deficits

Lowers IQ scores

Smoking → delines IQ Obesity → lower IQ scores Active lifestyle show less IQ decline

social cognitive approaches

Socioemotional selectivity theory

Socioemotional selectivity and aging

Socioemotional selectivity theory proposes that as people grow older, they become more focused on the emotional functions of relationships and less interested in the informational function. They want to spend time with the people who make them feel good. This shift, accord- ing to the theory, occurs as people become increasingly sensitive to the inevitable ending of their lives and rec- ognize that they are "running out of time."

Prospective memory

Sometimes you need to remember what to do, rather than what you have done. Prospective memory encompasses the recall of events to be performed in the future.

Inhibitory control test

Stroop test

Structural ambivalence

Structural ambivalence in family relations means that society's structures do not make clear how family members should behave

Research on Aging and the Five Factor Model

Studies based on the scales of the Five Factor Model and aging show a high degree of consistency over time throughout adulthood, with greater consistency among increasingly older groups of adults. However, the con- sistency between scores obtained at different measure- ment points becomes smaller the longer the time interval between them (Roberts & DelVecchio, 2000). This means that people maintain their relative positions along the traits in comparison with their age peers; the "highs" stay high and the "lows" stay low. If you had high neuroticism scores as a young adult, you would continue your high levels of worry, anxiety, and general malaise throughout your mid-life years and beyond.

Divorce

Studies on divorced (compared with married) individuals show that they have lower levels of psychological well-being, poorer health, higher mor- tality rates, more problems with substance abuse and depression, less satisfying sex lives, and more negative life events (Amato, 2000). The negative consequences of divorce are more severe for individuals who have young children, especially women.

Testing the limits

Tapping into an individual's reserve capacity involves testing the limits, the process of continuing to train people until they show no further improvements. reaction time experiment feedback was given on performance both speed and accuracy improved

n-back test

The "n-back" task, a commonly used working memory test, requires you to repeat the "nth" item back in a list of items presented to you in serial order.

Wisconsin card Sorting test (WCST)

The Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) mea- sures the individual's ability to form mental sets in cat- egorizing cards with related features, such as number of items, colour, or shape.

Behavioural approach

The behaviours couples engage in affect their relationship satisfaction

pragmatics of intelligence

The central element of the Baltes wisdom model proposes that wise people are experts in the pragmatics of intelligence, meaning that they can apply their abilities to the solution of real- life problems.

Infantilization

The communication predicament model is part of a larger phenomenon known as infantilization, in which the older person loses the incentive to attempt to regain self- sufficiency in the basic activities of daily life. The self- fulfilling nature of infantilization can also increase the older person's awareness of age stereotypes, causing a self- fulfilling prophecy to spread across a wide domain of areas of functioning.

Classic aging pattern

The earliest findings on adult intelligence proposed that age differences across adulthood followed the clas- sic aging pattern of an inverted U, with a peak in early adulthood followed by steady decline

Empty nest

The empty nest describes the period in a cou- ple's life that occurs when their children permanently depart from the home.

Autobiographical memory

The exception occurs in the area of autobiographi- cal memory, or recall of information from your own past. Many people seem to experience a reminiscence bump of very clear memories for the ages of from about 10 to 30 years. Researchers believe that these memories are preserved in part because they are central to identity (McLean, 2008). Remote memories that are not as per- sonally relevant fade with the passage of time.

Stress

The experience of stress occurs when you perceive that the situation over- whelms your ability to manage effectively in that situa- tion.

overcom- ing disillusionment

The first theme of the mid-life crisis is overcom- ing disillusionment resulting from failure to achieve the dreams of youth that inevitably cannot be fully realized. The individual must then establish a new set of more realistic aspirations.

Cohabitation effect

The greater likelihood of divorce among couples who cohabit before becoming engaged is referred to as the cohabitation effect.

Executive functioning

The higher-order cognitive skills needed to make deci- sions, plan, and allocate mental resources to a task are called executive functioning. Specifically, an individ- ual's executive functioning draws upon several abilities, including working memory, selective attention, and men- tal flexibility, as well as the ability to plan and inhibit distracting information

Type A behaviour pattern

The idea that personality traits could be related to significant health problems and health-related behav- iours originated when researchers discovered what became known as the Type A behaviour pattern, a collection of traits that include being highly competi- tive, highly achievement-oriented, and impatient, and feeling a strong sense of time urgency.

general slowing hypothesis

The increase in reaction time reflects a general decline in informa- tion processing speed within the nervous system of the aging individual. as the task becomes more difficult older adults take MUCH longer (evidence of CNS changes with age)

Inhibitory deficit hypothesis and number of distractions

The inhibitory deficit hypothesis implies that mid- dle-aged and older adults perform best when they have few distractions. One source of such distraction may be their own concern over how they are performing, which may cause them to perform even more poorly than they otherwise would. Thus, people who are worried about the aging of their cognitive abilities may be more likely to engage in identity accommodation, the "over-the-hill" mentality, a process that will ultimately contribute to poorer performance.

Support to the inhibitory deficit hypothesis

The inhibitory deficit hypothesis is widely supported by a variety of studies based on psychological and elec- trophysiological methods. For example, on measures of event-related potentials (ERPs), which measure the brain's pattern of electrical activity in response to stimuli, older adults are less able to block out distracting stimuli when completing a task. Their pattern of response sug- gests that they experience deficits in the prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain involved in the control of inhibit- ing irrelevant information. when younger and older participants are asked to observe sequences presented in a randomized order and measured using EEG, older adults are less likely than younger adults to suppress irrelevant information, result- ing in both increased frontal activity and poorer memory performance

Empty nest syndrome (ENS)

The interviews showed that mothers were slightly more likely than fathers to report ENS.

HLM

The latest follow-up of the RALS used hierarchical linear modelling (HLM), making it possible to look at how individuals changed over time relative to themselves and relative to others in the sample. Previous follow-ups relied on comparing the entire sample's means, obscuring those individual change curves. By using HLM, it was possible not only to see how much change occurred, but also to see who was most likely and who was least likely to change.

Mid-life crisis

The mid-life crisis refers to a period of self-scrutiny and re-evaluation of goals triggered by the individual's entry into middle age.

Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)

The most well-known individual test of adult intelligence. He constructed two sets of scales, putting them into the categories of "Verbal" and "Performance" intelligence ("IQ"). As the terms imply, erbal IQ tests knowledge of such areas as vocabulary and general information. Performance IQ tests measure non-verbal abilities such understanding as spatial rela- tionships and reasoning. In providing these estimates, examiners compare a person's raw score on each of the various scales to scores for that person's age group. This permits the examiner to provide a so-called deviation IQ, which is based on a normal distribution of scores that have a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15.

Language exposure and childhood

The power of language nutrition for children's brain development, health, and future academic achievement. language exposure matters early in development: builds cognitive reserve for later life

Intergenerational communication

The problem of intergenerational communication is made worse if the older person tends to focus on his or her current disabilities or health limitations.

Neuropsychological assessment

The process of neuropsychological assessment involves gathering information about a client's brain functioning from a series of standardized cognitive tests. In cases involving older adults with cognitive deficits, in particular, neuro- psychologists may adapt their assessment to try to target the specific area in the brain that they believe has suffered damage or decline. Tests of executive functioning are typically part of the total process of neuropsychological assessment. However, most neuropsychological assess- ments of older adults also include other measures of cognitive functioning, including intelligence tests

reservoir of family wisdom grandparents

The reservoir of family wisdom, usually a grandfather, is the head of the family and dispenses advice and resources but also controls the parent generation.

making decisions about how to pursue the life structure

The second theme of the mid-life crisis involves making decisions about how to pursue the life structure during middle adulthood. During this time, the man questions his marriage, comes to grips with the maturing of adolescent children, handles promotions or demotions at work, and reflects on the state of the nation and the world. He may begin to establish mentor- ing relationships with younger persons so that he may pass along the torch of what was handed to him during his early adulthood.

Siblings

The sibling relationship is one that can, however, fluc- tuate throughout adulthood. Decreased sibling involve- ment is more common in early adulthood as individuals engage in raising their young children and building careers (Bedford, 1989; Connidis, 2005). Increased closeness between siblings is associated with a number of signifi- cant life events, such as marriage, the birth of children, divorce and widowhood, and the development of health problems or death of a family member

Boomerang kids

The situation seems more negative with boomerang children than with children who had never left the home, particularly as mothers are likely to resent the fact that they are losing some of the freedom they gained when their children initially left the home.

Surrogate parent grandparents

The surrogate parent is the third type and, as the name implies, takes over the caretaking role with the child.

Retrieval-induced forgetting

The tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon, more formally known as retrieval-induced forgetting, is another source of frequent memory complaints. Young adults occasionally experience this effect when they are trying to retrieve an abstract word, but older persons are more likely to forget a person's name particu- larly when the person has a name that sounds similar to someone else's. the area of the brain used for phonological production is subject to age-related neural declines, a fact that might explain this form of retrieval failure in older adults

Conscientiousness

The trait of conscientiousness continues to relate to greater weight gains during adulthood, particularly in women, placing them at risk for weight-related dis- eases. People low in conscien- tiousness and high in neuroticism are also more likely to smoke cigarettes. Conscientiousness continues to play a role in mortal- ity in later adulthood as well. Conscientiousness may, then, exert its positive effect on health through its link with prevention-related behav- iours. longevity was associated with high scores on conscientiousness, low scores on neuroticism, and high scores on the activity facet of extroversion

Trait perspective

The trait perspective in personality is based on the assumption that the organization of the personal disposi- tions known as traits guide the individual's behaviour. Trait theory is also increasingly viewed in terms of genetic theories of personality, which suggest that the enduring nature of personality traits over time reflect the fact that they are at least partially inherited

Friendship styles

There may also be variations in friendship pat- terns in adulthood based on individual differences in approaches toward friends, called friendship styles (Matthews, 1986). Individuals who have an independent friendship style may enjoy friendly, satisfying, and cordial relationships with people but never form close or intimate friendships. The type known as discerning individuals are extremely selective in their choice of friends, retaining a small number of very close friends throughout their lives.

Practice with the stroop test

They can benefit from practice with the Stroop test in ways similar to younger adults suggesting that performance on certain types of attention can be improved regardless of age. Additionally, changes related to colour perception with age may account for some of the age differences in the Stroop task

emergent distress pathway

Those who fit the emergent distress pathway find that they are unable to cope with the inevitable argu- ments that occur when people live together. Instead of resolving their problems with such adaptive tactics as communicating openly and working out compromises, they become defensive, withdraw, stonewall, and become out-and-out vicious toward each other. It's not clear whether their distress causes these dysfunctional cop- ing methods or their ineffective ways of handling prob- lems leads to distress.

Useful Field of View (UFOV)

Training also seems to improve the driving-rele- vant task called Useful Field of View (UFOV), which tests people's ability to respond to stimuli appearing in the periphery of their vision

Article 2

Two studies examined age differences in recall and recognition memory for positive, negative, and neutral stimuli. In Study 1, younger, middle-aged, and older adults were shown images on a computer screen and, after a distraction task, were asked first to recall as many as they could and then to identify previously shown images from a set of old and new ones. The relative number of negative images compared with positive and neutral images recalled decreased with each successively older age group. Recognition memory showed a similar decrease with age in the relative memory advantage for negative pictures. In Study 2, the largest age differences in recall and recognition accuracy were also for the negative images. Findings are consistent with socioemotional selectivity theory, which posits greater investment in emotion regulation with age.

Divorce US

US has one of the highest divorce rates in the world (9.8% of US population, 19.8 million adults in 2000) But divorce rates are flattening in younger generations economic recession linked to reduced divorce rates individuals are feeling less financially secure therefore are less motivated to dissolve their marriage.

Reserve capacity

Underlying the plasticity model is the idea that older adults possess reserve capacity, abilities that are there to be used but are currently untapped

Physical abuse

Use of physical force against an older adult that may result in bodily injury, physical pain, or impairment

4 indexes produced by WAIS-IV

Verbal Comprehension, Perceptual Reasoning, Working Memory, and Processing Speed.

Verbal abstraction

Verbal abstraction refers to the ability to see similarities between things—for example, knowing that a knife and a fork are eating utensils.

Types of attentional tasks

Visual search tasks - Simple visual search - conjunction (complex) visual search

Possible selves

We are motivated to achieve a hoped-for self and avoid a feared self

Levinson's theory

What distin- guished Levinson's theory was his proposal that the life structure evolves through an orderly series of universal stages in adulthood. He proposed that these stages alter- nate between periods of tranquility and periods of transi- tion, with each stage having a specific focus.

Default network

While at rest, the brain shows activation in what is known as the default network, a circuit in the brain that is active when the brain is at rest while processing inter- nal stimuli. The default network includes the hippocam- pus, parts of the prefrontal cortex, the parietal lobe, the temporal lobe, and part of the cingulate cortex involved in visualization. During tasks such as those involved in working memory, other areas become activated and the default network becomes deactivated

Multi-tasking

While multi-tasking, most people pay a price in terms of the quality of their performance. To a certain extent, older adults appear to com- pensate for the attentional deficits they experience when multi-tasking by shifting the regions of the brain they activate while attending to more than one input.

Memory self-efficacy and aging

With increas- ing age, people feel less and less confident about their memory and consequently their self-efficacy suffers (West, Thorn, & Bagwell, 2003). They are affected by the so-called "implicit theory" about aging and memory— namely, that memory functioning suffers an inevitable decline in later life

Empty nest and marriage

With the children gone from the home, couples potentially have the opportunity to enjoy more leisure- time activities together, a change that should bring them closer together. Perhaps for these reasons, the empty nest may have some advantages in helping keep a couple's sexual rela- tionship alive.

5 traits and facets

Within the trait categories, where you stand within the six facets can make a difference in how your person- ality is reflected in your behaviour. For example, within the extroversion trait, people can be either high or low in the facet of warmth, and high or low in the facet of gre- gariousness. Being high on both would mean you genu- inely like to be around people and relate easily to others. Being low on warmth but high on gregariousness would mean that you seek being with others, but that people find it hard to get to know you very well.

Working memory

Working memory keeps information temporarily avail- able and active in consciousness. Example: changes in working memory affects ability of an older adult to put words together in a sentence to convey the intended meaning.

Video games and attention

Young adults who play action video games have improved attentional capacity (Green & Bavelier, 2003). Experienced players have more efficient eye movements (West, Al-Aidroos, & Pratt, 2013), and scan a display more quickly, automatically appraising such features as the number of items in a display without having to count. Players of these games also have more attentional resources that they can devote to rapidly changing inputs.

Cognitive changes and problem-solving (negative)

Young and middle-aged adults outperform older adults (beginning at age 70) Older adults less effective in their analytic strategies

Predictors of women's dissatisfaction during transition to parenthood

Younger age, non-white race/ethnicity, short relationship duration prior to pregnancy Poor relationships with own parents Unplanned pregnancy Impulsivity Greater centrality of work Newborns who are female or with difficult temperaments Psychological characteristics including high levels of neuroticism, insecure attachment style, or psychological disorder.

Stereotype threat

a concept drawn from research on the standardized test performance of African-Americans, suggesting that people perform in ways consistent with negative stereotypes of the group to which they see themselves as belonging

Memory self-efficacy

a form of self-efficacy that refers to the confidence you have in your memory; specifically, the degree to which you feel that you can successfully complete a memory task. The higher your memory self-efficacy, the greater the likelihood that you will perform to your maximum ability.

to what extent would you say that sexual expression is an important part of your relationships?

across younger to older adulthood, sexual expression is important regardless of age

What makes cognitive training successful?

adapted individuals needs/constraints skills are transferable to real life long-lasting effects after training

communication predicament model

age-related changes → elderspeak → further declines in cognitive functioning according to this model, older adults are exposed to discriminating behavior because younger adults will change the way they communicate because of preconceived notion that older adults are not able to follow conversations, this leads to further cognitive decline.

what increases with age:

agreeableness conscientiousness (up to midlife but then declines)

Not all abilities decline

although older adults are typically slower when processing infor- mation from visual displays, they can remember the loca- tion of an item presented in a visual display and may be even more efficient at this task than are younger adults (Kramer et al., 2006). Additionally, healthy older adults activate different areas of the brain in order to perform comparably with younger adults on Stroop tasks

Creativity as tool against adversity

an emotional and intellectual process that can displace negative feelings example: a prompt for innovative thinking that provides relief

sexual orientation and gender identity - changing attitudes?

are negative attitudes diminishing? yes it is diminishing, more favourable views however, inwardly individuals may still hold negative views of these people, repealing of "don't ask, don't tell" (gay individuals can join military) but still ban on transgender persons in military businesses may refuse service to same-sex couples on the basis of religion

Age stereotypes related to loneliness

are older adults more disconnected socially than younger adults? the idea that older adults are withdrawn from society is a stereotype of aging many older adults stay socially engaged and value rich social connections younger adults are just as likely to be lonely as older adults

who in the US is married?

asian-americans most likely to be married followed by white, hispanics and blacks college educated most likely to be married decline in marriage between uneducated adults because research has shown that feelings of economic security are strong predictors of decision to get married marriage rates in same sex couples are rapidly increasing

Primary mental abilities test (PMAT)

assesses the seven abilities of Verbal Meaning, Word Fluency (the ability to generate words following a certain lexical rule), Number (arithmetic), Spatial Relations, Memory, Perceptual Speed, and General Reasoning. Unlike the WAIS-IV, psychologists administer the PMAT in group format rather than in an individu- alized manner, which also makes it more practical for research purposes. The PMAT's scales roughly parallel at least some of the WAIS-IV's, such as Memory and Work- ing Memory, and Perceptual Speed and Processing Speed.

six independent dimensions

associational (fre- quency of interaction), affectual (feelings), consensual (agreement in values, beliefs, and lifestyles), functional (help exchange), normative (commitment to fulfill fam- ily obligations), and structural (availability in terms of distance and health).

Health/lifestyle factors and cognition

avoid smoking dietary control related to colon cancer those who eat more red meat are more likely to have cognitive dysfunctions. maintain physical activity

Filial anxiety US

become more concerned about parents' health and potential for you to care for your aging parents increases. common phenomenon in US, increasing role reversal - caregivers ⅓ of caregivers are children providing care to parents many caregivers experience not only anxiety but also experience a sense of growth and relationship satisfaction. - prevention of filial anxiety? support is key to coping successfully with the demands of staying healthy, caregivers should have a support system problems most common in "sandwich generation": caring for children and parents

how often do you experience pleasure in your sexual interactions

bigger gap between gender than age females tend to report less pleasure compared to males across adulthood

homosexuality and transgender identity in late life

biggest problem for older homosexual and or transgender men and women: societal attitudes stigma vs. normal characteristic of self they had to hide their identities when they were young, therefore they tend to have poor mental and physical health tied to their identity. research has shown that those who have embraced their identity show better physical and mental health

The Five Factor Model (FFM)

capture all the essential characteristics of personality in a set of five broad dispositions. Each of the five disposi- tions has six sub-scales or "facets." To characterize an individual completely requires knowing how that person rates on each of these 30 facets. The tool used to test the FFM is the NEO-PI-R questionnaire, containing 240 items measuring the 30 facets. Fits into the category of trait psychological theories.

conscientiousness

competence, self-discipline, thoughtfulness, goal-drive high score: hardworking, dependable, organized low score: impulsive, careless, disorganized

confucianism and filial obligation

confucianism - importance of respecting and pampering parents developmental schism in china: gap between parent and child older generations value filial piety (obligation) younger generations becoming more individualistic and less concerned about filial obligation new law passed in 2013: requires children to look after parents and keep them engaged in society (ex: teach them how to use the internet)

agreeableness

cooperative, trustworthy, good-natured high score: helpful, trusting, empathetic low score: critical, uncooperative, suspicious

TimeSlips (video)

creating meaningful and creative engagement focusing on who the person was rather than embracing who the person is now → makes those with memory loss depressed and humiliated connect to them through creativity (showing arts, pictures and sounds)

4 key points about creativity

creativity strengthens morale in later life: it is engaging sustaining and makes us feel better creativity contributes to physical health: has effects on brain function and immune system, helps relieve stress (lowers cortisol which makes you more resilient later on) creativity enriches relationships: it adds richness to life, which strengthens social ties creativity is our greatest legacy: model for our children on how to age, elders as "keepers of the culture"

Issues in measuring intelligence

cultural bias of tests influences on older adults' performance health.vision and hearing, speed, mobility, attitudes toward testing (anxiety)

What is personality

definition: each person's distinctive pattern of thoughts, emotions and behaviors enduring characteristics of the individual source of individual differences in psychology typically thought of in terms of traits traits: relate to enduring characteristics of an individual

What is intimacy (perspective 2)

disclosure and intimacy - dyadic process we disclose to people we like we like people who disclose to us we like people to whom we have disclosed crux: intimacy is feeling understood, validated and cared for

Assimilation

discount age related changes

can these 3 traits overcome powerful forces of

discrimination shrinking job opportunities schools that fail to teach employers that won't promote unfair criminal justice system

Bilingualism and cognitive aging

does speaking more than one language contribute to function with age there is evidence that it benefits for later general intelligence and reading ability no effect on processing speed or attention effects held, accounting for childhood intelligence and socioeconomic factors

The transition to parenthood: how do roles change with parenthood?

doing gender: shift in household duties toward more gender stereotyped roles after birth or first child

Roles across different life stages (levinson model)

early adult: explore identity and establish social relationship (see changes in extraversion and openness) mid life: build intimate relationships establish career and family (see changes in conscientiousness and agreeableness) late adulthood: prepare for retirement/ empty nest (see changes in neuroticism and agreeableness) late late adulthood: cope with physical/cognitive changes, death of spouse (see changes in neuroticism and conscientiousness)

Where do these traits come from

early life indicators of personality traits temperament components negative emotionality surgency effortful control Early life temperament correlates with 5-factor model environmental influences parenting peer relationships (especially in adolescence when you are more prone to peer pressure) socioeconomic status Gene vs environment interactions Child temperament can shape parenting style, which in turn feeds back to child temperament

The power or personality

education and occupational attainment positive influences: agreeableness conscientiousness extraversion negative influences neuroticism

William james (father of american psych)

education should play more of a role in exposing us to different viewpoints advocated for inquiries that take us beyond the comfortable borders of our own insular groups.

Psychodynamic perspective

emphasizes the ways in which unconscious motives and impulses express themselves in people's personalities and behaviour.

Huston's insights to course of LT marriages

enduring dynamics pathway emergent distress pathway disillusionment pathway

computerized cognitive training (CCT)/ virtual reality

enhance enconding strategies instructions for deeper processing, thinking of meaning

Declines with age

episodic - remote - false memory source memory prospective memory retrieval

Language and aging

even older adults with normal age-related vision read at slower rates than younger adults. Older adults take longer to make these predictions, which means that they are also slower to gain information from the context of what they are reading

Frienships

evidence of socioemotional selectivity theory social networks become smaller and more intimate in midlife implications of internet social networking? recently allows people to maintain social ties that are superficial (loose connections) compared to previous generations choosing friends may be especially important in old age priority on relationships that provide positive emotional experiences change from many social ties (young adult) to less social ties (older adult)

Method to study loneliness

examined loneliness in a large sample in germany from individuals age 20-100 years old they measured loneliness by a questionnaire with rankings from 1 (hardly ever) - 3 (often)

Identity status interview

examines the degree of the individual's commitment to identity issues and the degree of exploration the individ- ual used to arrive at this commitment. The individual is grouped into one of four identity statuses on the basis of this interview: Identity Achievement (strong commitments following a period of exploration), Foreclosed (strong com- mitments without a period of exploration), Moratorium (actively exploring different commitments), and Identity Diffuse (no strong commitments with or without a period of exploration). The identity status interview expanded on Erikson's theory by showing that people could have strong identities without having given their roles much thought. For example, they may have taken on the views of their parents in religion, politics, or even their choice of career.

Non-declarative memory example

example: music training and Az's disease monitor brain waves alongside musician during a set of rythmic sounds damage caused by Az's disrupts brain and he is not able to play the drums on time. However, slowly he begins to play in time. playing along to a familiar song they sing together and there is an increase in his positive emotion processing

Over time: are traits stable, changing or both?

existing evidence of both stability and change correlational stability in traits from age 30 - 70 but evidence of mean-level change track individuals over time and look at personality they do on average increase or decrease on certain traits findings limited to us population results: normative personality change: linked to role responsibilities in work and family life

aging and emotional memory article

experimental materials: viewed 32 images on computer screen (16 neutral, 16 emotional (half positive, half negative) IAPS: international affective picture system after viewing these images they were asked to recall and recognize what they have previously viewed memory assessments (DV) recall recognition hypothesis: older adults will do better on memory for positive than negative material while younger will do better on negative rather than positive material. these differences would be stronger for recall than recognition results: both middle age adults and older adults recalled more positive than negative pictures compared to young adults. Overall young adults and middle-age adults recalled more images than older adults. young adults recognized more negative than positive/neutral images. middle age and older adults recognized all about the same socioemotional selectivity was supported: older adults recalled fewer negative than positive images compared to YA recall: with age fewer negative than positive are recalled recognition: YA recognized more negative than positive, OA recognized both equally MEANING: older adults will attend to and recall info better that is aligned with their motivations

the skip generation family

family in which grandparents take on primary responsibility for care of grandchildren reasons: teen pregnancies not much evidence since most of these cases happen in low income families movement to be more vocal to provide support to grandparents who are providing support for their grandchildren this trend is increasing

Skip-generation family

family living situation in which children live with their grandparents and not their parents. The skip- generation family is often related to parental substance abuse.

3 types of parent-child relationships

filial maturity filial obligation filial anxiety

Psychological aspects of divorce

financial consequences more women suffer of this compared to men child custody disputes over child custody are common lower psychological health after divorce poorer physical health problems with substance abuse to cope with stress with divorce more negative life events - Researchers try to destigmatize divorce to normalize aspects of divorce and decrease consequences

Psychodynamic perspective and personality development: study exploring transition through erikson's psychosocial stages

findings from the rochester adult longitudinal study 2 cohorts: 1946 first tested in 1966-67 1957 first tested in 1977-78 4 follow ups 11 years apart Inventory of psychosocial development (IPD) 80 item questionnaire measuring each of the eight erikson stage family work history questionnaire administered at each follow up

types of grandparenting

formal, fun seeker, surrogate parent, reservoir of wisdom, distant figure for most older adults, grandparenting is an important and enjoyed role but little data. evidence of cognitive benefits of grandparenting. Grandparents more involved in grandchildren's lives show better cognitive health.

How does stress and depression interfere with cognition?

frequent stress exposure and serious depression impairs memory stress reduces ability to learn and recall new info depression increases sensitivity to sad memories

Absence of social relationships and loneliness

fundamental need to belong social ostracism severe form of punishment loneliness is just as detrimental to health as smoking current events: older adults face a double whammy: vulnerability to the coronavirus and loneliness due to social distancing and isolation

parenthood and LGBTQ

gay and lesbian couples experience homophobia in adoption process which leads to many challenges in parenthood compared to heteronormative couples no evidence of differences in parenting skills

Why does our reaction time get slower?

general slowing hypothesis age-complexity hypothesis

Gene cohen

geriatric who championed the idea that people past retirement have untapped stores of creativity. the boy and the science project aging and oceanography calculating age of fish by size unlike humans, they kept growing with age won first prize, but was seriously challenged 15 years later returned to biology of aging and rediscovered species of fish that do not diminish in size with age questioned what is aging answer should not be based on those who are ill He focuses on putting misconceptions to test

Fluid intelligence

global capacity to reason ability to learn new things think abstractly and solve problems not strongly linked to verbal function (non verbal interaction with the world)

Intelligent behavior is

goal oriented (conscious, deliberate) adaptive (identifies and solves problems). Intelligence should be described in many different ways because it greatly depends on the environment you are in and on what challenges you face.

What makes marriages succeed

good communication tendency to work out rather than ignore conflict learning how to fight fair when couples engage in conflict address subject that can be solved and suggest different solutions that can be solved rather than digging up character flaws of partner or past problems experienced by couples. tendency to express negative emotions in similar ways matched anger-coping response → lower risk of mortality individuals tend to express anger in more outward expressions or inward expressions add support for similarity hypothesis

Intimacy, sex and aging

good sexual relationships and intimacy are both important to older and younger adults but sexual activity declines with age not because of desire but because of medical issues or loss of partner.

Younger drivers

have faster response times more likely to drink and drive more likely to drive while distracted - younger adults are more likely to involved in fatal accidents due to alcohol

Key psychosocial factors that lead to experiencing of ENS

having an identity that is wrapped up in their parent role, feeling that they are losing control over their children's lives, having few or only children, and lacking a support network. Parents who worried about their children's safety and well-being in the world out- side the home were also more vulnerable to ENS

Az's disease

high conscientiousness while alive correlated with lower rates of Alzheimer's disease. Even among those whose brains showed a high degree of pathology upon autopsy, high levels of con- scientiousness seemed to serve as a protective factor against the experience of cognitive symptoms associated with the disease. High levels of neuroticism in mid-life also appear to be predictive of an earlier onset of the disease, but only in women

Cohabitation effect:

higher divorce rates among couples who cohabitate before becoming engaged especially "serial" cohabitors, why? individuals who serially cohabitate are more likely to get divorced. cohabitation is increasing in the US cohabitation may predict divorce because they may get married more because of convenience and may lack the emotional intimacy however, older cohabiting couples are more likely to stay together

Creativity in response to adversity

his own: at high point in his career, diagnosed with ALS William Carlos Williams - poet and physician suffered stroke and became depressed. To help him cope with this depression he engaged in poetry wrote pictures from brueghel (age 79) for which he received pulitzer prize old age that odds as it takes away

enduring dynamics pathway

how a couple interacts early in their relationship will character- ize the course of the relationship over time. They either get along well with each other and resolve conflict easily, or they don't.

Filial obligation

how relationships are maintained primarily by the expectations that children should care for their parents. more common in eastern asian and hispanic cultures

secure attachment style

if people feel safe and cared for, they will carry forward into their adult relationships a secure attachment style in which they feel confident about themselves and confident that oth- ers will treat them well.

openness

imagination, feelings, actions, ideas High score: curious wide range of interests, independent low score: practical, conventional, prefers routine

Marijuana and physical health

impairs cognitive functions longer use of marijuana predicted lower verbal memory scores longer use of marijuana did not predict attention. LT use of marijuana was significantly related to some cognitive outcomes.

Video games benefits for young

improved attentional capacity more efficient aye movements scan display faster speed up reaction time and accuracy more attentional resources improved useful field of view (test peripheral vision)

Stroop test

in which you are told to name the colour of ink in which a word is printed. In the critical trials on the Stroop test, your response time and accuracy when the colour and the word match (e.g., the word "red" printed in red) are compared with your per- formance when the colour and the word do not match (e.g., "red" is printed in green). People with better inhib- itory control are more able to turn off the naming of the colour based on the word than the naming of the colour based on the ink.

accommodation

incorporates into sense of identity

Education and problem-solving

individuals who are more highly educated show less deterioration in problem-solving skills

Holistic student development should be:

intellectual: learning how to learn and think deeply emotional: understanding and expressing emotions social: building meaningful interpersonal relations and being civically engaged ethical: forming a value system physical: making informed decisions about one's health spiritual: questioning meaning of life and one's purpose

Episodic memory is assessed in 2 conditions

intentional learning and incidental learning

Dialectical thinking

is an interest in and appreciation for debate, arguments, and counter-arguments. Dialectical think- ing involves the recognition that often the truth is not necessarily a given, but that common understandings among people are a negotiated process of give and take.

Core issues

is intelligence one ability or many? Spearman's factor analysis: how strongly do different tests (ex: verbal comp., math reasoning) G → general factor that underlies multiple tests (confirmed by statistical analysis) Thurstone's primary mental abilities test measures 7 cognitive abilities

Personality development

is personality stable with aging or does it change 2 perspectives 1) character is set like plaster by age 30 2) life obliges human beings over and over again to give birth to themselves. Personality develops and changes over time depending on life circumstances

Filial obligation (piety)

is the cultural value in which adult children are expected to care for their parents, including having them live in their home

Filial anxiety

is the fear of having to take care of an aging, infirm parent

Elder abuse

is used to refer to a large cate- gory of actions taken directly against older adults that inflict physical or psychological harm.

Sandwich generation

it was considered a foregone conclusion that the caregiving role was a traumatic one for the adult child. The daughters in this situation were referred to as "women in the middle" or the sandwich generation, meaning that mid-life caregivers are sandwiched between their aging parents and their teenaged children.

Results loneliness study

loneliness peaks around age 30 and age 60 and after age 80 other variables apart from old age may contribute to these peaks

Dimensions of widowhood

many women who are widowed show resilience some show long period of grief and depression some re-marry

Difficulties in transition to parenthood predicted by multiple factors

marital satisfaction declines younger age = more difficulty in being a parent non-white race/ethnicity (minority) = fewer resources to cope with being parents and therefore have more difficulty in transition to parenthood poor relationships with own parents = greater difficulty in transition to parenthood greater centrality of work: individuals who have greater sense of identity tied to work life have a greater difficulty in adjustment to parenthood since they have to make sacrifices in their work life parents with high levels of neuroticism and impulsivity = have more difficulty adjustment since they are more stressed, impulsive people may have challenges balancing demands of parenthood.

Marriage and culture

marital stressors have a cultural component and that interventions and community support for couples should be tailored to address these cultural differences.

Physical and mental health benefits of marriage

marriage and health: 9-15% reduction in mortality among older adults for married men and women marriage and happiness: marriages are linked to greater happiness via greater sexual and emotional intimacy, sharing tasks and resources, sense of belonging. it is not the act of marriage that leads to better physical and mental health, but yes happy marriage

when do we tend to marry?

median age of marriage = 25.8 women, 28.4 men by age 40, 84% of all women are married age of first marriage differs between gender, women tend to get married at a younger age

Great late events

michaelangelo creates st. peters (71-89) sophocles wrote oedipus rex (75) franklin invents bifocal lens (78) Imogen Cunningham Picasso style of art changed a lot later in his life Portugal's granny graffiti gang street art in lisbon that involves over 100 senior citizens they team up with street artists to paint the town activity bridges down generation gap brings charm and color to neighborhoods decreased crime rate

Functional threshold

minimal level of functioning needed to succeed in life, goal is to keep individuals above this level. individual differences in cognitive change

Older drivers

more experience self-regulate (better decisions) difficulty with left turns difficulty merging or yielding

universal predictors of loneliness

more functional limitations less social engagement fewer number of friends lower frequency of social contact need to consider what is age normative (what is expected or normal for specific ages)

Adult learners

more likely to take notes more engaged, proactive challenge instructor to go beyond the material may find it difficult to take multiple-choice tests better able to communicate their ideas in essays or more dynamic discussions prefer applying what they know from real-world experiences

Changing family structures

more parents are in cohabiting relationships (not married), normally people who do not have access to higher education. blended families increased due to increase in divorce rates single-parent increased doubles since 1970 1 in 6 headed by father delay parenthood more common (becoming parents after 30) first child: more women over 30 and age 40 grandparent headed more common grandparent raising children (head of households). Siblings are likely to exchange more help with each other when their parents had poor relationships with all of their siblings.

Intelligence and birth cohort

more recent cohorts of individuals (younger) showed different trajectories because these cohorts were more likely to complete higher levels of education (less decline in intelligence compared to older cohorts)

5 factors trait model (OCEAN) → The big 5 personality traits

most empirically supported model of trait personality (high validity and reliability)

Same-sex couples

most of the individuals living in these relation- ships are not legally bound to each other, the partner- ship is more likely to dissolve when it is not working out.

Route of metabolic factors

mpaired glucose tolerance, a com- ponent of metabolic syndrome, shows a clear relation- ship to cognitive functioning in normal aging individuals. Older adults with Type 2 dia- betes are more likely to experience slowing of psycho- motor speed as well as declines in executive functioning. Even impaired glucose tolerance, a condition known as pre-diabetes, can be a risk factor for greater declines in cognition. High-fat diets appear to play an important role in this process

what declines with age:

neuroticism extraversion openness

5 TRAITS

neuroticism extroversion openness to experience agreeableness conscientiousness OCEAN

Results

no big change between different age-groups age doesn't seem to be a factor in susceptibility young adults: neither cognitive or socioemotional factors were predictive young-old adults: lower positive effect predicted greater susceptibility but cognitive functioning did not play a role older adults; worse episodic memory and lower positive affect predicted greater susceptibility: suggests that to reduce susceptibility have to focus on cognitive and emotional factors. age by itself does not predict online deception risk need to attend to individual difference low positive affect in predictive of risk in mid-old adult group strengths to this study? small sample size of mid-old age group were small so maybe were not representative of population

Filial maturity

occurs when children reach the age of relating to their parents as equals

The legacy of the Black elk

oglala lakota holy man and traditional healer who lived through US/Sioux wars many in the lakota nation feared the dissolution of their culture. He committed to preserving lakota culture and sacred knowledge. At 75.

ToM and aging

older adults performed more poorly on cog- nitive ToM tasks but did just as well as the young adults on affective ToM tasks. As mentioned, ToM skills are very important for interacting with other people and this study suggests that when interacting in emotion-laden contexts, older adults do just as well as younger adults in under- standing the perspectives of others.

How would you rate the sexual aspect of your life these days

older adults report lower satisfaction than younger adults.

How often do you experience pain or discomfort in your sexual interactions

older adults that remain active rarely report discomfort in sexual interactions

Warning portion

one of the main problems with reading back of medicine is ignoring the warning portion. This is a very common mistake and the consumption of the medicine can lead to further health issues

Evidence of similarity hypothesis

opposites do not attract people tend to fall in love with and marry people like themselves, similar: physical appearances and attractiveness mental and physical health intelligence personality socio demographics (socioeconomic status, race, religion)

contingency theory

parents may also provide support for their children because they per- ceive that the children need this support, which is what contingency theory proposes. It is only when the par- ents of middle-aged adults become infirm that the direc- tion of support shifts the other way

Simple reaction time tasks

participants are instructed to make a response like pushing the key as soon as they see the target, such as a red circle appearing

choice reaction time tasks

participants must make one response for one stim- ulus and another response for a different stimulus. For example, they would push the "F" button for a red circle and the "J" button for a blue circle.

Sustained attention task

participants must respond when they see a particular target appear out of a continuous stream of stimuli. For example, in a typical experimental task, participants watch a computer screen while they see a series of stimuli and are told to respond only when the target stimulus appears (such as an X moving onto a screen containing all Ys). In some conditions, the experi- menter provides cues that give participants notice about whether and where to look for the target just before it appears. Older adults typically have more difficulty with sustained attention tasks than do younger adults

problem- focused coping

people attempt to reduce their stress by changing something about the situation.

emotion-focused coping

people attempt to reduce their stress by changing the ways they think about the situa- tion.

Correspondence principle

people experience particular life events that reflect their personality traits; once these events occur, they further affect people's personalities (Roberts, Don- nellan, & Hill, 2013). A person who is high in extrover- sion is more likely than a person who is more introverted to choose social pursuits at night or on weekends. Being in these social situations may, in turn, promote further growth in extroversion. According to this principle, then, personality stability is enhanced by the active choices that people make rather than by any intrinsic likelihood of traits remaining static over time.

unmarried vs married

percent reduction in mortality risk for married men and women. Marriage also brings with it greater happi- ness and a variety of other benefits to the quality of life, a fact that came into questio

Does stability/change in personality depend on culture?

personality traits assessed at 2 time points compared japan and us and looked at changes in personality to explore variation by culture results: trait personality changed with age in the US but not in japan personality change in japan is much less uniform than in the US. why? japanese sample has more variability in how individuals change over time us sample individuals start of higher and lowers as they age.

fun-seeker grandparents

prefers the leisure aspects of the role and primarily provides entertainment for the grandchild.

How do we foster social connection, reduce isolation across the life course?

preschools in nursing homes timeslips program: engaging adults through imagination, bring different generations together to interact

Crystallized intelligence

prior learning and past experiences based on facts increases with age

2 types of coping

problem- focused coping emotion-focused coping

Characteristics of problem-solving

problem-solving involves assessing a current situa- tion, deciding on a desired end-state, and finding ways of transforming the current into the desired state. The final step is evaluating the outcome of the solution to deter- mine its efficacy.

Biopsychosocial approach to older individuals driving

propose that whether older adults con- tinue to drive depends on their feelings of self-confidence, their ability to find alternative methods of transportation (such as getting rides with others), how much they want to get out of the house, their need for independence, the importance of driving to their self-worth, availabil- ity of public transportation, their perceived health, and whether they live alone or with others. The major finding of this study is that beliefs and attitudes about driving are influenced by health status. When health declines, older adults become less comfortable and confident and begin to self-regulate their driving.

Socioemotional selectivity theory

proposes that throughout adulthood, people structure the nature and range of their relationships to maximize gains and minimize risks. Essentially, this theory proposes that there are two types of functions served by interpersonal relationships. One is an informational function. Relationships that serve this function provide you with important knowledge that you would not otherwise have. The second role of relations with others is emotional. Relationships that serve this function contribute to your sense of well-being.

Types of intelligence tests

psychometric (measuring the mind) tests verbal comprehension mathematical computation reasoning nonverbal performance standardized norms (representative samples) intelligence quotient (IQ): what is your mental age relative to your chronological age? deviation IQ: are you above or below the mean? deviation IQ is a bell-shaped curve with the average IQ (100) at its center

W.E.B Du Bois

racial equality activist who advocated for thinking about education beyond preparing individuals for gaining money but to prepare individuals to be active citizens in society, prepare them to think critically and be able to explore different options higher education should teach students how to think and be active citizens not simply to teach what to think to make the most money.

Intelligence involves

reasoning: one's ability to reason about different issues and reach a decision through analysis of complex patterns and issues capacity to acquire knowledge (absorb new info and combine new info with already held knowledge) problem-solving skills

Flashbulb memory

recall of important and dis- tinctive events that stand out from other memories of past events. When older adults form such memories, they are as likely as younger adults to recall them correctly

Postformal operations

referring to the way that adults structure their thinking over and beyond that of adolescents. Thinking at the postformal operational level incorporates the tendency of the mature individual to use logical processes specifically geared to the complex nature of adult life. The postformal thinker is also able to judge when to use formal logic and when, alternatively, to rely on other and simpler modes of representing problems.

Memory controllability

refers to beliefs about the effects of the aging process on memory, such as the extent to which the individual believes that memory decline is inevitable with age. Older people who rely heavily on identity accommodation are more likely to hold negative beliefs about their ability to control their memory as they age. In turn, older people who believe they cannot exert control over loss of memory do perform more poorly on memory tests

Coping

refers to the actions people take to reduce stress.

Attentional resources theory

regards attention as a process reflecting the allocation of cognitive resources. When you must focus on a particular object, you must dedicate a certain proportion of your mental operations to that object. According to this theory, older adults have greater difficulty with attentional tasks because they have less energy available for cognitive operations than do their younger counterparts. Tasks that require high attentional demands are subject to reduced performance among older adults, while performance on tasks that require little attention remains intact. According to attentional resources theory: older adults perform worse in conjunction search (serial processing)

filial maturity

relating to parents as equals

What are intimate relationships?

relationships that form out of choice romantic partners (involve romantic partners and friends,less research on friends) spouse cohabitation partner Close friends (less research)

Aging and false memory

remembering items/ events that did not occur very open to suggestibility, are older adults susceptible for this? experimental contexts: older adults are more prone to false memories than younger adults real-life contexts: eyewitness testimony falsely identifying innocent bystander con artists preying on the elderly scams

Reaction time

researchers ask their partici- pants to complete an action such as pushing a computer key when the screen flashes a particular stimulus, known as a target. Stimuli that do not fit the criteria for the target are called distractors.

Inhibitory control

researchers try to determine whether older adults have difficulty turning off one response while performing another in what is called inhibitory con- trol

mostly on gay and lesbian couples:

samples tend to be urban, educated, professionals (nonrepresentative of larger population) gay and lesbian couples more egalitarian than heterosexual couples

nelson mandela and "solving" apartheid

segregation between black and white communities he drew on his expertise to solve the issue of apartheid and reintegrate society he initially described himself as passionate and hot-headed young adult but at the age of 71 and after 26 years in prison, he led the anti-apartheid movement. His observations from post-prison was that he became a much more mature individual and had a more clear vision of how to address this issue. He considered himself more patient, confident, resolute he received the nobel peace prize at a fairly older age showing that older adults still have cognitive capability and intelligence.

Selective optimization with compensation

select areas of focus, maximize performance in those areas and make up for losses in one area with gains in others

what predicts adaptation to parenthood?

self-efficacy toward being a parent expectations and feelings of competence more confidence = better parent

discount myth that old age is sexless

sexual activity continues through adulthood due to lack of attention to sexualhealth in older adulthood, the spread of sexually transmitted diseases is of growing concern.

Mature adults

show increasing competence in solving everyday problems due to increase in experience that occurs with age especially with day to day problems, they show higher attention to irrelevant factors they have greater ease for picking out what they need to make certain decisions broadening and using existing knowledge in flexible ways to solve real- life problems. they problem-solve more effectively when they are capable of drawing knowledge from previous experience.

extroversion

sociability, assertiveness, emotional expression high score: outgoing, warm, seeks adventure low score:quiet, reserved, withdrawn

Social conversations and working memory

social conversations require working memory what did the person just say what can be retrieved from memory to continue the conversation anxiety impacts working memory abilities

What about the single life?

societal shifts in attitudes toward single life less social pressure to marry many single by choice older never married less likely to be lonely than older divorced or widowed

Associative deficit hypothesis (ADH)

states that older adults have more difficulty forming and retrieving links among single bits of information than. Results showed strong support for the ADH, indicating that older adults have more difficulty binding bits of information together. This binding deficit was apparent on verbal and non-verbal tasks and across a number of contexts. the binding deficit was more evident on recall than on recognition tasks, and on intentional than on incidental learning tasks

Management of stress effects

stressors on one day predicted memory failures on the next. deficit shown by older adults on working memory tasks can be accounted for in part by the experience of daily stressors

Inhibitory deficit hypothesis

suggests that aging reduces the individual's ability to inhibit or tune out irrelevant infor- mation (Butler & Zacks, 2006). As we discussed earlier, one important feature of attention is the ability to focus on one element of a stimulus array while ignoring others. If older adults cannot ignore irrelevant information, their attentional performance will suffer. measured brain activity in both young and old individuals and analyzed how the brain responds to both relevant and irrelevant info younger adults have lower activity for irrelevant info compared to older

intergenerational solidarity model (ISM)

sum- marizes the six relevant dimensions of families that span at least two generations. Each of the ISM dimensions runs along a continuum from positive to negative.

neuroticism

tendency towards unstable emotions high score: anxious, unhappy, prone to negative feelings low score: calm, even-tempered, secure

SLS

the Seattle Longitudinal Study (SLS) has produced extensive information about what happens to people's intellectual skills as they age. In addition to providing a picture of how age alters intel- ligence, the SLS has also provided important evidence about how cohort and time of measurement influence patterns of performance on basic intellectual abilities. the classic aging pattern reflected not the effect of age changes, but the combined effects of age, cohort, and time of mea- surement. Vocabulary, a measure of Gc, showed the smallest amount of change, holding up fairly steadily until the age of 74. The largest drop in scores occurred on Numeric Abil- ity, which in the CHC model represents Gq (quantitative knowledge). information that people gain as a result of their exposure to the language, knowledge, and culture (i.e., Gc) appear to be fairly well preserved as people grow older. These skills may be used by older adults to com- pensate for declines in other areas. Mental abilities show little decline until after age of 60.

Attention

the ability to focus or concentrate on a portion of experience while ignoring other features of that experience, to be able to shift that focus as demanded by the situation, and to be able to coordinate information from multiple sources.

Processing speed

the amount of time it takes for an individual to analyze incoming information from the senses, formulate decisions, and then prepare a response on the basis of that analysis.

Adult Attachment Theory

the early bond between the infant and caregiver sets the stage for all of the individual's later significant relationships.

Stereotype threat and aging

the older person's self-identification as "old" con- tributes to lower memory test scores. Since older adults are stereotyped as having poorer memories, this belief causes poorer performance.

transition to parenthood

the period of adjustment to the new family status represented by the presence of a child in the home. From a biopsychosocial perspective, the TtP involves biological changes (when the mother bears the child) as her body adapts to rapid hormonal and other physiological alterations. Parents provide the most support to their children who are actually in need of help.

Theory of mind (ToM)

the psychological process that requires you to infer other people's desires, beliefs, intentions, and feelings.

Brinley plot

the reaction times of older groups of adults are plotted against the times of younger adults.

Long-term memory

the repository of information that is held for a period of time ranging from several minutes to a lifetime. The pro- cesses of long-term memory include encoding, storage, and retrieval. We encode information when we first learn it, keep it in long-term storage, and retrieve it when we need to use it on a subsequent occasion.

conjunction visual search

the target differs from the distractors in more than one way.

Simple visual search

the target differs from the other stimuli by only one feature, such as shape, colour, or size. - reaction time tends not to increase as the number of items in the stimulus array gets larger.

fluid-crystallized theory

the view that intelligence should be divided into two distinct factors: Fluid rea- soning (Gf) is the individual's innate abilities to carry out higher-level cognitive operations (Cattell, 1971). Originally called crystallized intelligence, comprehen- sion knowledge (Gc) represents the acquisition of spe- cific skills and information that people gain as a result of their exposure to the language, knowledge, and conven- tions of their culture.

Cognition

the way the mind works; specifically, the processes of attention, memory, intelligence, problem-solving, and the use of language. We know that aging affects each of these areas of functioning, leading to important changes in many people's ability to carry out their everyday activities.

rochester results: evidence of 5 pathways

there are different ways that individuals progress through life, different life circumstances can alter how you progress as an individual. 1. authentic road: achieves solid identity commitments through exploration and change 2. triumphant trail: overcomes challenges is resilient 3. straight and narrow way: maintains consistent life pattern is defensive about change 4. meandering way: fails to settle on a course in life, constantly searches for identity 5. downward slope: shows self-defeating behavior makes poor decisions pathways show different patterns of development from early through middle adulthood.

Procedures of neuropsychological test

there is no one set procedure for conducting a neuropsychological assessment. In fact, particular neuropsychologists may have preferences for certain tests, especially if they tend to see the same type of client in their practice or their area of research expertise. In clinical settings, though, neu- ropsychologists are expected to have training in enough types of tests to be able to adapt the assessment to the individual's symptoms. In working with older adults, neuropsychologists are also expected to be familiar with the tests that are appropriate for people in this age group rather than those that would be used in diagnosing a child or adolescent.

Tacit knowledge

things experts intuitively know in their work

Helicopter parents

those who supposedly smother and overprotect their overly dependent children. As we have seen, middle-aged parents are likely to pro- vide whatever support they can to adult children who are in need of financial help. Moreover, parents benefit from their relationships with their adult children as do children from their relationships with parents. rather than being detrimental to the child's well-being, young adults whose parents provided a wide range of support were higher in life satisfaction. Their parents did not particularly suffer from the support they provided unless they thought their children needed "too much" support, perhaps reflecting what they perceived as their own failure to live up to the ideal identity of a parent.

can these 3 traits be cultivated?

through grit, perseverance, overcoming adversity (can they be taught?) justice sonia sotomayor explained her experience of being aware that she was not doing as well in her courses as she hoped and sought out help from others to study and ended up graduating at the top of her class are claims supported by scientific evidence? they were just basing everything off of anecdotal evidence researchers found that parent wealth and intelligence most predictive of success, these 3 traits are not predictive.

age-complexity hypothesis

through slowing of central processes in the nervous system, age differ- ences increase as tasks become more complex and the older adult's processing resources are stretched more and more to their limit

Mechanics of intelligence

traditional views of intelligence were focusing only on the mechan- ics of intelligence, which involve cognitive operations such as speed, working memory, and fluid intelligence. He believed that adults become increasingly capable of dealing with higher-level conceptual issues and that con- ventional tests, by measuring the mechanics of intelli- gence, fail to capture these abilities.

Video games benefits for old

training can improve speed performance don't like first person shooter games, though beware of false claims

WAIS (extra info)

verbal IQ Performance (nonverbal IQ) - sum verbal + performance = total IQ what do IQ tests best predict - mostly academic success

PMAT

verbal meaning word fluency (how quickly individuals can come up with words related to a category) number reasoning )solving arithmetic problem or counting backwards) memory (presenting word list and having them recall words immediately or after a while) perceptual speed general reasoning

Video games

very specific types of video games (action video game with a lot of visual stimuli) where you require to focus your entire attention, can have real life implications.

Active study

well researched cognitive intervention training: 10 sessions one hour each, 5-6 weeks assigned to one type of intervention; compared to control Improvement outcomes - speed training (87%) best outcome - reasoning training (74%) - memory training (26%) worst outcome - 2 years after: cognitive gains maintained, except for memory - 10 years later: some cognitive skills maintained, improved physical functioning

socioemotional selectivity theory

what is prioritized in relationships in older age informational rewards (gain knowledge) emotional rewards (positive feelings) increasing age sense that time is running out engagement in socioemotional selectivity requires greater emotion regulation and greater cognitive control.

Laurence Olivier and memory

when I was young I learned the role of romeo in 2 days age 62: I'm such a slow study these days, a single scene takes me 3 weeks evidence of identity accommodation anxiety attacks: breathless, sweating, blank mind age 76: quit acting but: vivid and colorful recollections of his life in theatre

visual search tasks

which require that the observer locate a specific target among a set of distractors.

What drives success?

who's achieving the american dream? is this rich parents passing on their advantages? no much upward mobility occurring among children of working-class immigrants must consider nuances of ethnicity and race and culture some black and hispanic groups out-performing whites and asians

Clayton (psyhcological approaches of wisdom)

wisdom as ability to grasp paradoxes, contradictions and accept compromise.

Baltes (psyhcological approaches of wisdom)

wisdom as special kind of expert knowledge - factual knowledge - procedural knowledge - knowledge in contexts of life and societal change - knowledge which considers relativism if values and life goals - knowledge which considers uncertainties of life

Erikson (psyhcological approaches of wisdom)

wisdom as virtue resulting from successful resolution of last stage of personality development (integrity v. despair)

Widowhood

women are more likely to be widowed than men, since women have longer life expectancy than men men tend to be more likely to remarry after widowed widowhood effect those widowed have higher mortality rates compared to those who are still married, small differences

Intelligence and gender

women declined fluid intelligence abilities and men declines crystallized intelligence abilities