Developmental Psychology Final Exam
how many people age 65 and older has Alzheimer's
1 in 10
what percent of people 85 and older live in a nursing home
10%
what percent of those in late adulthood homes are an institution
10%
what is the percent of those over age 65 that are thought to show some symptoms of a psychological disorder
15 to 25 percent
what percent of Americans over age 50 are divorced
15%
what percent of those age 75 to 84 have disease
19%
the amount of space between brain and skull doubles from what age
20 to age 70
over the age of 65 what percent live in nursing homes
3%
what percent of adults between ages 65 and 74 have some degree of hearing loss
30%
what percent of people 65 and older live in nursing homes
4.5%
what percent of people over age 75 have some degree of hearing loss
50%
For demographers, the young old
65 to 74 years old
For demographers old old
74 to 84 years old
what percent of children live within a 30-minute drive of their parents, and parents and children visit and talk with one another frequently
75%
For demographers oldest old
85 years old and older
Osteoporosis
A condition in which the body's bones become brittle fragile and thin often brought about by a lack of estrogen in the diet
Describe ways in which people exercise control over the death decision.
A living will is a means of asserting control over decisions surrounding one's death through specification of desired medical treatments in life-threatening situations and designation of a health-care proxy to enforce one's wishes. Assisted suicide, a form of euthanasia, is illegal in most of the United States.
Describe how well older adults function cognitively.
According to sequential studies, such as those conducted by developmental psychologist K. Warner Schaie, intellectual abilities tend to decline slowly throughout old age, but different abilities change in different ways. Training, stimulation, practice, and motivation can help older people maintain their mental abilities.
who has a higher risk level of dementia
African Americans
Explain how age relates to the distribution of resources, power, and privilege.
Age stratification theories suggest that the unequal distribution of economic resources, power, and privilege is particularly pronounced during late adulthood. In general, Western societies do not hold elderly people in as high esteem as many Asian societies.
Compare and contrast the advantages of hospice and home care for the end of life.
Although most deaths in the United States occur in hospitals, an increasing number of terminal patients are opting for either home care or hospice care.
Describe the general state of health of older people and the disorders to which they are susceptible.
Although some people are healthy, the incidence of certain serious diseases rises in old age, and the ability to recuperate declines. Most older people suffer from at least one long-term ailment. The leading causes of death in old age are heart disease, cancer, and stroke. Older people are also susceptible to psychological disorders, such as depression, and brain disorders, especially Alzheimer's disease.
what is the most common form of dementia
Alzheimer's
who examined the different ways that people cope with aging.
Bernice Neugarten
Summarize how we can prepare for death.
Death education can help people learn about death and consider their own mortality realistically.
Describe how sexuality is affected by aging.
Despite some changes in sexual functioning, sexuality continues throughout old age, provided both physical and mental health are good.
Differentiate the theories of aging.
Disengagement theory and activity theory present opposite views of ways to deal successfully with aging. People's choices depend partly on their prior habits and personalities. The model of selective optimization with compensation involves focusing on personally important areas of functioning and compensating for ability losses in those areas.
Discuss how financially secure older people are in the United States today.
Elderly people may become financially vulnerable because they must cope with rising health-care expenses and other costs on a fixed income.
Describe ways in which people face the prospect of their own death.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross suggests that people pass through five basic stages on their way to death: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. The stage nature of her theory has been criticized, and other theorists have suggested alternatives.
he suggested, when elderly people move into the last of life's eight stages of psychosocial development called ego-integrity-versus- despair stage
Erik Erikson
ego-integrity-versus-despair stage
Erik Erikson's final stage of life, characterized by a process of looking back over one's life, evaluating it, and coming to terms with it
Explain how aging affects family relationships.
Family relationships, especially with siblings and children, provide a great deal of emotional support for people in later life.
Describe how survivors react to and cope with death.
Funeral rituals serve a dual function: acknowledging the death of a loved one and recognizing and anticipating the mortality of all who participate.
Describe ways in which personality develops during late adulthood.
In Erik Erikson's ego-integrity-versus-despair stage of psychosocial development, as people reflect on their lives, they may feel either satisfaction, which leads to integration, or dissatisfaction, which can lead to despair and a lack of integration. Robert Peck identifies the three main tasks of this period as redefinition of self versus preoccupation with work role, body transcendence versus body preoccupation, and ego transcendence versus ego preoccupation. Daniel Levinson identifies a transitional stage that people pass through on the way to late adulthood, during which they struggle with being "old" and with societal stereotypes. A successful transition can lead to liberation and self-respect. Bernice Neugarten identified four personality types according to the way they cope with aging: disintegrated and disorganized, passive-dependent, defended, and integrated. Life review, a common theme of developmental theories of late adulthood, can help people resolve past conflicts and achieve wisdom and serenity, but some people become obsessive about past errors and slights.
Discuss what causes elder abuse and how it can be prevented.
In the increasingly prevalent phenomenon of elder abuse, parents who are socially isolated and in poor health may be abused by children who are forced to act as caregivers. The best defense against elder abuse is prevention, by ensuring that caregivers receive time off and have access to social support.
who employed sequential methods
K. Warner Schaie
suggested in her socioemotional selectivity theory that as the time horizon of older adults decreases, they become increasingly selective in the goals and activities in which they invest.
Laura Carstensen
Describe the circumstances in which older people live and the difficulties they face.
Living arrangement options include staying at home, living with family members, participating in adult day care, residing in continuing-care communities, and living in skilled-nursing facilities.
Discuss the ways memory does and does not decline in late adulthood.
Loss of memory in late adulthood is not general but specific to certain kinds of memory. Episodic memories are most affected, while semantic and implicit memories are largely unaffected. Short-term memory declines gradually until age 70, then deteriorates quickly. Explanations of memory changes may focus on environmental factors, information processing declines, and biological factors. Which approach is most accurate is not entirely settled.
Describe how marriages fare in late adulthood.
Marriages in later life generally remain happy, although stresses brought about by major life changes that accompany aging can cause rifts. Divorce is usually harder on the woman than the man, partly because of the continuing influence of the marriage gradient. Deterioration in the health of a spouse can cause the other spouse—typically the wife—to become a caregiver, which can bring both challenges and rewards.
Summarize the physical changes that occur in old age.
Old age is a period in which outward physical changes unmistakably indicate aging, but many older people remain fit, active, and agile well into the period. Older people experience a decrease in brain size and a reduction of blood flow (and oxygen) to all parts of the body, including the brain. The circulatory, respiratory, and digestive systems all work with less efficiency.
Summarize the positives and negatives of retiring as well as typical stages retired people pass through.
People who retire must fill an increasingly longer span of leisure time. Those who are most successful plan ahead and have varied interests. People who retire often pass through stages, including a honeymoon period, disenchantment, reorientation, a retirement routine stage, and termination.
during adjustment to widowhood, in which phase does shock occur
Phase II- grief and mourning
Describe how the senses are affected by aging.
Physical changes in the eye bring declines in vision, and several eye diseases become more prevalent in old age, including cataracts, glaucoma, and age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Hearing also declines, particularly the ability to hear higher frequencies. Hearing loss has psychological and social consequences, since it discourages older people from engaging in social interactions. Declines in the senses of taste and smell also occur in late adulthood.
Summarize how wellness can be maintained in old age.
Psychological and lifestyle factors can influence wellness in old age. A sense of control over one's life and environment can have positive effects, as can a proper diet, exercise, and the avoidance of risk factors, such as smoking.
Explain the extent to which people slow down as they age and the consequences of this slowing.
Reaction time among the elderly is slower, a fact that is explained by the peripheral slowing hypothesis (processing speed in the peripheral nervous system slows down) and the generalized slowing hypothesis (processing in all parts of the nervous system slows down).
Describe how dying is affected by culture.
Responses to death are in part determined by culture. Death may be regarded as a release from the pains of the world, the beginning of a pleasurable afterlife, a punishment or judgment, or simply the end to life.
According to who __________life review is triggered by the increasingly obvious prospect of one's death.
Robert Butler
suggests that personality development in elderly people is occupied by three major developmental tasks or challenges.
Robert Peck
Disintegrated and disorganized personalities
Some people are unable to accept aging, and they experience despair as they get older. They are often found in nursing homes or are hospitalized.
Describe what death means at different stages of the life span.
The death of an infant or a young child is among the most devastating experiences for parents, largely because it seems unnatural and entirely incomprehensible. Adolescents have an unrealistic sense of invulnerability that makes them susceptible to accidental death. Denial often makes it impossible for terminally ill adolescents to accept the seriousness of their condition. For young adults, death is virtually unthinkable. Young adults who are terminally ill can be difficult patients because of their strong sense of the injustice of their fate. In middle adulthood, disease becomes the leading cause of death, and awareness of the reality of death can lead to a substantial fear of death. People in late adulthood begin to prepare for death. Older people generally prefer to know if death is near, and the main issue they have to deal with is whether their lives continue to have value.
Identify the factors involved with the life span and the causes of death.
The inevitability of death is unquestioned but unexplained. Genetic programming theories claim that the body has a built-in time limit on life, while wear-and-tear theories maintain that the body simply wears out. Life expectancy has been rising steadily for centuries and continues to do so, with differences according to gender, race, and ethnicity.
Discuss the possible extension of the life span through scientific advances and the implications of this extension.
The life span may be further increased by technological advances such as telomere therapy, the use of antioxidant drugs to reduce free radicals, development of low-calorie diets, and organ replacement.
Integrated personalities
The most successful individuals cope comfortably with aging. They accept becoming older and maintain a sense of self-dignity.
Describe what it is like to grow old in the United States today.
The number and proportion of older people in the United States and many other countries are larger than ever, and elderly people are the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population. Older people as a group are subjected to stereotyping and discrimination, a phenomenon referred to as ageism.
Describe how learning and education continue in late adulthood.
The popularity of programs like Road Scholar attests to the desire of many older people to continue learning. Older students can significantly enhance college courses by bringing their experiences and prior learning to the classroom.
Review the difficulties in defining death.
The precise point of death is difficult to define. Functional death refers to the absence of heartbeat and respiration, from which people can be resuscitated, while brain death refers to the absence of electrical activity in the brain, which is irreversible.
suggests that the rate of true, underlying cognitive decline in late adulthood is unaffected by mental exercise. Instead, he argues that some people—the kind who have consistently engaged throughout their lives in high levels of mental activity, such as completing crossword puzzles—enter late adulthood with a "cognitive reserve."
Timothy Salthouse
Define wisdom and describe how it is correlated with age.
Wisdom reflects the accumulation of knowledge related to human behavior. Because it is gathered through experience, it appears to be correlated with age.
learned helplessness
a belief that one has no control over one's environment
continuing-care community
a community that offers an environment in which all the residents are of retirement age or older and need various levels of care
brain death
a diagnosis of death based on the cessation of all signs of brain activity, as measured by electrical brain waves
complicated grief
a form of unrelenting mourning that continues sometimes for months and even years. people find it difficult to let go of a loved one, and they have intrusive memories of the deceased that impede normal functioning
living will
a legal document designating what medical treatments people want or do not want if they cannot express their wishes
body transcendence versus body preoccupation
a period in which people must learn to cope with and move beyond changes in physical capabilities as a result of aging
Alzheimer's disease
a progressive brain disorder that produces loss of memory and confusion
beta amyloid precursor protein
a protein that normally helps the production and growth of neurons
institutionalism
a psychological state in which people in nursing homes develop apathy, indifference, and a lack of caring about themselves Clicking on the following button will update the Next Flashcard content and status of progress bar
macula
a yellowish area of the eye located near the retina at which visual perception is most acute.
bereavement
acknowledgment of the objective fact that one has experienced a death
The most common cause of blindness in people over the age of 60
age-related macular degeneration (AMD)
primary aging
aging that involves universal and irreversible changes that, due to genetic programming, occur as people get older
cognitive reserve
allows them to continue to perform at relatively high mental levels, even though underlying declines are actually happening.
home care
an alternative to hospitalization in which dying people stay in their homes and receive treatment from their families and visiting medical staff
according to their functional ages oldest old
are frail and in need of care
social support
assistance and comfort supplied by a network of caring, interested people
Passive-dependent personalities
become fearful with age—they have a fear of falling ill, fear of the future, fear of their own inability to cope. They are so fearful that they may seek out help from family and care providers, even when they don't need it.
what percent of elderly people do not have adequate nutrition
between 15 & 50 percent
hospice care
care provided for the dying in places devoted to those who are terminally ill
secondary aging
changes in physical and cognitive functioning that are due to illness, health habits, and other individual differences, but which are not due to increased age itself and are not inevitable
major depression
characterized by feelings of intense sadness, pessimism, and hopelessness.
cataracts
cloudy or opaque areas on the lens of the eye that interfere with passing light
i'm determined to live to 125. i bike everyday and would be pretty upset if i weighted more than i did when i was 40. My kids say it's okay to slow down, but if i do i'll just be another old person is an example of what personality type
defended
I really get down and depressed when i think about how weak and frail i've become. I miss being young and energetic and would give anything to be like that again is an example of what personality type
disintegrated and disorganized
The divorce rate has________since 1990
doubled
wisdom
expert knowledge in the practical aspects of life
termination( fifth stage of retirement)
going back to work. results from major physical deterioration. In this case, health becomes so bad that the person can no longer function independently.
according to their functional ages old old
have some health problems and difficulties with daily activities
according to their functional ages young old are
healthy & active
intraocular lens implants
in which a plastic lens is permanently placed in the eye
honeymoon period ( first stage of retirement)
in which former workers engage in a variety of activities, such as travel, that were previously hindered by full-time work.
assisted living
in which people live in independent housing but are supported by medical providers to the extent required.
Pollyanna principle
in which pleasant memories are more likely to be recalled than unpleasant memories.
disenchantment( second stage of retirement)
in which retirees conclude that retirement is not all they thought it would be.
reorientation( third stage of retirement)
in which retirees reconsider their options and become engaged in new, more fulfilling activities.
retirement routine( fourth stage of retirement)
in which they come to grips with the realities of retirement and feel fulfilled in this new phase of life.
cohort effects
influences attributable to growing up in a particular era.
i'm okay with getting older. While you lose some things, like slowing down physically. it's also nice to have more freedom and enjoy the time when we see family and friends is an example of what personality type
integrated
grief and mourning(second stage in widowhood)
is an immediate reaction to the death of a spouse. It starts with the shock and pain of loss and continues as the survivor works through the period of emotions the loss brings up
Reciprocity
is the expectation that if someone provides something positive to another person, eventually, the favor will be returned
Selective optimization
is the process by which people concentrate on particular skill areas to compensate for losses in other areas.
what percent of people between 60 and 65 years are diagnosed with dementia
less than 2 percent
autobiographical memory
memories of information about one's own life
episodic memory
memories of specific life experiences
short term memory
memory of faces, names, or even critical information that is initially encountered
semantic memory
memory of general knowledge and facts
how many people over age 85 are affected by the disease
nearly half
glaucoma
occurs when pressure in the fluid of the eye increases, either because the fluid cannot drain properly or because too much fluid is produced.
im so scared i'm going to fall and die on the kitchen floor. thats why I've asked my grandkids to come check on me everyday is an example of what personality type
passive-dependent
thanatologists
people who study death and dying
during adjustment to widowhood, in which phase does anticipatory behavior occur
phase I-preparation
during adjustment to widowhood, in which phase does intense pain occur
phase II-grief and mourning
during adjustment to widowhood, in which phase does new identity occur
phase III- adaptation
during adjustment to widowhood, in which phase does reintegration occur
phase III- adaptation
Ageism
prejudice or discrimination directed at older people
adult day-care facilities
settings in which elderly individuals receive care only during the day, but spend nights and weekends in their own homes
skilled-nursing facilities
settings that provide full-time nursing care for people who have chronic illnesses or are recovering from a temporary medical condition
Gerontologist
specialist who studies aging
preparation stage (first stage in widowhood)
spouses prepare, in some cases years and even decades ahead of time, for the eventual death of the partner.
socioemotional selectivity theory
suggests that as they age, people develop a preference for seeking out positive information, compared with negative information.
functional death
the absence of a heartbeat and breathing
active life spans
the amount of time they remain healthy and able to enjoy their lives
life expectancy
the average age of death for members of a population
Describe ways in which people experience grief and the functions it serves.
the death of a loved one brings a period of adjustment involving bereavement and grief. Grief may proceed through stages of shock and denial, the beginning of acceptance, and accommodation. One consequence of bereavement is an increase in the risk of death for the survivor. Children need particular help in dealing with death, including honesty, encouragement of expressions of grief, reassurance that the death was not caused by the child's behavior, and understanding that the child's grief may be delayed and indirect.
Describe the typical reactions to the death of a spouse during late adulthood.
the death of a spouse forces the survivor to assume a new societal role, accommodate to the absence of a companion and chore-sharer, create a new social life, and resolve financial problems. Sociologists Gloria Heinemann and Patricia Evans have identified three stages in adjusting to widowhood: preparation, grief and mourning, and adaptation. Some people never reach the adaptation stage.
plasticity
the degree to which a developing structure or behavior is susceptible to experience
grief
the emotional response to one's loss
Dementia
the most common mental disorder of the elderly, it covers several diseases, each of which includes serious memory loss accompanied by declines in other mental functioning
ego transcendence versus ego preoccupation
the period in which elderly people must come to grips with their coming death
elder abuse
the physical or psychological mistreatment or neglect of elderly individuals
life review
the point in life in which people examine and evaluate their lives
euthanasia
the practice of assisting people who are terminally ill to die more quickly
selective optimization
the process by which people concentrate on selected skill areas to compensate for losses in other areas
collagen
the protein that forms the basic fibers of body tissue.
continuity theory
the theory suggesting that people need to maintain their desired level of involvement in society in order to maximize their sense of well-being and self-esteem
activity theory
the theory suggesting that successful aging occurs when people maintain the interests, activities, and social interactions with which they were involved during middle age
generalized slowing hypothesis
the theory that processing in all parts of the nervous system, including the brain, is less efficient
peripheral slowing hypothesis
the theory that suggests that overall processing speed declines in the peripheral nervous system with increasing age
redefinition of self versus preoccupation with work role
the theory that those in old age must redefine themselves in ways that do not relate to their work roles or occupations
sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)
the unexplained death of a seemingly healthy baby
age stratification theories
the view that an unequal distribution of economic resources, power, and privilege exists among people at different stages of the life course
adaptation (third stage in widowhood)
the widowed individual starts a new life. The period begins with the acceptance of one's loss and continues with the reorganization of roles and the formation of new friendships.
genetic programming theories of aging
theories that suggest that our body's DNA genetic code contains a built-in time limit for the reproduction of human cells
wear-and-tear theories of aging
theories that the mechanical functions of the body simply wear out with age
disengagement theory
theory suggesting that late adulthood is marked by a gradual withdrawal from the world on physical, psychological, and social levels
Defended personalities
they try to stop it in its tracks. They may attempt to act young, exercising vigorously and engaging in youthful activities. Unfortunately, they may set up unrealistic expectations for themselves and run the risk of feeling disappointed as a result.
what quarter of people 65 and older rate their health as good, very good, or excellent.
three-quarters
true/false some people finish their lives in nursing homes
true
telomeres
which are tiny, protective areas of DNA at the tip of chromosomes
