Chapter 15 & 16 Physical, Cognitive, Developmental, and Emotion Psych of Middle Adulthood

muscle-fat make up

A common pattern is an increase in body fat and a loss of lean body mass (muscle and bone) "middle-age spread" - The rise in fat largely affects the torso and occurs as fatty deposits within the body cavity; as noted earlier, fat beneath the skin on the limbs declines - The size of the abdomen increased 7-14 percent - Men accumulate more fat on the back and upper abdomen, women around the waist and upper arms - Muscle mass declines very gradually in the 40s and 50s, - largely due to atrophy of fast-twitch fibers, responsible for speed and explosive strength - With age, people must gradually reduce caloric intake to adjust for the age-related decline in basal metabolic rate - Women, who tend to be less active than men, experience a more rapid age-related decline in muscle mass

siblings

A survey of a large sample of ethnically diverse Americans revealed that sibling contact and support decline from early to middle adulthood, rebounding only after age 70 for siblings living near each other - Decreased midlife contact is probably due to the demands of middle-aged adults' diverse roles. - However, most adult siblings report getting together or talking on the phone at least monthly - Despite reduced contact, many siblings feel closer in midlife, often in response to major life events - Not all sibling bonds improve, of course. Recollections of parental favoritism in childhood, and fathers' current favoritism, are associated with negativity in adult sibling relationships - Large inequities in parental caregiving can also unleash sibling tensions - And when aging parents need care, sibling conflict worsens if perceptions of parental favoritism are present. - In industrialized nations, sibling relationships are voluntary. In village societies, they are generally involuntary and basic to family functioning.

caring for aging parents

About one-fourth of U.S. adult children provide unpaid care to an ill or disabled aging adult - Consequently, more than one older family member is likely to need assistance, with fewer younger adults available to provide it. - Sandwich generation: a term used to describe middle-aged adults who must care for multiple generations above and below them at the same time - Middle-aged adults living far from aging parents who are in poor health often substitute financial help for direct care, if they have the means. - But when parents live nearby and have no spouse to meet their needs, adult children usually engage in direct care. - In all ethnic groups, responsibility for providing care to aging parents falls more on daughters than on sons. nearly one-fourth of American working women are caregivers; others quit their jobs to provide care. - Nevertheless, men—although doing less than women—do contribute. -At the same time, parental caregiving may contribute to men's openness to the "feminine" side of their personalities. - Caregivers who share a household with ill parents—about 23 percent of U.S. adult children—experience the most stress. - Parental caregiving often has emotional, physical, and financial consequences - It leads to role overload, high job absenteeism, exhaustion, inability to concentrate, feelings of hostility, anxiety about aging, and high rates of depression, with women more profoundly affected than men - Social support is highly effective in reducing caregiver stress.

adult learners: becoming a student in midlife

Adults are returning to undergraduate and graduate study in record numbers - Life transitions often trigger a return to formal education - Divorce, widowhood, a job layoff, a return from military service, a family move, a youngest child reaching school age, older children entering college, and rapid changes in the job marker are other events that commonly precede reentry

career change at midlife

Although most people remain in the same vocation through middle age, career change does occur - As noted earlier, midlife career changes are seldom radical; they typically involve leaving one line of work for a related one. - The decision to change is often difficult. The individual must weigh years invested in one set of skills, current income, and job security against present frustrations and hoped-for gains. An extreme career shift, by contrast, usually signals a personal crisis - Among blue-collar workers, midlife career shifts are seldom freely chosen - Transitioners appeared to change jobs to stay in the work force, rather than being forced to retire early because of their disability, at less than full pension benefits. - Yet opportunities to shift to less physically demanding work are usually limited. - Less educated workers with a physical disability face greatly reduced chances of remaining in the labor force.

gender and ethnicity: the glass ceiling

Although women and ethnic minorities have gradually gained in access to managerial careers, they remain a long distance from gender and ethnic equality. - From career entry on, inequalities in promotion between men and women and between whites and blacks become more pronounced over time—findings still evident after education, work skills, and work productivity have been controlled - Women and ethnic minorities face a glass ceiling, or invisible barrier to advancement up the corporate ladder women and ethnic minorities have less access to mentors, role models, and informal networks that serve as training routes - And stereotyped doubts about women's career commitment and managerial ability (especially women with children) also contribute, leading supervisors to underrate their competence and not to recommend them for formal management training programs - To overcome this bias, women in line for top positions must demonstrate greater competence than their male counterparts. - But when women and ethnic minorities leave the corporate world, companies not only lose valuable talent but also fail to address the leadership needs of an increasingly diverse work force.

hearing

An estimated 14 percent of Americans between ages 45-64 suffer from hearing loss, often resulting from adult-onset hearing impairments - Although some conditions run in families and mat be hereditary, most are age-related, a condition called presbycusis - As we age, inner-ear structures that transform mechanical sound waves into neural impulses deteriorate through natural cell death or reduced blood supply caused by atherosclerosis - Processing of neural messages in the auditory cortex also weakens - Men's hearing tends to decline earlier and more rapidly than women's a difference associated with cigarette smoking, intense noise and chemical pollutants in some male-dominated occupations, and (at older ages) high blood pressure and cerebrovascular disease, or strokes that damage brain tissue

self-acceptance, autonomy, environmental mastery

An evolving mix of competencies and experiences leads to changes in certain aspects of personality during middle adulthood - Midlife brings gains in expertise and practical problem solving - Middle-aged adults also offer more complex, integrates descriptions of themselves than do younger and older individuals - Changes in cognition and breadth of roles undoubtedly contribute to other gains in personal functioning: - Self-acceptance: more than young adults, middle-aged people acknowledged and accepted both their good and bad qualities and felt positively about themselves and life - Autonomy: middle-aged adults saw themselves as less concerned about others' expectations and evaluations and more concerned with following self-chosen standards - Environmental mastery: middle-aged people saw themselves as capable of managing a complex array of tasks easily and effectively - Midlife is generally a time of increased comfort with the self, independence, assertiveness, and commitment to personal values - Increased contentment with oneself and one's life accomplishments might explain why middle age is sometimes referred to as "the prime of life"

skeleton

As new cells accumulate on their outer layers, the bones broaden with age, but their mineral content declines, so they become more porous - This leads to a gradual loss in bone density that begins around age 40 and accelerates in the 50, especially among women - Loss of bone strength causes the disks in the spinal column to collapse. Consequently height may drop as much as an inch by age 60 - Bones now fracture more easily and heal more slowly

friendships

At all ages, men's friendships are less intimate than women's. Men tend to talk about sports, politics, and business, whereas women focus on feelings and life's challenges. - Women report a greater number of close friends and say they both receive from and provide their friends with more emotional support - Because of their demanding everyday lives, many midlifers welcome the ease of keeping in touch with friends through social media. - Still, for both sexes, number of friends declines from middle to late adulthood as people become less willing to invest in nonfamily ties that are not especially rewarding. - As selectivity of friendship increases, older adults try harder to get along with friends - By midlife, family relationships and friendships support different aspects of psychological well-being. Family ties protect against serious threats and losses, offering security within a long-term timeframe. In contrast, friendships serve as current sources of pleasure and satisfaction, with women benefiting somewhat more than men

reproductive changes in men

Both quantity and motility of sperm decrease from the 20s on, and quality of semen diminishes after age 40, negatively affecting male fertility in middle age - Testosterone productive also declines with age, those less so in healthy men who continue to engage in sexual activity, which stimulates cells that release testosterone - Reduced testosterone plays a major role in diminishing blood flow to and changes in connective tissue in the penis - More stimulation is required for an erection

illness a d disability

Cancer and cardiovascular disease are the leading causes of US deaths in middle age - Economic disadvantage is a strong predictor of poor health and premature death, with SES differences widening in midlife - US continues to exceed most other industrialized nations in death rates from major causes due to more severe poverty and lack of universal health insurance - Men are more vulnerable than women to most health problems - Personality traits that magnify stress, especially hostility and anger, are serious threats to health in midlife

grandparenthood

Compared with a generation ago, the arrival of grandparenthood occurs a decade or more later, due to postponement of marriage and childbearing - Currently, the average age of becoming a grandparent for US women is 49; for US men is 52

creativity

Creative accomplishment tends to peak in the late thirties or early forties and then decline, but with considerable variation across individuals and disciplines - And as with problem solving, the quality of creativity may change with advancing age- in at least 3 ways - First, youthful creativity in literature and the arts is often spontaneous and intensely emotional, while creative working produced after age 40 often appear more deliberately thoughtful - Second, with age, many creators shift from generating unusual products to combining extensive knowledge and experience into unique ways of thinking - Finally, creativity in middle adulthood frequently reflects a transition from a largely egocentric concern with self-expression to more altruistic goals

Crystallized and fluid intelligence

Crystallized intelligence: intellectual skills that depend on accumulated knowledge and experience, good judgement, and mastery of social conventions- abilities acquired because they are valued by the individual's culture ---- On intelligence tests, vocabulary, general information, verbal comprehension, and logical reasoning items measure crystallized intelligence - Fluid intelligence: intellectual skills that largely depend on basic information-processing skills- ability to detect relationships among visual stimuli, speed of analyzing information, and capacity of working memory. Influenced less by culture than by conditions in the brain and by learning unique to the individual ----Intelligence tests items reflecting fluid abilities include spatial visualization, digit span, letter-number sequencing, and symbol search - Many studies show that crystalized intelligence increases steadily through middle adulthood, whereas fluid intelligence begins to decline in the twenties - In one investigation crystallized intelligence peaked between ages 45-54 and did not decline until the 80s, fluid intelligence dropped steadily over the entire age range 80s, fluid in

vision

Difficulty reading small print becomes common, due to thickening of the lens combined with weakening of the muscle that enables the eye to accommodate (adjust its focus) to nearby objects - Around age 60, the lens loses its capacity to adjust to objects at varying distances entirely, a condition called presbyopia - A second set of changes limits ability to see in dim light, which declines at twice the rate of daylight vision Throughout adulthood, the size of the pupil shrinks and the lens yellows - Starting at age 40, the vitreous develops opaque in the eye, reducing the amount of light reaching the retina - Yellowing of the lens and increasing density of the vitreous also limit color discrimination, especially at the green-blue-violet end of the spectrum - Gradual loss of rods and cones in the retina and of neurons in the optic nerve contributes to visual declines - Decreased blood supply to the retina, due to degeneration of the retinal blood vessels, causes it to thin and become less sensitive - Middle-aged adults are at increased risk of glaucoma, a disease in which poor fluid drainage leads to a buildup of pressure within the eye, damaging the optic nerve Starting in midlife, eye exams should include a glaucoma test

cardiovascular disease

Each year about 25% of middle-aged Americans who die succumb to cardiovascular disease - Atherosclerosis: a buildup of plaque in the coronary arteries, which encircle the heart and provide its muscles with oxygen and nutrients - The most extreme symptom is a heart attack: blockage of normal blood supply to an area of the heart, usually brought on by a blood clot in one or more plaque-filled coronary arteries - Less extreme symptoms of cardiovascular disease are arrythmia, indigestion-like pain or crushing chest pain, called angina pectoris - Today, cardiovascular disease can be treated in many ways, including coronary bypass surgery, medication, and pacemakers to regulate heart rhythm - Angioplasty: a procedure in which a surgeon threads a needle-thin catheter into the arteries and inflate a balloon at its tip, which flattened fatty deposits to allow blood to flow more freely - Some risks, such as heredity, advanced age, and being male, cannot be changed

Grandparent-Grandchild Relationships

Grandparents' styles of relating to grandchildren vary as widely as the meanings they derive from their new role. - Living nearby is the strongest predictor of frequent, face-to-face interaction with young grandchildren and a major contributor to feelings of closeness with older grandchildren. - because time and resources are limited, number of "grandchild sets" (households with grandchildren) reduces contact - As grandchildren get older, distance becomes less influential and relationship quality more so: The extent to which adolescent or young-adult grandchildren believe their grandparent values contact is a good predictor of a close bond - Maternal grandmothers report more frequent visits with grandchildren than do paternal grandmothers, who are slightly advantaged over both maternal and paternal grandfathers - Typically, relationships are closer between grandparents and grandchildren of the same sex and, especially, between maternal grandmothers and granddaughters—a pattern found in many countries - SES and ethnicity also influence grandparent-grandchild ties. In low-income families, grandparents are more likely to perform essential activities. - As children experience family stressors, bonds with grandparents can serve as a vital source of resilience. Increasingly, grandparents have stepped in as primary caregivers in the face of serious family problems - Because parents usually serve as gatekeepers of grandparents' contact with grandchildren, relationships between grandparents and their daughter-in-law or son-in-law strongly affect the closeness of grandparent-grandchild ties. - And after a marital breakup, grandparents who are related to the custodial parent (typically the mother) have more frequent contact with grandchildren. - Grandparents are a source of pleasure, support, and knowledge for children, adolescents, and young adults

hardiness

Hardiness: a set of 3 personal qualities- control, commitment, and challenge- that, together, help people cope adaptively with stress brought on by inevitable life changes - Hardiness influences the extent to which people appraise stressful situations as manageable - High-hardy individuals are likely to use active, problem-centered coping strategies in situations they can control - Low-hardy people more often use emotion-centered and avoidant coping strategies - Experiencing modest levels of lifetime adversity seems to foster a sense of mastery, generating in people the hardiness, or toughness, needed to overcome future stressors - Adults with no history of adversity are deprived of vital opportunities for leaning to manage life stressors, so they respond less optimally when faced with them - High levels of lifetime adversity overtax people's coping skills, engulfing them with feelings of hopelessness and loss of control and interfering substantially with mental health and well-being

cognitive development

In middle adulthood, the cognitive demands of everyday life extend to new and sometimes more challenging situations - Middle adulthood is a time of expanding responsibilities, on the job, in the community, and at home

job statisfaction

Job satisfaction increases in midlife in diverse nations and at all occupational levels, from executives to hourly workers. - When different aspects of jobs are considered, intrinsic satisfaction—happiness with the work itself—shows a strong age-related gain - Extrinsic satisfaction—contentment with supervision, pay, and promotions—changes very little. - But the age-related increase in job satisfaction is weaker for women than for men. - More women take leaves from work, drop to part-time, or use flexible schedule arrangements to meet family obligations, deviating from the U.S. "ideal-worker" expectation of complete commitment to their job. In response, employers may penalize them—circumstances that lead them to feel unfairly treated - What explains the overall rise in job satisfaction during middle adulthood? An improved capacity to cope effectively with difficult situations and a broader time perspective probably contribute. - Although emotional engagement with work is usually psychologically healthy, it can also result in burnout—a condition in which long-term job stress leads to mental exhaustion, a sense of loss of personal control, and feelings of reduced accomplishment. - Burnout is a serious occupational hazard, linked to impaired attention and memory, severe depression, on-the-job injuries, physical illnesses, poor job performance, absenteeism, and turnover - To prevent burnout, employers can make sure workloads are reasonable, provide opportunities for workers to take time out from stressful situations, limit hours of stressful work, and offer social support.

is there a midlife crisis?

Levinson reported that most men and women in his samples experienced substantial inner turmoil during the transition to middle adulthood - Yet Vaillant saw few examples of crisis but, rather, slow and steady change - Midlife crisis: self-doubt and stress that prompt major restructuring of the personality during the transition to middle adulthood. Characterizes the experience of only a minority of adults - Turning points rarely resembled midlife crises. Even negative turning points generally led to personal growth - By late midlife, with less time ahead to make life changes, people's interpretation of regret plays a major role in their well-being - Life evaluation is common during middle age. Most people make changes that are best described as turning points rather than drastic alteration of their lives - An increasing number find that aspects of their life paths can no longer be midlife, but they often come to see the "silver lining" in their circumstances

levinsons seasons of life

Levinson's interviews revealed that with the transition to middle age, adults become more aware that from now on, more time will lie behind than ahead, so they view the remaining years as increasingly precious - This leads some to make drastic revisions in their structure: divorcing, remarrying, changing careers, or displaying enhanced creativity - Whether these years bring a gust of wind or a storm, most people turn inward for a time, focusing on personally meaningful living - According to Levinson, to reassess and rebuild their life structure, middle-aged adults must confront four developmental tasks: ----Young-old: the middle-aged person must seek new ways of being both young and old. This means giving up certain youthful qualities, transforming others, and finding positive meaning in being older. ------------US baby boomers are especially interested in controlling physical changes- a desire that has helped energize a huge industry of anti-aging cosmetic product and medical treatments ------------And sustaining a youthful subjective age is positively related to self-esteem and psychological well-being - Destruction-creation: with greater awareness of mortality, the middle-aged person focuses on ways he or she has acted destructively. Past hurtful acts are countered by an intensified desire to be generative acts - Masculinity-femininity: the middle-aged person must better balance masculine and feminine parts of the self. -----------For men, this means greater acceptance of traits of nurturance and caring, which enhance close relationships and compassionate exercise of authority in the workplace -----------For women, it generally means greater openness to characteristics of autonomy and assertiveness Engagement-separateness: the middle-aged person must forge a better balance between engagement with the external world and separateness. For many men, and for women with successful careers, this may mean reducing concern with achievement in favor of attending more fully to oneself. But some women who have been devoted to child rearing or an unfulfilling job may feel compelled to move in the other direction, pursuing a long-desired ambition - People who flexibly modify their identities in response to age-related changes yet maintain a sense of self-continuity are more aware of their own thoughts and feelings and are higher in self-esteem and life satisfaction - Opportunities for advancement ease the transition to middle adulthood. yet these are less available to women than to men

sexuality

Little is known about the sexual activity of the growing numbers of middle-aged adults who are single and dating. Research on same-sex couples is also sparse - Frequency of sexual activity among heterosexual couples tends to decline in midlife, but for most, the drop is modest Longitudinal research reveals that stability of sexual activity is far more typical than dramatic change - Couples who have sex in early adulthood continue to do so in midlife - Sex is more likely in the context of a happy intimate bond, and couples who have sex often probably view their relationship more positively - Intensity of sexual response diminishes in midlife due to physical changes of the climacteric

information processing

Many studies confirm that as processing speed slows, basic components of executive function decline - Yet midlife is also a time of great expansion in cognitive competence as adults apply their vast knowledge and life experience to problems solving in the everyday world

gender identity

Many studies report an increase in "masculine" traits in women and "feminine" traits in men across middle age - Women become more confident, self-sufficient, and forceful, men more emotionally sensitive, caring, considerate, and dependent - Gender identity in midlife seems to become more androgynous - But in recent reports, this is not the care. Cohort effects may explain the contradictory findings: more recent participants were mostly adolescents or young adults during the women's movement of the 70s and 80s or were born after it - Influences by this time of major social change, adults of diverse ages may have been more likely than previous cohorts to endorse and androgynous mix of traits - The demands of middle explain androgyny - In sum, a complex combination of social roles and life conditions underlies the midlife rise in androgyny, which seems to have spread to other age periods in response to cultural changes favoring gender equality

adapting the physical challenges of midlife

Middle adulthood is often a productive time of life, when people attain their greatest accomplishments and satisfactions - It takes considerable stamina to cope with the full array of changes this period can bring

stability and change in self-concept and personality

Midlife changes in self-concept and personality reflect growing awareness of a finite lifespan, longer life experience, and generative concerns - Yet certain aspects of personality remain stable, revealing the persistence of individual differences established during earlier periods

Changes in Mental Abilities

Most cognitive aging research has focused on deficits while neglecting cognitive stability and gains - Although declines occur in some areas, most people display cognitive competence, especially in familiar contexts, and some attain outstanding accomplishment - Overall, the evidence supports a positive view of adult cognitive potential

changing parent-child relationships

Most parents "launch" adult children sometime in midlife - Investment in nonparental relationships and roles, children's characteristics, parents' marital and economic circumstances, and cultural forces affect the extent to which this transition is expansive and rewarding or sad and distressing - Many young people from low SES homes and with cultural traditions of extended-family living do not leave home early - Parent-adult-child relationships are usually positive, making living with parents attractive - With the end of parent-child co-residence, parental authority declines sharply - Whether or not they reside with parents, young-adult children who are "off-time" in development can prompt parental strain - Throughout middle adulthood, parents continue to give more assistance to children than they receive - After children marry, parents must adjust to an enlarged family network that includes in-laws - Parents who take steps to forge a positive tie with a future daughter or son-in-law generally experience a closer relationship after the couple marries - Members of the middle generation, especially mothers, usually take on the role of kinkeeper, gathering the family for celebrations and making sure everyone stays in touch

meanings of grandparenthood

Most people experience grandparenthood as a significant milestone, mentioning one or more of the following gratifications: - Valued older adult: being perceived as wise, helpful person Immortality through descendants: leaving behind not just one but two generations after death - Reinvolvement with personal past: being able to pass family history and values to a new generation - Indulgence: having fun with children without major child-rearing responsibilities

characteristics of returning students

Nearly 60 percent of adult learners are women - They often report feeling self-conscious, inadequate, and hesitant to talk in class. Their anxiety stem partly from not having practiced academic learning for many years and partly from negative again, gender, and ethnic stereotypes -Role demands outside of school pull many returning women in conflicting directions - When couples fail to rework divisions of household and child-care responsibilities to accommodate the woman's return to school, marital satisfaction declines - Role overload is the most common reason for not completing their degrees

Frequency and Quality of contact

Nearly two-thirds of older adults in the United States live close to at least one of their children, and frequency of contact is high through both visits and telephone calls - Proximity increases with age: Aging adults who move usually do so in the direction of kin, and younger people tend to move in the direction of their aging parents. - Middle age is a time when adults reassess relationships with their parents, just as they rethink other close ties. - Middle-aged daughters forge closer, more supportive relationships with aging parents, especially mothers, than do middle-aged sons - Because the majority of contemporary middle-aged women are employed, they face many competing demands on their time and energy. Consequently, men are becoming more involved in family responsibilities, including with aging parents - Despite this shift, women's investment continues to exceed men's. - In cultures that emphasize interdependence, parents often live with their married children. - The more positive the history of the parent-child tie, the more help given and received. Also, aging parents give more help to unmarried adult children and to those with disabilities. - Similarly, adult children give more practical help and emotional support to aging parents who are widowed or in poor health - Even when parent-child relationships have been emotionally distant, many adult children offer more support as parents age, out of a sense of altruism and family duty.

gender and aging: double standard

Negative stereotypes of aging, which lead many middle-aged adults to fear physical changes, are more likely to be applied to women than to men, yielding a double standard - Though many women in midlife say they have "hit their stride" people often rate them as less attractive and as having more negative personality characteristics than middle-aged men

memory strategies

Older adults ability to recall studied information is impaired relative to younger adults', a change affected by a decline in use of memory strategies - Older individuals rehearse less than younger individuals, a difference believed to be affected by a slower rate of thinking, in that older people cannot repeat new information to themselves as quickly as younger people - Reduced working-memory capacity is another influence, leading to difficulties in retaining to-be-remembered items and processing them at the same time - Adults find it harder to retrieve information from long-term memory - Many memory tasks given by researchers require strategies that many adults seldom use and may not be motivated to use, since most are not in school - Tasks can be designed to help older people compensate for age-related declines in working memory - Assessing older adults in highly structured, constrained conditions substantially underestimates what they can remember when given opportunities to pace and direct their own learning - Semantic memory (general knowledge base), procedural memory (such as how to drive a car or solve a math problem), and memory related to one's occupation either remain unchanged or increase into midlife - Aging has little impact on metacognitive knowledge and the ability to apply such knowledge to improve learning

skin

Our skin consists of 3 layers: - Epidermis: outer protective layer, where new skin cells are constantly produced - The dermis: middle supportive layer, consisting of connective tissue that stretches and bounces back, giving the skin elasticity - Hypodermis: an inner fatty layer that adds to the soft lines and shape of the skin - As we age, the epidermis becomes less firmly attached to the dermis, fibers in the dermis thin and lose their elasticity, cells in both the epidermis and dermis decline in water content, and fat in the hypodermis diminished, leading the skin to wrinkle, loosen, and feel dry - The skin loses elasticity and begins to sag After age 50, "age spots" (collections of pigment under the skin) increase - Blood vessels in the skin become more visible as the fatty layer thins - Womens skin ages more quickly due to the dermis of women being not as thick as men and estrogen loss accelerating the thinning

Physical Development

Physical development in middle adulthood is a continuation of the gradual changes under way in early adulthood - During midlife, many individuals begin to experience life-threatening health episodes- if not in themselves, then in their partners and friends - And a shift in subjective time orientation, from "time since birth" to "time left to live" occurs, increasing consciousness of aging - Prominent concerns of 40-65 year-old include getting a fatal disease, being too ill to maintain independence, and losing mental capacities

possible selves

Possible selves: the temporal dimension of self-concept, furture-oritented representations of what one is striving for and what one is attempting to avoid - Possible selves are the temporal dimension of self-concept, what the individual is striving for and attempting to avoid - Possible selves may be an especially strong motivator of action in midlife, as adults attach increased meaning to time - As we age, we may rely less on social comparisons in judging our self-worth and more on temporal comparisons- how well we are doing in relation to what we had planned - Throughout adulthood, the personality traits people assign to their current selves show considerable stability, but reports of possible selves change greatly - With age, possible selves become fewer in number, more modest and concrete, and less far-off in realization - Because the future no longer holds limitless opportunities, adults preserve mental health by adjusting their hopes and fears - To stay motivated, they must maintain a sense of unachieved possibility, yet they must still manage to feel good about themselves and their lives despite disappointments - Those with balanced possible selves (related hoped-for and feared outcomes, such as "a better relationship with my grown sons" and "not alienating my daughters-in-law") made a greater self-rated progress toward attaining their self-relevant goals over a 100-day period

practical problem solving and expertise

Practical problem solving: problem solving that requires people to size up real-world situations and analyze how best to achieve goals that have a high degree of uncertainty - Gains in expertise- an extensive, highly organized, and integrated knowledge base that can be used to support a high level of performance- help us understand why practical problems solving takes this lead forward - The development of expertise is under way in early adulthood and reaches its height in midlife, leading to highly efficient and effective approaches to solving problems - Midlife advantages are also evident in solutions to everyday problems - Middle-aged adults are especially adept at examining everyday dilemmas from different perspectives and solving them through logical analysis

exercise

Regular exercise has a range of physical and psychological benefits, among them, equipping adults to handle stress more effectively and reducing the risk of many diseases - Any amount of exercise has longevity benefits, even after many factors, such as SES, health status, alcohol and tobacco use, and BMI, that might account for these findings were controlled - More than half of US middle-aged adults are sedentary - A person beginning to exercise in midlife must overcome initial barriers and ongoing obstacles- lack of time and energy, inconvenience, work conflicts, and health factors - Accessible, attractive, and safe exercise environments and frequent opportunities to observe others using them also promote physical activity

cohort effects

Research using intelligence tests sheds light on the widely held belief that intelligence inevitably declines in middle and late adulthood as the brain deteriorates - Longitudinal studies show that there are modest gains of cognitive development in midlife, sustained into the fifties and the early sixties, after which performance decreased gradually - Cohort effects are largely responsible for this difference

coping with daily stressors

Researchers have found an early to mid-adulthood plateau in frequency of daily stressors, followed by a decline as work and family responsibilities ease and leisure time increases - Compared with older people, young and midlife adults also perceived their stressors as more disruptive and unpleasant, perhaps because they often experienced several at once, and many involved financial risks and children - Midlife also brings an increase in effective coping strategies - Complex, integrated self-descriptions predict a stronger sense of personal control over outcomes and good coping strategies - Midlife gains in emotional stability and confidence in handling life's problems may also contribute - Some mid-lifers, however, experience stressors so intense that their capacity to come disintegrates

speed of processing

Response time increases steadily from the early 20s into the 90s (gets slower) - Although the decline in speed is gradual and quite small it is nevertheless of practical significance - Researchers agree that changes in the brain are responsible but disagree on the precise explanation - According to one view, aging is accompanied by withering of the myelin coating on neural fibers within the cerebral cortex, leading to deteriorating neural connections, especially in the prefrontal cortex and the corpus callosum - Another approach to age-related cognitive slowing suggests that older adults experience greater loss of information as it moves through the cognitive system. As a result, the whole system must slow down to inspect and interpret the information - Processing speed predicts adults' performance on many tests of complex abilities - The slower their reaction time, the lower people's scores on tests of memory, reasoning, and problem solving, with relationships greater for fluid- than crystallized- ability items - Other factors, along with processing speed, such as declines in executive function, especially working-memory capacity, also predict diverse age-related cognitive performances - Processing speed is a weak predictor of the skill with which older adults perform complex, familiar tasks in everyday lift, which they continue to do with considerable proficiency - Knowledge and experience can also compensate for impairments in processing speed - Because older adults, find ways to compensate for cognitive slowing on familiar tasks, their reaction time is considerably better one verbal items than on nonverbal items

Supporting Returning Students

Social supports for returning students can make the difference between continuing in school and dropping out - Adult students need family members and friends who encourage their efforts and enable them to find time for interrupted study Institutional services for returning students are also essential - Academic advising and professional internship opportunities are vital, strongly affecting persistence - When support systems are in place, most returning students gain in self-efficacy and do well academically

explaining changes in mental abilities

Some theorists believe that a general slowing of central nervous system functioning underlies nearly all age-related declines in cognitive performance - Researchers have also identifies other important changes in information processing, some of which may be triggered by declines in speed - First, the decrease in basic processing, while substantial after age 45, may not be great enough to affect many well-practiced performances until quite late in life - Second, adults often compensate for cognitive limitations by drawing on their cognitive strengths - Finally, as people discover that they are no longer as good as they once were at certain tasks, they accommodate, shifting to activities that depend less on cognitive efficiency and more on accumulated knowledge - Mental abilities, including fluid skills, remain plastic

stress management

Stress management is important at any age, but in middle adulthood it can limit the age-related rise in illness and, when disease strikes, reduce its severity - Even when stressors cannot be eliminated, people can change how they handle some and view others - Adults who effectively reduce stress move flexibly between problem-centered and emotion-centered techniques, depending on the situation - Effective problem-focused coping reduces emotional distress, while effective emotion-focused coping helps people face problems more calmly and, thus, generate better solutions - Ineffective coping, in contrast, is largely emotion-focused and self-blaming, impulsive or escapist - People tend to cope with stress more effectively as they move from early to middle adulthood

executive function

Studies of executive function in adulthood focus on how much information individuals can manipulate in working memory; the extent to which they can inhibit irrelevant information and behaviors; and the ease with which they can flexibly shift their focus of attention as the situation demands - All three executive function components decline with age - From the 20s into the 90s, working memory diminishes steadily Verbal working memory suffers much less than spatial working memory - Spatial performance declines at double the rate of verbal performance reduced processing speed limits the amount of information a person can focus on at once - As adults get older, inhibition- resistance to irrelevant information and impulses- is harder - Age-related deficits in inhibition lead working memory to be cluttered with irrelevant items, thereby reducing its capacity - And with age, adults not only have greater difficulty ignoring irrelevant stimuli but find it harder to remove no longer needed items from working memory - Flexibility shifting one's focus of attention becomes more challenging with age and is especially evident in situations where people must divide their attention between two activities - Adults can compensate for these changes - People highly experienced in attending to critical information and performing several tasks at once show smaller declines in inhibition and task-switching with age - Practice can improve executive function skills

hostility and anger

That hostility and anger might have negative effects on health is a centuries-old idea - Type A behavior pattern: a behavior pattern characterized by extreme competitiveness, ambition, impatience, hostility, angry outbursts, and a sense of eagerness, hurriedness, and time pressure - Type A is actually a mix of behaviors, only one or two of which affect health - Expressed hostility in particular- angry outbursts; rude, disagreeable behavior; critical and condescending nonverbal cues during social interaction, including glares; and expressions of contempt and disgust- predicts greater cardiovascular arousal, coronary artery plaque buildup, and heart disease - As the type A pattern becomes clearly evident, age-related risk of heart disease rises

reproductive changes in women

The changes in women's climacteric occur gradually over a 10-year period, during which the production of estrogen drops In this time, a women's period becomes more irregular. In some, ova are not released; when they are more are defective - The climacteric concludes with menopause, the end of menstruation and reproductive capacity - Women who smoke or who have not borne children tend to reach menopause earlier - Following menopause, estrogen declines further, causing the reproductive organs to shrink in size, the genital to be less easily stimulated, and the vagina to lubricate more slowly during arousal - The period leading up to and following menopause if often accompanied by emotional and physical symptoms, including mood fluctuations, hot flashes and night sweats - Depressive episodes rise during the climacteric Asian women report fewer menopausal complaints, including hot flashes

relationship at midlife

The emotional and social changes of midlife take place within a complex web of family relationships and friendships - Partly because they have ties to older and younger generations in their families and partly because their friendships are well-established, mid-lifers have a larger number of close relationships than adults of other age periods do - The middle adulthood phase of the family life cycle is often referred to as "launching children and moving on" - As adult children depart and marry, middle-aged parents must adapt to new roles of parent-in-law and grandparent - Middle adulthood is marked by the greatest number of exits and entries of family members

schales seattle longitudinal study

The five factors that gained in early and middle adulthood: verbal ability, inductive reasoning, verbal memory, spatial orientation, and numeric ability, include both crystallized and fluid skills - It also shows a 6th ability, perceptual speed: a fluid skill in which participants must, for example, identify within a time limit which of five shapes is identical to a model or whether pairs of multidigit numbers are the same or different - Perceptual speed decreased from the 20s to the late 80s

individual differences in personality traits

The hundreds of personality traits on which people differ have been reduced to 5 basic factors often referred to as the "big five" personality traits: neuroticism, extroversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness ---Neuroticism: Indvidual's who are high on this trait are worrying, temperamental, self-pitying, self-conscious, emotional, and vulnerable. Individuals who are low are calm, even-tempered, self-content, comfortable, unemotional, and hardy ----Extroversion: individuals who are high on this trait are affectionate, talkative, active, fun-loving, and passionate. Individuals who are low are reserved, quiet, passive, sober, and emotionally unreactive ----Openness to experience: individuals who are high on this trait are imaginative, creative, original, curious, and liberal. Individuals who are low are down-to-earth, uncreative, conventional, uncurious, and conservative -----Agreeableness: individuals who are high on this trait are soft-hearted, trusting, generous, acquiescent, lenient, and good-natured. Individuals who are low are ruthless, suspicious, antagonistic, critical, and irritable ----Conscientiousness: individuals who are high on this trait are conscientious, hard-working, well-organized, punctual, ambitious, and persevering. Individuals who are low are negligent, lazy, disorganized, late, aimless, and nonpersistent --Agreeableness and conscientiousness increase from adolescence through middle age, whereas neuroticism declines, and extroversion and openness to experience do not change or decrease slightly - Cross-cultural findings reveal similar changes in the "big five" personality traits across adulthood, leadings some researchers to conclude that the adult personality change is genetically influences

cancer

The incidence of many types of cancer is currently leveling off or declining - Lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer deaths in both genders, worldwide - Cancer occurs when a cell's genetic program is disrupted, leading to uncontrolled growth and spread of abnormal cells that crowd out normal tissues and organs - Cancer-causing mutations can be either germline (due to an inherited predisposition) or somatic (occurring in a single cell, which then multiplies) - Cancer death rates increase sharply as SES decreases and are especially high among African Americans - A complex interaction of heredity, biological aging, and environment contributes to cancer - People often fear cancer because they believe it is incurable. - Yet 60 percent of affected individuals are cured- free of the disease for 5 years or longer - Scheduling annual medical checkups and learning warning signs can reduce cancer death rates considerably - Surviving cancer is a triumph, but it also brings emotional challenges - Stigmas associated with cancer exist. Friends, family, and co-workers may need reminders that cancer is not contagious and that with patience and support from supervisors and co-workers, cancer survivors regain their on-the-job productivity

reproductive system

The midlife transition in which fertility declines is called the climacteric - In women, it beings an end to reproductive capacity - In men, fertility diminished but is retained

middle-aged children and their aging parents

The number of middle-aged Americans with at least one living parent has risen dramatically—from 10 percent in 1900 to more than 60 percent today

job training

Training and on-the-job career counseling are less available to older workers. - And when career development activities are offered, older employees may be less likely to volunteer for them Personal characteristics are important: With age, growth needs give way somewhat to security needs - Furthermore, negative stereotypes of aging reduce older workers' self-efficacy, or confidence, that they can get better at their jobs - Unfortunately, older workers sometimes receive more routine tasks than younger workers. - In companies with a more favorable age climate (view of older workers), mature employees participate frequently in further education, and they also report greater self-efficacy, work commitment, and job satisfaction

osteporosis

When age-related bone loss is severe, a condition called osteoporosis develops - This disorder affects 10 percent of US adults ages 50 and older, most who are women - Because the bones gradually become more porous over many years, osteoporosis may not be evident until fractures, typically in the supine, hips, and wrist, occur or are discovered through x-rays - A major factor related to osteoporosis is the drop in estrogen associated with menopause In men, the age-related decrease in testosterone contributes to bone loss because the body converts some to estrogen - Heredity plays an important role - People with thin, small-framed bodies are more likely to be affected because they typically attain a lower peak bone mass in adolescence - An unhealthy lifestyle also contributes - When major bone fractures occur, many people suffer permanent loss in function and quality of life, and they are at high risk for additional fractures

Valiants adaptation to life

Whereas Levinson interviewed 35-45 year-olds, Vaillant in his longitudinal research on well-educated men and women followed participants past the half-century mark - Adults in their late 50s and 60s extend their generativity becoming "keepers of meaning" or guardians of their culture - "passing the torch" concern that the positive aspects of their culture survive, became a major preoccupation - In societies around the world, older people are guardians of traditions, laws, and cultural values - As people approach the end of middle age, they focus on longer-term, less-personal goals, such as the state of human relations in their society

women attitudes toward menopause

Wide variations exist in the meanings women assign to menopause, depending on how they interpret the event in relation to their past and future lives - Physical symptoms, or the expectation of those symptoms, can also trigger negative attitudes - Many women, however, find menopause to be little or no trouble, regard it as a new beginning, and report improved quality of life - Research suggests that African-American women hold favorable views

vocational life

Work continues to be a salient aspect of identity and self-esteem in middle adulthood. - More so than in earlier or later years, people attempt to increase the personal meaning and self-direction of their vocational lives. - Yet a favorable transition from adult worker to older worker is hindered by negative stereotypes of aging—incorrect assumptions of limited learning capacity, slower decision making, and resistance to change and supervision - Furthermore, gender discrimination continues to restrict the career attainments of many women.

health and fitness

Younger people usually attribute health complaints to temporary infections, middle-aged adults more often point to chronic diseases - Men are more likely to suffer from fatal illnesses, women from nonfatal, limiting health problems - Understanding of health in middle and late adulthood is limited by insufficient research on women and ethnic minorities

Marriage and Divorce

are well-off compared with other age groups - Americans between 45 and 54 have the highest average of annual income and are financially better off than previous midlife generations - Partly because of increased education and financial security, the contemporary social view of marriage in midlife is one of expansion and new horizons - These forces strengthen the need to review and adjust the marital relationship - Research suggests that compared to other couples, lesbian partners use more effective communication styles - Divorce has increasingly become a route to resolving an unsatisfactory marriage in midlife - Divorce at any age takes a heavy psychological toll, but mid-lifers seems to adjust more easily than younger people - Women's happiness suffers more than men's in a poor-quality marriage with unequal sharing of authority and responsibilities - Feminization of poverty: a trend in which women who support themselves or their families have become the majority of the adult population living in poverty, regardless of age and ethnic group - Longitudinal evidence reveals that middle-aged women who weather divorce successfully tend to become more tolerant, comfortable with uncertainty, nonconforming, and self-reliant - - in personality, factors believed to be fostered by divorce-forced independence

hormone therapy

hormone therapy, or low daily doses of estrogen Two types: - ----Estrogen replacement therapy (ERT) (estrogen alone) for women who have has hysterectomies ------Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) (estrogen plus progesterone) for other women - Hormone therapy is highly successful at counteracting hot flashes and vaginal dryness. It also offers protection against bone deterioration - Hormone therapy was associated with an increase in heart attack, stroke, blood clots, breast cancer, gallbladder disease, and deaths from lung cancer

planning for retirement

retirement is no longer a privilege reserved for the wealthy. The federal government pays Social Security to the majority of retired adults, and others are covered by employer-based private pension plans. - As the trend just noted suggests, the average age of retirement declined over the twentieth century, but over the past two decades, it has risen from age 57 to 62 in the United States. - Planning for retirement is important because it leads to a loss of two important work-related rewards—income and status—and to a change in many other aspects of life. - Financial planning is especially vital in the United States where (unlike Western European nations) the federal government does not offer a pension system that guarantees an adequate standard of living - Retirement leads to ways of spending time that are largely guided by one's interests rather than one's obligations. - Unfortunately, less well-educated people with lower lifetime earnings are least likely to attend retirement preparation programs—yet they stand to benefit the most. - And compared with men, women do less planning for retirement, instead relying on their husband's preparations.

Erikson theory: generatively vs. stragnation

which is resolved positively if the adult can integrate personal goals with the welfare of the larger social world. The resulting strength is the capacity to give to and guide the next generation - The generative adult combines the need for self-expression with the need for communion, integrating personal goals with the welfare of the larger social world - Erikson selected the term generativity to encompass everything generated that can outlive the self and ensure society's continuity and improvement: children, ideas, products, works of art - Adults can be generative in other family relationships, as mentors in the workplace, in volunteer endeavors, and through many forms of productivity and creativity - Middle-aged adults feel a need to be needed, to attain symbolic immortality by making a contribution that will survive their death - On the cultural side, society imposes a social clock for generativity in midlife, requiring adults to take responsibility for the next generation through their roles as parents, teachers, mentors, leaders, and coordinators - According to Erikson, a culture's "belief in the species"- the conviction that life is good and worthwhile, even in the face of human destructiveness and deprivation- is a major motivator of generative action, which has improving humanity as its goal - The negative outcome of this stage is stagnation: once people attain certain life goals, such as marriage, children and career success, they become self-centered and self-indulgent - Highly generative people appear especially well-adjusted, low in anxiety and depression; high in autonomy, self-acceptance, and life satisfaction; ,ore open to different viewpoints and more likely to have successful marriages and close friends - Perhaps parenting spurs especially tender, caring attitudes toward succeeding generations -African Americans more often engage in certain types of generativity. They express a stronger desire to leave a legacy to their broader community, rather than just their immediate family, and offer more social support to community members - Belonging to a religious community or believing in a higher being may help preserve generative commitments - Erikson's broad sketch of psychosocial change in midlife has been extended by Levison and Vaillant