Adult Development and Aging

Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA)

A molecule capable of replicating itself that encodes information needed to produce proteins.

Identity Achievement vs. Identity Diffusion

Fifth stage of Erikson's Psychosocial Theory; when individuals must decide "who" they are and what they wish to get out of life; this stage emerges in adolescence, yet continues to hold importance throughout adulthood, forming a cornerstone of subsequent adult psychosocial crises.

Genome-Wide Association Study

A method used in behavior genetics in which researchers search for genetic variations related to complex diseases by scanning the entire genome.

Basic Trust vs. Basic Mistrust

First stage of Erikson's Psychosocial Theory; involves the infant's establishing a sense of being able to rely on care from the environment (and caregivers).

Industry vs. Inferiority

Fourth stage of Erikson's Psychosocial Theory; involves the individual's identifying with the world of work and developing a work ethic.

Primary/Normal Aging

Normal changes over time that occur due to universal, intrinsic, and progressive altercations in the body's system

Life Course Perspective

Norms, roles, and attitudes about age have an impact on the shape of each person's life. Not the same as life span. Refers to the progression of a person's life events, one that is heavily shaped by society's views of what is appropriate and expected to occur in connection with particular ages.

Interactionist Model

Not only do genetics and environment interact in complex ways to produce their effects on the individual, but that individuals actively shape their own development; most similar to nice-picking because it proposes that you can shape and be shaped by your own environments. Multidirectional, multidimensional, active, reciprocal.

Health Expectancy

Number of years a person could expect to live in good health and with relatively little disability if current mortality and morbidity rates persist

Multiple Jeopardy Hypothesis

Older individuals who fit more than one discriminated-against category are affected by biases against each of these categorizations.

Inoculation Hypothesis

Older minorities and women have actually become immune to the effects of ageism through years of exposure to discrimination and stereotyping.

Reciprocity in Development

People both influence and are influenced by the events in their lives; people are not only shaped by their experiences, but also shape many of the experiences that affect them.

Cententsrians

People over age 100

Terror Management Theory

People regard with panic and dread the thought of the finitude of their lives.

Assimilation

People use their existing schemas as a way to understand the world around them.

Disengagement Theory

Proposed that the normal and natural evolution of life causes older adults to purposefully loosen their social ties; this natural detachment is not only inevitable but desirable, and aging is accompanied by a mutual withdrawal process of the individual and society.

Cross-Linking Theory

Proposes that aging causes deleterious changes in cells of the body that make up much of the body's connective tissue, including the skin, tendons, muscle, and cartilage.

Autoimmune Theory

Proposes that aging is due to faulty immune system functioning in which the immune system attacks the body's own cells.

Age-as-Leveler View

Proposes that as people become older, age overrides all other "isms"; older adults, whatever their prior status in life was, all become victims of the same stereotypes.

Identity Process Theory

Proposes that identity continues to change adulthood in a dynamic manner.

Multiple Threshold Model

Proposes that individuals realize that they are getting older through a stepwise process as aging-related changes occur.

Mechanistic Model

Proposes that people's behavior changes gradually over time, shaped by the outside forces that cause them to adapt to their environments; growth throughout life occurs through the individual's exposure to experiences that present new learning opportunities. Quantitative; passive; external (environmental).

Continuity Theory

Proposes that whether disengagement or activity is beneficial to older adults depends on the individual's personality.

Chronosystem

Refers to the changes that take place over time; the interacting systems within the ecological model are affected by historical changes-these can include events within the family, for example, as well as events in the larger society that indirectly affect the individual by affecting the macrosystem.

Telomeres

Repeating sequences of proteins that contain no genetic information

Genome-Wide Linkage Study

Researchers study the families of people with specific psychological traits or disorders.

Modernization Hypothesis

The increasing urbanization and industrialization of Western society is what causes to be older adults to be devalued; they can no longer produce, so they become irrelevant and even a drain on the younger population.

Replicative Senescence

The loss of the ability of cells to reproduce

Equilibrium

When assimilation and accomodation are perfectly balanced

Accommodation

When you change your schemas in response to new information

Social Age

Where people are compared to the "typical" ages expected for people to be when they occupy certain positions in life life.

Ageism

A set of beliefs, attitudes, or groups based on their chronological age.

Developmental Science

A term that is gradually replacing the term developmental psychology as the focus on life span development continues to encompass a broader variety of domains than a sole focus on the psychology of the individual.

Self-efficacy

A term used for the social psychological literature to refer to a person's feelings of competence at a particular task.

Biopsychosocial Perspective

A view of development as a complex interaction of biological, psychological, and social processes.

Secondary/Impaired Aging

Changes over time leading to impairment due to disease rather than normal aginf

Personal Aging

Changes that occur within the individual and reflect the influence of time's passage on the body's structures and functions

Antioxidants

Chemicals that prevent the formation of free radicals

Collagen

Cross-links develop in these; the fibrous protein that makes up about one-quarter of all bodily proteins

Pyschosocial Theory of Development

Developed by Erik Erikson; proposes that at certain points in life, a person's biological, psychological, and social changes come together to influence our personality; defined each stage of development as a "crisis" or turning point that influences how people resolve the issues they face in a subsequent period in life.

Interindividual Differences

Differences between people.

Chromosomes

Distinct, physically separate units of coiled threads of DNA and associated protein molecules.

Microsystem

In the center of the ecological model; the setting in which people have their daily interactions and which therefore have the most direct impact on their lives.

The Wear and Tear Theory

Many people implicitly refer to this when they say they feel that they are "falling apart" as they get older.

Life Span

Maximum age for a given species

Identity Accommodation

People make changes in their identities in response to experiences that challenge their current view of themselves.

Gompertz Function

Plots the relationship between age and death rates for a given species.

Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt

Second stage of Erikson's Psychosocial Theory; Young children learn ways to act independently from their parents without feeling afraid that they will venture too far off on their own.

Free Radical Theory

The cause of aging is the increased activity of these unstable oxygen molecules that bond to other molecules and compromise the cell's functioning.

Genome

The complete set of instructions for "building" all the cells that make up an organism.

Generativity vs Stagnation

Seventh stage of Erikson's Psychosocial Theory; middle-aged adults focus on the psychosocial issues of procreation, productivity, and creativity. Most common way to this is through parenthood, an endeavor that involved direct-care of the next generation.

Intimacy vs Isolation

Sixth stage of Erikson's Psychosocial Theory; individuals are faced with making commitments to close relationships-attaining this involves establishing a mutually satisfying close relationship with another person to whom a lifelong commitment is made.

Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs)

Small genetic variations that can occur in a person's DNA sequence.

Baby Boom Generation

Term used to describe people born I. The post World War II years of 1946-1964

Identity Assimilation

The tendency to interpret new experiences in terms of a person's existing identity.

Intra-Individual Differences

The variations in performance within the same individual

Activity Theory

The view that older adults are most satisfied if they are able to remain in their social roles.

Identity

A composite of how people view themselves in the biological psychological and social domains of life.

Gene

A functional unit of a DNA molecule carrying a particular set of instructions for producing a specific protein.

FOXO Genes

A group of genes that may operate to influence the rate of cell death.

Selective Optimization with Compensation Model (SOC)

Adults attempt to preserve and maximize the abilities that are of central importance and put less effort into maintaining those that are not. Older people make conscious decisions regarding how to spend their time and effort in the face of losses in physical and cognitive resources.

Biological Age

Age of an individual's body system

Supercententarians

Ages 110 and okder

Young-Old

Ages 65-74

Old-Old

Ages 75-84

Oldest-Old

Ages 85 and older.

Mutations

Alterations to a gene

Normative-History Graded Influences

Events that occur to everyone within a certain culture geopolitical unit (regardless of age) and include large-scale occurrences, such as world wars, economic trends, or sociocultural changes in attitudes or values

Epigenetic Principle

Asserts that each stage of development unfolds from the previous stage according to a predestined order; these stages are set in much the same manner as the programming for the biological development of the individual throughout life.

Ego Integrity vs. Despair

Eighth stage of Erikson's Psychosocial Theory; individuals face psychosocial issues related to aging and facing their mortaility.

Normal Aging is Different from Disease

Growing older does not equal growing sicker

Compression of Morbidity

Illness burden to society can be reduced if people become disabled closer to the time of their death

Exosystem

Includes the environments that people do not closely experience on a regular basis but that impact them nevertheless. These environments include such institutions such as the workplace and community centers as well as extended family, whom may not be seen often.

Macrosystem

Includes the larger social institutions ranging from a country's economy to its laws and social norms; influences the individual directly through the exosystem.

Contextual Influences on Development

Incorporates the effects of sex, race, ethnicity, social class, religion, and culture.

Normative Age-Graded Influences

Lead people to choose experiences that their culture and historical period attach to certain ages or points in the life span.

Programmed Aging Theories

Propose that aging and death are built into the hard-wiring of all organisms and therefore are part of the genetic code.

Error Theories

Propose that mutations acquired over the organism's lifetime lead to malfunctioning of the body's cells.

Ecological Perspective

Proposed by developmental theorist Urie Bronfenbrenner (1994), identifies multiple levels of the environment as they affect the individuals over time; defines five levels of the environment or "systems", all of which interact in their influence on the individual and influence development in different ways. Center to outside: microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem

Organismic Model

Proposed that heredity drives the course of development throughout life; changes over time occur because the individual is programmed to exhibit certain behaviors at certain ages with distinct differences between stages of life. Qualitative; active; biological (intrinsic).

Social Aging

The effects of a person's exposure to a changing environment.

Error Catastrophe Theory

The errors that accumulate with aging are ones that are vital to life itself

Social Clock

The expectations for the ages at which a society associates with major life events, which set the ace for how people think they should progress through their family and work timelines.

Life Expectancy

The average number of years of life remaining to the people born within a similar period of time

Plasticity in Development

The course of development may be altered, depending on the nature of the individual's specific interactions in the environment.

Identity Balance

The dynamic equilibirum that occurs when people tend to view themselves consistently but can mae changes when called for by their experiences.

Geriatrics

The medical specialty in aging; an interdisciplinary field that draws from biology, sociology, anthropology, the humanities, and other behavioral and social sciences.

Schemas

The mental structures we use to understand the world.

Survivor Principle

The people who live to old age are the ones who managed to outlive the many threats that could have cause their deaths at earlier ages.

Psychological Age

The performance an individual achieves on measures of such qualities of reaction time, memory, learning ability, and intelligence.

Niche-Picking

The proposal that genetic and environmental factors work together to influence the direction of a child's life.

Nonnormative Influences

The random idiosyncratic events that occur throughout life

Mesosystem

The realm of the environment in which interactions take place among two or more microsystems (ex: home difficulties carrying over into co-worker relationships).

Gerentology

The scientific study of the aging process.

Identity

The set of schemas that the person holds about the self.

Caloric Restriction Hypothesis

The view that the key to prolonging life is to restrict caloric intake.

Initiative vs. Guilt

Third stage of Erikson's Psychosocial Theory; The child becomes able to engage in creative self-expression without fear of making a mistake

Free Radicals

Unstable oxygen molecules produced when cells create energy

Emerging Adulthood

Up to as many as the first 10-11 years of adulthood; transition prior to assuming the full responsibilities of adulthood, usually ages 18-29

Life Span Perspective

Views development as continuous from childhood through old age.