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EXAM #1 Study guide

Adulthood & Aging (The University of British Columbia)

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EXAM # 1 PSYC 322 ADULTHOOD AND AGING

CHAPTER 1: Themes and Issues in AD & A.

1. Describe and differentiate between the four principles of aging, and their key terms.
- Principle 1: Changes are continuous over the life span
o Continuity principle: human development is divided into
 Early phase (childhood & adolescence)
 Later phase (young adulthood, middle age, old age)
 Adult development is greatly influenced by early phase
 Idea that at every stage of your life is dependent on who you were up to
that point. Shapes what you become.
 We cannot isolate the later years of life without considering the years
preceding them.
 Person has a lifetime of experiences when aging, have to think about
continuity when talking about aging
 Early phases are a lot about physical growth and learning of abilities (going
to school, sports, music lessons…)
 Later phase we learn more about who we are, how to interact with the
world, but many people are not aware of certain aspects of life
 It also applies to the way people think about their own identities. You
know you are the same person you always were, despite getting older.
 Anyone meeting you now judges you on the basis of your current
appearance.
 Implication  they would prefer to be treated as the people they always
were, rather than as “old people.”
 Some of them are often stereotyped as weak and infirm, where in reality
they want to be viewed as individuals who possess strengths they have
built up over their entire lives.
o Features:
 Multidirectionality: Aging includes growth and declines
 Some people associate old age with declining age – going downhill,
but this suggests that some things improve, decline, and/or stay the
same. And it varies across individuals. Vocabulary increases,
emotion regulation improves, reaction, muscle strength may
become poor.
 Plasticity: Capacity is not predetermined or set
 Just because you are aging does not mean you cannot start
something new or improve on skills you want. It may just mean it
will be less
 Historical and cultural context
 What happens in the world impacts the process of aging (COVID,
financial turmoil, wars, changes in technology…)
 Multiple causation: Development is impacted by many factors
 Multiple factors like gender, sex, sexual preferences, religion, race.

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 Continuity is always relevant.

- Principle 2: individuality matters
o Individuality principle: As individuals age, differences between them are magnified
as a result of
 Personality: extrovert vs introvert
 Physical function: physical health
 Life experiences
 Opportunities: Going to school, pursuing education, different jobs because
of the opportunities
 As people age, others seem that we are the same, but differences become
magnified.
 If age is related to performance, then the odds are that the older group will
differ simply because they differ more in age.
 Even if you had a sample of older adults who were exactly the same age, it is
likely that they would differ more among themselves than they would have
when they were younger, as they have lived through more experiences
 Two types of differences that come into play with individuality
o Inter-individual differences: Differences between people.
o Intra-individual differences: Variations in performance
within the same individual. Not all systems develop at the
same rate within the person.
o Some functions will increase, decrease, or stay the same.
 Development can proceed in multiple directions
within the same person.  Multidirectionality.
- Principle 3: Only the survivors grow old
o Survivor principle: Are shared traits amongst the old a result of aging? Or were
these traits present from an early age?
o When we study older people (85+), researchers are interested in studying group of
people and look for shared traits among them a result of aging or those traits
present for early age
o Example, some people are very optimistic, question is do they become optimistic as
they got older, or were they optimistic always and this allow them to become older?
o Some exercise, eat healthy, are cautious (do they become cautious as they got older,
or were they always cautious)
 People who lived to old age are the ones who managed to outlive the many
threats that could have caused their deaths at earlier ages.
 In the biopsychosocial perspective, they may have inherited good gens or at
least managed to maintain their physical abilities (biological), are cognitively
and emotionally healthy (psychological), and have surrounded themselves
with a good support system (social).
 Older people as less likely to take risks than are younger people.
 Older adults we study may have become less risky, more honest, or better
able to take care of their health.
- Principle 4: “normal” aging is different from disease

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o Aging ≠ illness: growing older does not necessarily mean growing sicker.
o Important to distinguish between normal aging and disease.
o For example, an 80-year-old man exhibiting symptoms of depression can be
successfully treated, assuming that the clinician does not write his symptoms off as a
feature of normal aging.

Primary Aging Secondary or Impaired aging Tertiary aging

- Refers to the normal - Changes leading to - Sets in towards the very
changes over time that impairment due to end of life when
occur due to universal, disease rather than individuals experience a
intrinsic, and normal aging. rapid loss of functions
progressive alterations - Not due to universal, across multiple areas of
in the body’s systems. intrinsic processes, but functioning.
- Disease free as a function of an - Precipitous decline.
development during abnormal set of - Distinct from primary or
adult aging changes afflicting a secondary aging.
- Occurs for everyone segment rather than - Rapid losses that occur
the entirety of the older shortly before death
population. e.g., terminal drop.
- Changes related to
disease, lifestyle, and
environmental changes
o Primary aging: muscle tone will decrease, hair will get gray, wrinkles
 Attention changes, memory
 Immune, cardiovascular changes not because of disease
o Secondary aging: The past, it was assumed that everyone who would get old will
develop cancer or arthritis.
 But now is related to lifestyle choices (unhealthy), poor sleep hygiene,
environmental exposures like asbestos, radiation…
 Is what we do to ourselves that causes the diseases when older
 Age does not cause secondary aging
o Tertiary aging: usually associated with disease, illness before death
 Drastic drop in physical or other functioning

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2. Distinguish between the different ways age can be classified (e.g., chronological, biological,
psychological, and social)

o
o Chronological age: is a number based in measures of the Earth’s movement around the
sun.
 Your body does not change in discrete fits and starts when you pass a particular
birthday.
o Divisions by age of the over-65 population.
 65 years of age has been viewed as the entry point for “old age” traditionally.
 Subgroups used in gerontology.
 Young old – 65 to 74
 Old – old – 75 to 84
 Oldest – old 85 and older
 Centenarians are becoming more commonly represented in the population.
People over 100
o Functional age: Is how people actually perform.
 We could gain a better grasp of a person’s true characteristics and abilities.
o Biological age: The age of an individual’s bodily systems.
 It would tell us exactly how well people are able to perform such vital functions
as pumping blood through the body and getting oxygen to the lungs
 The body’s cells undergo important changes affecting their ability to function
normally.
 Function of vital organs, frailty indices.
o Psychological age: Refers to the performance an individual achieves on measures of
such qualities as reaction time, memory, learning ability, and intelligence.
 Functional level of psychological abilities to adapt to environmental demands
o Social age: Calculated by evaluating where people are compared to the “typical” ages
expected for people when they occupy certain positions in life.

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 People can be grandparents in their late 20s, with a social age of 60 or older.
Women can become mothers in their late 60s. a 70-year-old who is still working
has a younger social age than a 66-year-old who has retired.
 It is much easier to use chronological age than to use there more sophisticated
calculations.
o Sociocultural age: Related to the work and family roles adopted, in relation to others in
society.
3. Differentiate between personal and social forms of aging, including normative age-graded,
normative history graded and non-normative.
- Personal aging: Changes that occur within the individual and reflect the influence of time’s
passage on the body’s structures and functions.
o It is aging, and what influences it – physical, cognitive changes, immune and skeletal
system, it is interacting with social aging.
- Social aging: The effects of a person’s exposure to a changing environment. The changes we see
within the individual represent the unique blend of personal and social aging.
o the changes that take place in an individual’s life can reflect a multitude of interacting
factors. All these factors interact to determine how a person’s aging would look like.
- Normative age-graded influences:
o Experiences that one’s culture and historical period attach to certain ages or points in
the life span. Are you “on time” or “off time”?
 Word norm, what is normal in society
 E.g., in what age you should get married, retired, be a grand-parent, finish
school
 Sometimes tied to biological changes, like after adolescence expected to have
kids, be a parent
 On time: do you fit with the norm, getting married at the time society tells you
to
 Off time: being 70 y/o and being in a university class
o Lead people to choose experiences that their culture and historical period attach to
certain ages of points in the life span.
o Normative means social expectation for behavior.
o A given society has developed expectations about what is assumed for people of certain
ages.
o People are socialized into believing that they should structure their lives so that they
conform to these influences.
o E.g., parenthood traditionally occurs between the ages of 20 and 40. Grandparents
usually become between the ages of 55 and 65. Or many laborers or athletes may be at
peak physical capacity up to their 40s, when they experience loss of strength and speed.
- Normative history graded influences:
o Events that most people in a specific culture and/or location experience at the same
time
 Everyone experiencing something at the same time (pandemics, epidemics,
particular stereotypes that are changing, or accepting in particular groups, e.g.,
LGBTQ are perceived in society is changing, protests in HK, 9/11)

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 These change how people perceive safety and security

 These events can impact different ages differently (COVID was impacted more in
elders or those with severe symptoms)
 Events that occur for everyone within a certain culture of geopolitical unit no
matter the age and include largescale occurrences such as world wars, economic
trends, or sociocultural changes in attitudes and values.
 E.g., a terrorist attack or a mass shooting not only creates victims but also has
wider influences on a society’s sense of security
- Non-normative influences:
o Random or rare events that may be important for a specific individual but are not
experienced by most people.
 Winning the lottery, getting fired from a job when you are 55, if you get cancer
at 35 it is disrupted, and some people do not experience that
 These events can turn your life upside down, or depending on the event
 Are the random idiosyncratic events that occur throughout life. They occur with
no regular predictability.
 E.g., events due to good luck, such as winning the lottery or making a smart
investment. Or negative such as a car accident, fire, or the untimely death of a
relative. Or getting fired from a job, chronic illness not related to aging, or going
through a divorce.
 Divorce, although society’s norms have changed, many would still consider this a
non-normative occurrence because the norm (and certainly the hope) of
married couples is to remain married.
- These influences interact and determine your experience with aging.
4. Describe and distinguish between the key social factors in AD & A.
o Sex and gender
 There are important male-female differences related to the socialization
experiences of men and women.
 Use the term gender to refer to the gender that a person feels internally.
 Biological sex is referred to the sex at birth, refers to the individual’s inherited
predisposition to develop the physiological characteristics typically associated
with maleness of femaleness.
 The sex hormone estrogen is thought to play at least some role in
affecting a woman’s risks of heart disease, bone loss, and possibly
cognitive changes.
 Sociocultural factors are important to the extent that the individual assumes a
certain role in society based on their gender identity.
 Opportunities in education and employment are two main areas in which
gender influences the course of adult development and becomes a limiting
factor for women.
 Women continue to face a more restricted range of choices and the
prospects of lower earning than do men.
o Ethnicity

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 Can include ancestral origin, homeland, and a shared history, identity, language,
religion, or culture.
 Immigrant population defines as persons who are, or who have been, landed
immigrants or permanent residents.
 Visible minority defined as persons, other than Aboriginal peoples, who are
non-Caucasian in race or non-white in color. South Asian, Chinese, Black, Latin
American.
 People who have inherited a risk factor that has been found to be higher within
a certain ethnic group, for example, are more likely to be at risk for developing
that illness during their adult years.
 Ethnicity is a fluid construct that changes in response to the social context.
 Ethnic background may also alter an individual’s development in adulthood
through the structure of a society.
 Health disparities with prevalence of many illnesses higher among the Aboriginal
population that among the non-Aboriginal population.
 The reasons for this disparity are complex but relate, in part, to the fact that
older Aboriginal people are more likely to reside un rural and remote
communities, where access to health care is often compromised. As well as
Westernized medical practice.
 People of certain ethnic backgrounds are thought to show greater respect for
older adults and feel a stronger sense of obligation to care for their aging
parents.
o Socioeconomic status
 Reflects people’s position in the educational and occupational ranks of a society.
 Some researchers use level of education alone as the index of SES.
 Gini coefficient in an index of income inequality in a given economy.
 If income is equally distributed, 100% of the population earns 100% of
the accumulated wealth.
 Income inequality is reflected when a smaller percent of the population earns a
higher proportion of the wealth.
 Whitehall II, a survey of a large sample of British adults focusing on the
relationships among health, social class, and occupation.
 This study showed that men in the lower’s employment brackets had
poorer health than their health habits would predict.
 It investigated social and occupational influences on health and illness
including psychological workload.

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
o Religion
 Individual’s identification with an organized belief system, surprisingly one of the
least well-understood but presumably important influences on aging.
 Religion provides many people with a source of coping strategies, social support
in times of crisis, and a systematic basis for interpreting life experiences.
 It is distinct from spirituality, or the set of beliefs that an individual holds about
such areas as the afterlife, a sense of meaning in life, and feelings of connections
to others.
5. Who are the Baby Boomers and why are they important in the study of adulthood and aging.
- Baby boom generation term used to describe people born in the post – World War II years
between 1946 and 1964. Reflects the huge increase in babies born to couples after servicemen
returned home from the war.
o They will continue to have a great impact on Canadian society. Currently, 17.5.% of the
total Canadian population are age 65 and older.
6. Describe the general trends in aging in Canada and the world more broadly.
- A “young” population is shaped like a pyramid, an “old population is depicted by an upside-down
pyramid, and a population considered stable is shaped like a rectangle.
- Canada
o The most dramatic growth rates are for those persons who are 85 and older, followed by
those who are 80 to 84.
o Stats Canada estimates that older adults will account for about one-quarter of the
population. Perhaps most impressive is the estimate in the growth in the number of
centenarians.
o Canada and the US have the most centenarians at 29 per 100,000 persons, second only
to Japan with 56 per 100,000 persons.
o Some or all centenarians have experienced a unique set of circumstances that likely
shaped who they are today.

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-
o There is also variability across communities in providing for the specific needs of elderly
Canadians.
o Age-friendly communities, these are places where physical and social environments
support active aging, helping older adults live healthy and engaged lives.
o In 2015, there were 617 million people worldwide over the age of 65, 8.5% of the total
population.
o Asia had the highest number of people 65 years of age and older 55% and Africa the
lowest 7%.
o The greatest increases will occur in Asia and Africa, and the greatest decrease will be in
Europe.
o

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o Life expectancy is growing.

o
o People are living longer over the last 100 years.
o

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- A “young” population is shaped like a pyramid, an “old population is depicted by an upside-down

pyramid, and a population considered stable is shaped like a rectangle.
o
o

CHAPTER 2: MODELS OF DEVELOPMENT

1.Are genes or the environment responsible for development? Distinguish between the different
models found in the text.

- Early 20th century, nature approach  they regarded growth in childhood as a clocklike process
that reflected the unfolding of the individual’s genetic makeup.
- Gesell believed that parents needed to provide the right growing conditions, much as you would
provide water and light to a plant seedling.
- Watson took the nurture approach  child’s development was entirely dependent on the
environment the parents provided.
- Studies with twins had the theory that since identical twins shared 100% of their genetic
material, any differences between those reared apart would be due to the environment in which
they grew up.
- Niche picking  the proposal that genetic and environmental factors work together to influence
the direction of a child’s life.

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- Neither influence alone could account for individual differences in performance on intelligence
tests in children or adults.
- Organismic model: Heredity drives the course of development throughout life.
o Changes overtime occur because the individual is programmed to exhibit certain
behaviors at certain ages in a stage or step-sire fashion.
o Development reflects the influence of maturational forces arising within the individual
due to genetic programming.

Organismic model Mechanistic model Interactionist model

- Regard - Propose that - View development
development as environment and as reflecting
reflecting inherited learning are the interactive
traits that change main forces in processes between
through development. the two.
maturation.

- Mechanistic model: proposes that people’s behavior changes gradually over time, shaped by the
outside forces that cause them to adapt to their environments.
o Developmental scientists working from the mechanistic model propose that growth
throughout life occurs by exposure to experiences that present new learning
opportunities.
o There are no clear-cut or identifiable stages. Instead, development is smooth.
Continuous.
- Interactionist model: Takes the view that not only do genetics and environment interact in
complex ways to produce effect on individual, but individuals actively shape their own
development.
o Shaped and by shaped by.
- Plasticity in development: The course of development may be altered (“plastic”), depending on
the nature of the individual’s specific interactions in the environment.

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o Type of interaction to foster plasticity involve active interventions such as mental and
physical exercise.
o The concept of plasticity fits very well with the notion of compensation and modifiability
of the aging process through actions taken by the individual.
- Reciprocity in development: States that people both influence and are influenced by the events
in their lives.
o Not only are you shaped by your experiences but that you in turn shape many of the
experiences that affect you.
o E.g., earlier events in your life influenced you to choose a particular course that has
brought you to where you are right now.
o Also, the effect you have in your environment; this, in turn, will affect subsequent events
in your life.
o In a split second, any person can influence others for better or for worse, forever
changing the course of someone’s life.

2. what evidence supports programmed aging theories?

- 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.
o One argument to support is based on the fact that species have different life spans
 For instance, vampire bats have life spans of 13 weeks, and giant tortoises a
span of 184 years.
 Humans, longest mammals’ life span at 122 years.
 This supports the role of genetics in the aging process.
o Gompertz function plots the relationship between age and death rates for a given
species.
 He applied calculus to mortality data and showed that the mortality rate
increases in a geometric progression with age.
 The longer an individual lives, the higher the chances that the individual
will die.
o The estimate of longevity’s genetic influence increases for life spans that go beyond the
age of 60 years.
 As much as 33% of the life span in women and 40% of that in men living to 100
can be attributed to genetics.
o Evolution has selected for species that are vigorous through the period of optimal sexual
reproduction and the less important once that period has passed.  good genes gone
bad theory
 Also known as the quasi-programmed theory states that aging genes take over in
the post reproductive years and lead to the ultimate destruction of the
organism.
 E.g., senescent cells may act as a protective device against the continued
growth of cancerous cells. The cells, in turn, are eliminated by the
immune system. But it does not destroy all of the cells leaving some in
the body’s tissues.
o Aging and death are encoded within our genes

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o Genetic timing mechanism triggers declines in physiological function

o Evidence
 Species specific life spans
 Cell senescence
o Chromosomes
 Contain strains
 Genes: sections of DNA that contain hereditary information
 We have 46 chromosomes
 Each species has its own specific life span – there is a limit for aging. It is
encoded in our genes how long we might live for.
o Cell senescence: The essentially irreversible arrest of cell proliferation (growth or
division)
 Senescent cells undergo a series of changes including the excretion of numerous
proteins implicated in normal aging, leading to:
 Thickening of artery walls
 Changes in the skin
 Arthritic joints
 Degeneration of intervertebral discs
 Changes in muscles of the heart  risk of CVD
 Neurodegeneration  dementias, Alzheimer’s
o Hayflick limit: (replicative senescence): fetal cells in culture can only reproduce or divide
about 50 times. Loss of the ability of cells to reproduce.

3. Understand how telomeres impact aging through the process of senescence.

- Telomeres: Repetitive DNA sequences at the ends of chromosomes.

o Primary function is to protect the chromosomes from the damage to them that
accumulates over repeated cell replications.
o Telomeres shorten, eventually leading to damage of the genome.
o Cell senescence – a result of telomere shortening after repeated divisions over time, it
goes into senescence when telomers become short. Every time a cell divides, it gets
shorter. It gets to the point of no longer being able to protect the chromosome, adjacent
chromosomes fuse, the cell cycle is halted, and ultimately the cell dies.
o Social factors and length – SES and lifestyle (exercise) seem to be related to telomere
length in women. High levels of exercise over a long period of time in men could serve to
have a protective role in preserving telomere length.
o Mutation?
 The passage of time and repeated cell division can lead to damage and
mutations of genes that can lead to cancer, which is uncontrolled cellular
growth. Senescence might reduce the risk
o Beneficial?
 Senescent cells may act as a protective device against the continued growth of
cancerous cells.
o In humans, certain cells produce telomerase, an enzyme (if produced) that can lengthen
telomers, slowing or stopping the cellular aging process.

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4. what evidence supports metabolic theories, specifically caloric restriction studies?

- Metabolic theories
o Organisms have a finite amount of energy to expend in a lifetime
o Organism’s metabolism is related to its longevity
o Evidence:
 Caloric restriction studies in non-humans and humans
o Caloric restriction: the view that the key to prolonging life is to restrict the total number
of calories that individuals consume
o In rats
 Seems that from 6 weeks of age in caloric restriction, they lived longer.
o In humans
 6 months on CR in non-obese adults
 Lower levels of fasting insulin
 Lower core body temperature (metabolism)
 Less DNA fragmentation (damage)
 These are biomarkers of longevity.
 But restrictions in terms of diet, if not doing CR properly, it is not good.
 Decreased risk of morbidity, may not impact longevity.

5. Distinguish between Bronfenbrenner’s model, life course perspective, continuity theory, activity
theory, and disengagement theory. What are some criticisms of these theories?

- Bronfenbrenner’s model Ecological Perspective

-
o Identifies multiple levels of the environment as they affect the individual over time.
o The further you go out from the center, the less likely you are to have direct experiences
with those systems.
 Microsystem: The setting in which people have their daily interactions and
which therefore have the most direct impact on their lives.

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 Mesosystem: Realm of the environment in which interactions take place among

two or more microsystems.
 E.g., having some difficulties at home and carrying them over into your
relationships with co-workers.
 Exosystem: Includes the environments that people do not closely experience on
a regular basis but that impact them, nevertheless.
 E.g., social institutions ranging from a country’s economy to its laws and
social norms.
 Chronosystem: Changes that take place over time.
 Historical changes and events within the family, for example, as well as
event in the larger society indirectly.
- Life Course Perspective
o Norms, roles, and attitudes about age have an impact on the shape of each person’s life.
o The term life “course” is not the same as life span. It means course or progression of a
person’s life events.
o Social clock: Expectations for the ages at which a society associates with major life
events.
 These expectations set the pace for how people think they should progress
through their family and work timelines.
 “On time”
 “Off time”  those here feel they have failed, especially when they are criticized
by others who expect people to follow the normative prescriptions for their age
group.
o Development occurs along pathways of age-differentiated, socially marked sequence of
transitions between life events and social roles.
o Three measures of time are key:
 Lifetime (age)
 Historical time  what happens in the world around us (wherever you are
living, is there a war, recession, is it a peaceful place?)
 Social time – ordering of life events/social roles  interact off-time or on-time
 Expectations to be a spouse, graduate.
o Interactions between these are critical to the life course
 Social roles like students, employees, friendship behavior
 Expectations to be married, pregnant
o 4 key principles
 1. One’s life course is embedded and shaped by historical and geographical
placement
 E.g., when baby boomers finished university and looked for jobs, there
was a lot of competition, their children did not suffer that much.
 2. The impact of a transition or event depends on when it occurs in a person’s
life.
 E.g., a 45 y/o be told to sign to go to war. This will be more impactful
than to a younger person.

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 Having a baby depending on the age have a huge impact, a 15 y/o trying
to finish high school, will be hard to continue to be independent or earn
money when there is a baby around.
 3. Linked lives – lives are lived interdependently
 We all share relationships
 4. Individuals control their life course within the constraints and opportunities
provided by history and social circumstance
 They are constraint by society, but they can make choices.
 A pregnant couple might be constraint by abortion laws, their parents’
support, economic problems but they can still make choices.
- Continuity theory
o Proposes that whether disengagement or activity is beneficial to the older adult
depends on the individual’s personality.
 Some older adults prefer to withdraw from active involvement with their
families and communities; others are miserable unless they are in the thick of
the action.
 Either forced retirement or forced activity will cause poorer adjustment and self-
esteem in middle-aged and older adults.
o As people normally age, they make adaptive choices to preserve and maintain internal
(personality, beliefs, values; when making choices, we see people’s continuity is
consistent over time) and external ties (social groups, sticking to a soccer group and
hanging out with them, maintain continuity when we get older) to the past.
 Too little continuity: life is unpredictable (too many changes too quickly)
 Too much continuity: life becomes stagnant (no changes)
 Optimal: new experiences in a familiar environment (people change, but not too
drastic)
o Criticisms
 “normal” aging ignores impact of chronic illness
 Everybody ages, but it does not consider illness, so if someone gets a
stroke, then continuity would drastically change.
 Theory ignores the impact of social structures on aging
 Healthcare is not provided in old age, or if someone retires.
- Activity theory
o The view that older adults are most satisfied if they are able to remain involved in their
social roles.
o If forced to give up their roles, they will lose a major source of identity as well as their
social connections.
o Older adults should be given as many opportunities as possible to be engaged in their
work, families, community.
o Aging brings decreases in life satisfaction as roles diminish
 We might get tired, depending on physical health you might have to give up
certain activities like parenting.
o Despite health declines in some, social and psychological needs still need to be met

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 You still need to kill your time, find new roles, activities, friends, in order to
increase and maintain life satisfaction.
o New roles, friends, activities lead to greater life satisfaction
 Allows to maintain sense of identity (volunteer, become grandparents)
o Social activities produce some decline in mortality
o Tables findings
 Primary findings:

 greater overall activity level was related to greater happiness, better

function, and reduced mortality
 generally, social, and productive activities were positively related to
happiness, better function, and lower mortality,
 more solitary activities (e.g., handwork hobbies) were related only to
higher levels of happiness.
o Criticisms
 Roles/activities carry different meanings for individuals
 It was clear that grandparenting was meaningful for some adults but not
for others
 Assumption that psychological and social needs remain constant throughout
adulthood
 Have constant needs, e.g., having a partner, then passing away, then
things will drastically change
 Presumes that individuals have high degree of control over their social situation
 Not true for everybody. If you do not have money, it will be hard to join
certain activities. Not everybody has the same opportunities
 How to conceptualize and measure “activity”?
 Is meditation activity? Yoga, watching TV, gaming?
- Disengagement theory
o Proposes that the normal and natural evolution of life causes older adults to loosen
purposefully their social ties. This is not only inevitable but also desirable.
o Retirement and isolation from family members are sought out by older adults and result
in higher levels of well-being.
o Adjustment to old age is accomplished through
 Voluntary withdrawal from social roles and activities
 Mutual and beneficial withdrawal of individuals and society
 Disengagement is universal and inevitable
o Move for both individual and society to withdraw as you get older.
o To have less stress in family, work roles, no need to take additional pressure
o It leaves space for younger workers to replace them and be more productive.
o Normal process that occurs for everybody in society (inevitable). It will also impact
society less if they have already withdrawn
o Criticisms
 Disengagement is not necessarily voluntary, inevitable, or universal

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 Some people may have been forced to retire, other places have
mandatory retirement, health. Not universal or inevitable. There are
societies where the elder still fulfill their roles fully.
 Research focused on the individual, not on society
 Most of the research has looked at individuals
 Theory is difficult to disconfirm (unfalsifiable)
 Theory has caveats. Claim that everybody will have to disengage
 Concept of disengagement is very broad
 Does not specify if it is psychological, from work, ignores the things of
the individual.
 Ignores thoughts and feelings of individual
 Justification for ageism
6. Describe identity process theory and differentiate between identity accommodation,
assimilation, and balance. How are thresholds related to this model?
- Identity Process Theory
o Proposes that identity continues to change in adulthood in a dynamic manner.
o Identity is defined as a set of schemas that the person holds about the self. It also
includes the individual’s sense of connection to their cultural heritage, a process of
particular importance to adolescents and emerging adults from immigrant and minority
groups.

o
o We like to see ourselves in a positive way, so we interact with the world accordingly
o As we age, we encounter changes that may indicate that something is different (grey
hair, forgetting things)  threshold
 We can adjust
 Assimilation: denial (grey hairs, sore knees but saying they are not getting older)
– no change. Too much denial is not a good thing.
 Accommodation: experience happens, grey hairs, sore knees, then recognizing
that they might get older and start to make changes in identity. Too much
accommodation is not good (like admitting old age and not going out so nothing
bad happens)
 Balance: ideal, somewhere in the middle.

Assimilation Accommodation Balance

- Tendency to - People make - Dynamic
interpret new changes in their equilibrium that

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experiences in identities in occurs when

terms of existing response to people tend to
identity. experiences that view themselves
challenge their consistently but
current view of can make changes
themselves. when called for by
- Eventually, the their experiences.
individual either
finds denial no
longer possible
(path 1) or is able
to gradually re-
establish a more
stable sense of
self (path 2).
o Identity continues to change in adulthood in a dynamic manner
o Some thresholds matter more than others (multiple threshold model) – physical changes
might be impactful for some supermodels
o Identity balance leads to self-efficacy
7. Give an example, be able to identify which strategy is being used within the 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.
o Older people make conscious decisions regarding how to spend their time and effort in
the face of losses in physical and cognitive resources.
o At some point, people deliberately begin to reduce efforts in one area in order to focus
more on achieving success in another.
o They might also switch within the same general area to make it possible to retain as
much of the original activity as possible.
 E.g., older adults with mobility issues substitute walking for running.
 Older individual may exert more effort towards solving word games and puzzles
and spend less time on pastimes that involve spatial and speed skills, such as
fast-moving computer games.

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
o As we age, gains decrease while losses increase
o Adults attempt to preserve and maximize the abilities & activities of greatest
importance, while reducing efforts to maintain those of lesser importance
o conscious decisions are made on how to spend time and effort in addressing declines in
cognitive and physical resources
 making important decisions
 resources are limited. Choices must be made.
o Selection: Choosing goals to prioritize (elective vs loss-based)
o Optimization: the allocation or refinement of resources as a means of achieving goals.
o Compensation: using compensatory processes (i.e., new, or alternative means) to
maintain a certain level of functioning
8. Discuss the possible ways in which ageism might impact individuals and the process of aging.
- Ageism: A set of beliefs, attitudes, social institutions, and acts that denigrate individuals or
groups based on their chronological age.
o Old age associated with disease and decline
o “belonging” to an age group confers benefit or disadvantage
o Ageist beliefs are internalized
 Grow into being the outgroup
 It is disrespectful of older adults and as a justification for what is already
harsh treatment by society of its older adult members.
o Suggestions that old people forget things, or their physical changes are terrible.
o We believe that we have control over our health (some have let themselves become
sick)
o Belonging – young people are looked at in a better light.
o Group in power slowly becomes the group that does not have the power. Many of those
beliefs are internalized. Negative stereotypes. With age group, the stereotypes start with
the young, powerful group.
- Whitehall study

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-
- Building in London where all the government workers go
- Everyone gets the same health care
- High employment rate has better physical functioning
- Control in your job, stress, flexibility.
- Neighborhood where you live also affects your health

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODS IN ADULTHOOD AND AGING

1.Distinguish between age effects, cohort effects, and time of measurement effects.

- Age: Is an objectively determined measure of how many years or months a person has lived up
to the present moment.
- Descriptive research designs
o Age effects: any differences caused by underlying processes, such as biological or
psychological changes that occur with aging.
o What researchers are interested in!!
 Want to know what is the effect of age on happiness, how does it change as we
get older?
 How about personality, reaction time, physical function. We want to know if age
affects and how.
- Cohort: Term used to describe the year (or period) of a person’s birth. (Generational effects) – 20
– 30-year time frame.
o Cohort effects: Refer to the social, historical, and cultural influences that affect people
during a particular period of time.
 Sometimes taken to mean the influences present during the early years of
development that cause people to behave in a certain way at the current time.
 Differences caused by experiences and circumstances unique to the generation
to which one belongs
 Often normative, history graded influences
 Measuring happiness in 80-90 y/o who have lived in wars, depressions
 Can we generalize that if they are happy, the other adults of same age
are happier too?
 Each generation may be exposed to different circumstances.

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- Time of measurement: Tells us the year or period in which a person is tested.

- Single-factor designs intended to study age cannot separate the effects of age from these two
other factors.
o Time of measurement effects: Social, historical, and cultural influences that are
presently affecting people participating in developmental research.
o They are also normative history-graded influences that affect many people who are alive
at the same time.
o differences stemming from sociocultural, environmental, historical, or other events at
the time of data collection
 something in the world happens when you collect data, this may impact your
results.
 E.g., having to measure happiness in times of a recession, so if they are usually
not happy due to circumstances, it will not be because of aging.

2. Understand the types of conclusions that can be drawn from each type of research design.

3. Be able to identify the benefits and drawbacks of each of the research designs discussed in class
and/or text.

- Basic experimental design

o Allows to make a causal claim
o Researchers study a question of interest by deciding on conditions that will allow them
to manipulate a particular IV.
o They cannot assign ages to their participants, but they can devise experiments that make
it possible to study how different experimental conditions affect people of different
ages.

o Example
 Do increased feelings of choice and personal responsibility impact happiness,
sociability, health, and mortality in elderly nursing home residents?
 IV: Personal responsibility induction vs comparison vs control
 DV: Subsequent (18 months later) mortality, health, and nurse ratings of
happiness, sociability, vigorousness
- PROS

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o Ability to make causal claims

o IV caused changes in DV
o Examine interactions with age (2+ IVs)
- CONS
o Cannot examine whether aging causes changes
o Many others.
- Quasi-experimental design
o Researchers compare groups on predetermined characteristics.
o Subjects are not randomly assigned to conditions
o Subjects are selected based on the pre-existing values of the independent variable,
rather than having the experimenter assign values of the independent variable to
subjects.
 Unethical, so quasi experiments
 E.g., impact on alcoholics…. You cannot randomly select people and tell them to
drink until they become alcoholic.
o Example
 Research Question: Does air pollution accelerate cognitive aging in seniors?
Can these effects be mitigated?
 IV: Polluted air vs. cleaner air (CCAA)
 DV: Change in cognitive function in sample of 80+
 Results: After 4 years, cognitive decline in those exposed to greater pollution
was higher compared to those living in areas with the new laws
 Whitehall II example of quasi experiment
 The researchers can describe the relationship between social class and
health but cannot conclude that social class “caused” different groups of
workers to have different levels of health or different types of health
conditions.
- PROS
o Allows researchers to examine the effect of some “treatment” that may not be ethical or
logistically possible in an experiment.
- CONS
o Quasi-experiments have less internal validity than experiments
o Cannot determine if aging causes changes.
- Correlational designs
o Relationships are observed among variables as they exist in the world.
o A type of non-experiment
o Measure 2 or more different variables in a sample
 See how well they “hang together”
 How co-related are the variables
 How strongly is one associated with the other
o Variables must be continuous and not grouped (categories)
 Young adult, middle adult, old adult
 Age can be treated as a continuous variable and is therefore unnecessary or
even desirable to put people into defined groups.

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o Bivariate correlation
 A statistic that indexes the degree of relationship between two continuous
variables.
 +/- = “direction” of relationship
 Positive or negative?
 Number = “strength” of the relationship?
 How closely is one variable associated with other one?
 r can range from -1 to +1
 -1 = perfect negative linear relationship
 +1 = perfect positive linear relationship
 0 = no relationship
- PROS
o Describes the relationship between two variables
 E.g., age and reaction time
o Contain a wealth of information despite their inability to determine cause and effect.
- CONS
o Cannot infer causation
o Correlation ≠ causation
 You cannot make a claim that age is causing certain ages
 All we see is differences in certain ages
o Only useful for linear relationships
o Cohort or time of measurement effects?
- Cross sectional designs
o Can also measure all ages then form groups to compare
o Researchers compare groups of people with different ages at one point in time.


o Look at age differences
o The key to control for cohort differences is for researchers to select younger samples
comparable in important ways to the older sample.
 Example:
 In a study of aging and verbal memory, it would be important for
researchers to ensure that the age groups being compared have similar

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vocabulary or verbal comprehension skills if not actually similar

educational backgrounds.
o - Finding 30 y/o are happy, 90 are the happiest, but cannot say that the older you get the
happier you will be
- PROS
o Examine age differences
o Fast and usually cheap
o Addresses time of measurement effects
- CONS
o Is it representative?
o Does not examine age change
o Does not account for cohort effects
o Often use extreme age groups
o Measuring happiness this year, then next year there is a recession, results would be
different.
o This recession will affect the results of every cohort differently. Some more than others.
o Cannot claim and determine that if we get older, we become happier
o We do not know if these 60-year-olds represent all 60 y/o or just that group.
o Comparing young vs old age groups.
o Age is continuous.
o - measure of happiness might be subjective, and has different meaning depending on
the cohort
- Longitudinal designs
o People are followed repeatedly from one test occasion to another.
o Researchers aim to determine whether participants have changed over time as a result
of the aging process.
o Follow the same group of people over some period of time (multiple assessments)
 Period of time depends on variables of interest
 E.g., cognitive development/decline vs health status


 - Measure them 30 years apart to see how they have changed, what have
changed with them.
 - Is this generalizable?

- PROS
o Allows assessment of actual changes as individuals age
o Prospective longitudinal designs: Watches for outcomes during the study to examine
suspected risk/protective factors.

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 Prospective study: Researchers sample from a population of interest before they

develop a particular type of illness or experience a particular type of life event.
 E.g., studying widowhood, recruit participants of married individuals
while they are still married. Then compare non-widows/widows
 We can see how they change
 Look for risks of protective factors e.g., personality over time, what personality
traits can predict early death over time.
 Measuring levels of attraction, communication, and follow them in the future
- CONS
o Time of measurement and age confounded
o Generalizable to other cohorts?
o Attrition (selective)
 The fact that people who drop out of a longitudinal study are not necessarily
representative of the sample that was originally tested
 Terminal decline: individuals gradually lose cognitive abilities as they draw close
to death
o Losing participants to death, relocation, or lack of sustained interest.
o Time consuming and expensive
o Measures/technology
o Researcher’s interest/capacity
o Progression of knowledge
o We do not know if something happening in the environment or the world that made
these individuals felt happier at that point of measurement.
o Think very carefully of what you are studying.
o Attrition – people drop out. Some people move, die, or do not want to follow up
anymore. So, your sample will decrease over time.
o Is not problematic if people are dropping out at random, but it is problematic if certain
cohort are dropping


- Sequential designs

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o Designs that include:

 a cross-sectional study conducted at two or more times of measurement
 two or more longitudinal designs that represent two or more cohorts
 “The most efficient design” – K. Warner Schaie
 You are following two groups of people across time.
o These designs consist of different combinations of the variables age, cohort, and time of
measurement.
o The sequential nature of these designs is what makes them superior to the truly
descriptive designs conducted on one sample, followed over time (longitudinal design)
or on different-aged samples, tested on one occasion (cross-sectional design).


o Measuring happiness still
o You can collect a lot of data, run different types of analyses.
o Attrition would be less as you will have new people participating.
o Time-sequential design: data are organized by age and time of measurement
o Cohort-sequential design: cohorts are compared at different ages
o Cross-sequential design: cohorts are examined at different times of measurement
o Example: Seattle “longitudinal” study
 Kurt Warner Schaie (principal investigator)
 First intake 1956 (n=500) – ages ranged from 20s - 60s
 Individuals contacted every 7 years
 additional intake at each time-point (8 time-points)
 adds new cohorts & addresses attrition
 Fun Facts:
 over 6000 participants
 age range 22 – 101 years old
 26 original participants (8 assessments)
 includes children & grandchildren of participants
 Each time point every 7 years

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 time-sequential


 cross-sectional comparisons at each time point
 Cross sectional comparison of level of intelligence.
 Averages repeatedly at different time points
o Impact of age: controlling for cohort and time of measurement
 We want to understand how people age.
 We can look at for each cohort, how does a person change from 5 to 35. look at
three cohorts and averaged the values.
 Average will tell us how age changes individuals.
 Impact of aging.
 You will have to look at the cohorts repeatedly to see changes or help to
understand age effects.
o Comparison of birth cohorts
 Average difference between the groups
o Comparison of timepoint cohorts

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cross-sequential

- PROS
o Can examine possible cohort effects
o Permit different types of comparisons to be made
o Examine and control possible confounding of effects
o cross-sectional and longitudinal comparisons
o Control cohort effect
o Sophisticated studies
o They give you so much information
- CONS
o Attrition (selective?)
o Time consuming & Expensive
o Possible practice effects
o Measures/technology
o Researchers
o Progression of knowledge

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5. choose the appropriate research method to test a given hypothesis

- Laboratory studies
o Participants are tested in a systematic fashion using standardized procedures.
o Most objective way of collecting data as each participant is exposed to same treatment
o PROS:
 The objective and systematic way in which data are recorded provides the
investigator with assurance that the results are due to the variables being
studied rather than to extraneous factors.
o CONS
 Inability to apply the stimuli presented to real-life experiences of most adults.
 Findings may underestimate the individual’s abilities in everyday life and may
not generalize to real-world scenarios.
- Qualitative method
o Allows for the exploration of such complex relationships outside the narrow restrictions
and assumptions of quantitative methods.
o Used in the analysis of life history information.
o PROS
 They provide researchers with alternative ways to test their hypotheses.
 It can be adapted in a flexible manner to the nature of the problem at hand.
- Archival research
o Investigators use existing resources that contain data relevant to a question about aging.
o PROS
 The information is readily accessible, especially given the growth of web-based
data sets.
o CONS
 The researcher does not necessarily have control over the form of the data.
 The material may not be systematically collected or recorded. Info could be
incomplete
- Surveys
o Typically, short, and easily administered with simple rating scales to use for answers.
o PROS
 Provide data that allow the researcher to gain insight into the behavior of more
people than it would be possible to study in the laboratory or other testing site.
 Can be administer over the phone or via web.
 Interview-based surveys given by trained administrators provide knowledge that
is easily coded and analyzed while still providing comprehensive information
about the behavior in question.

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o CONS
 Some tend to be short, with questions that are subject to bias by respondents
who may create a favorable impression in the researcher.
 Limited data
- Epidemiological studies
o The study of the distribution and determinants of health-related states or events, and
the application of this study to the control of diseases and other health problems.
o Prevalence statistics: Provide estimates of the percentage of people who have ever had
symptoms in a particular period.
o Incidence statistics: Provide estimates of the percentage of people who first developed
symptoms in a given period.
 Example:
 The lifetime prevalence of a disorder signifies what percentage of the
population had the disease at any time since they were born.
 A one-year incidence estimate would tell you what percentage of the
population develop symptoms of the disease within a one-year period.


- Case report
o Summarizes the findings from multiple sources for those individuals.
o Focus on the characteristics of the individual and what has influenced their development
and life experiences.
o The case report has the benefit of providing insights into the lives of individuals as they
change over time, but it relies heavily on clinical judgments by the researchers.
- Focus group
o Is a meeting of a group of respondents oriented around a particular topic of interest.
o Attempts to identify important themes in the discussion and keep the conversation
oriented to these themes.
- Daily diaries
o Participants enter data on a daily basis. May consist of rating on such variables as
happiness, perceived stress, or interactions with family, or coworkers.
- Observational method
o Researchers draw conclusions about behavior through careful and systematic
examination in particular settings.

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o One type is participant-observation where the researcher participates in the activities of

the respondents.
- Meta-analysis
o A statistical procedure that allows them to combine findings from independently
conducted studies.
o Investigator sets criteria for including particular studies, such as the type of therapy, use
of similar outcome measures, and gender distribution of the sample.

CHAPTER 8: PERSONALITY

1.Differentiate between different theories of personality change, and the research findings supporting
each.

- Personality
o Personality is the set of psychological traits and mechanisms within the individual that
are organized and relatively enduring; and that influence his/her interactions with, and
adaptations to, the intrapsychic, physical, and social environments.
 Traits – different dimensions or ways we can distinguish between people,
characteristics
 Mechanisms – processes, how you think, respond to the world, how you process
information
 Organized – these traits do not occur randomly, they are coherent, work
together
 Enduring – how does it last on our lifetime, or does it change over time.
o Distinctiveness – how individuals differ from one another
o Consistency – the idea that people will behave similarly across situations
- Trait perspective theory
o Assumes that the organization of the personal dispositions known as traits guides the
individual’s behavior.
o Five factor model of personality (FFM)
 Is a theory intended to capture all the essential characteristics of personality in a
set of five broad dispositions.
 Each disposition has six subscales or facets
 NEO-PI revised tool of 240 items to test personality
 OCEAN

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
o People maintain their relative positions along the traits in comparison to their age peers;
the “highs” stay high, and the “lows” stay low.
 If you had high neuroticism scores as a young adult, you would continue your
high levels of worry, anxiety, and general malaise throughout midlife years and
beyond.
o Individuals increase in social dominance (independence and self-confidence in social
contexts), conscientiousness, emotional stability, social vitality, and openness to
experience through the age of 40.
o Social vitality and openness decreased in later adulthood, but agreeableness increased.
o Emotional stability increases in early adulthood and then remains relatively stable.
o Openness to experience is stable and falls after the age of 60.
o Correspondence principle
 People experience particular life events that reflect their personality traits; once
these events occur, they further affect people’s personalities.
 A person high in conscientiousness would be more likely to work in an office
environment with its constraints of space and time.
 People high in extraversion are more likely to be attracted to social
environments, which will shape them to be even more outgoing.
 Personality stability is enhanced by the active choices that people make 
- Three broad perspectives
o Radical contextual perspective
 Personality traits are highly prone to change over time and highly instable
 Stability coefficients are low
 Idea that personality changes. Whether you behave like an introvert or
extrovert, depends on context, and there is not a lot of stability across
personality.
 Measure personality today and in a week, the correlation between those
measures is low.
 This has been refuted.
o Biological essentialist perspective
 Personality is most likely the product of genetic rather than environmental
influences

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 personality traits are highly immutable and stable over time

 Stability coefficients are high
 you are born with a personality already, based on your genes. Wired to you,
immutable, they do not change and are stable overtime.
 Measuring personality will be highly correlated no matter when it’s been
measured.
 Genetic basis
 On average, about 50% of measured personality diversity can be
attributed to genetic diversity.
 Researchers have looked at twins.
 Monozygotic that do not share the same environment vs those raised
together
 And fraternal twins raised together and apart
 Takeaway: there is a genetic contribution to personality, but the
correlation is not 100%
 Environment has a significant role to play.
o Compromise perspective
 Personality is moderately stable and can change significantly throughout the
lifespan
 personality changes occur before the age of 30 and remains stable
afterward (Costa & McCrae, 1988)
 Similar-sized changes occur before and after age 30 (Scollon & Diener,
2000)
 Stability increases until the 50s (Roberts & Del Vecchio, 2000)
 Which is it???
 somewhere in between is both nature and nurture.
 It does change but up until 30
 Or changes before and after
 You become more stable up until 50s

2. Describe mean-level changes and rank-order consistency of personality across the lifespan. How
does each trait change or remain the same?

- Mean-level change: aka normative change. Reflects a group of people increases or decreases on
trait dimensions over time.
o May be influenced by biological causes
o May be shaped by social/historical processes
o Not an individual but group of people
o ~20,000 people in the study you track them longitudinally, then take the average
o Some people go up and down, average change. People are decreasing/increasing on
average.
o Do not forget individual differences.

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 On average, as we get older, we become more emotionally stable, less neurotic.

 This is a benefit, as we get older, we learn to handle our emotions better, we
learn about ourselves, our needs.
 Openness to experience quite steady in middle age

o
 These changes could be because of aging
 What is causing them to become more agreeable and conscientious?
 Impact relationships; working; mortgage; finishing a career
 More consequences as you get older, like got to pay bills on time, pick up your
kids on time, pay your mortgage on time.

o
 Social vitality how outgoing are you, how much positive affect you display.
 Social dominance increases, how self-confident, how dominant people do not
change too much after that
o Findings
 Increases in Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional stability as we age
 Inverted U-shape for Openness, different trajectories for facets of Extraversion

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 Total changes can be substantial

 Largest change occurs during early adulthood, but continue through adulthood
- Rank-order consistency: aka differential stability. Quantifies the degree to which individual
differences are maintained over time.
o Research shows a high degree of consistency over time throughout adulthood
o Shorter intervals between measures show greater consistency than longer intervals
o people maintain their relative positions along the traits in comparison with their age
peers
o If I measure you twice across 1 year, the rates will be more similar as if I measure you in
10 years.
o If you are high in conscientiousness, someone high at 20s will still be higher in their 60s.

o
 Correlation between measures, how stable is extraversion between age points.
 The dot .77 at age 45
 Strong positive relationship
 But someone with low extraversion at 40 years, they are still low at 45. someone
high in their 40s remains very extraverted at 45.

o
 Fairly similar these personality traits, more stability in middle age, around 70
years of age we see some decline.

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o
o individual differences in personality are consistent in adulthood (most stability
coefficients > .60)
o Differential stability increases quickly from adolescence to 30-40, slows, then peaks from
60-70
o Peak is followed by decline in the very old
o Personality is stable, but never set!

3. discuss research findings on the ways in which personality traits might influence important aspects
of our lives and thus the experience of aging (health)

- Type A behavior pattern

o Collection of traits that include being highly competitive, impatient, feeling a strong
sense of time urgency, and highly achievement oriented.
o Major risk factor for heart disease, and high levels of hostility
o The men higher in hostility and more prone to experience anger also showed increases
in coronary heart disease risk.
- Type D personality
o Distressed
o Characterizes people with high levels of anxiety, loneliness, and depression who try to
suppress their feelings.
o They have a poor prognosis when they develop heart disease.
o Social inhibition or fear of new situations.
- Agreeableness seems to play a protective role in heart health
- Conscientiousness facets of self-control, organization, industriousness, and responsibility were
related to lower body fat, healthier metabolic, cardiovascular, and inflammatory markers, and
better performance on physical assessments.

4. given an example, be able to predict how an individual might behave or respond according to
socioemotional selectivity theory, possible selves theory, and identity process theory.

- Socioemotional selectivity theory

o The view that people seek to maximize the positive emotions they experience in their
relationships.
o Based on the premise that there are two types of rewards that relationships can provide.

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o Informational rewards are those that give you new knowledge and emotional rewards
give you positive feelings.
 E.g., as people perceive their time to be running out, emotional rewards gain in
importance compared to informational rewards.
 For informational rewards, consider the time and how you felt when beginning
college, probably seeking to people who seemed to know how to get started,
where to go.
 In emotional rewards, you sought out people who help you feel good about
yourself and life.
o Affect regulation: increasing your feelings of happiness and well-being.


- Possible selves theory
o Proposes that the individual’s view of the self, or self-schema, guides the choice and
pursuit of future endeavors.
o Possible self means what you are now, and what could you be in the future. This can
motivate you to act in certain ways so that you achieve your “hoped-for” possible self, or
the person you would like to be.
o Who you will be in the future continue to shift as you develop throughout adulthood.
o People can remain hopeful or change until well into their later years.
 When you get older, your health-related possible self is very important, meaning
you hope that you will remain in good shape and free of disease.
 Most people would rather not become ill and so they will take action to avoid
that outcome.
 People are motivated to strive for a hoped-for possible self and will attempt to
avoid a dreaded or feared possible self.
 E.g., you probably feel better when your grades confirm your possible self as a
good student, and you study harder to avoid the dreaded self if a person who
fails out of college.


 One tactic is to revise the possible self to avoid future disappointment and
frustration if experiences suggest that the possible self may not be achievable.
Like knowing you will not be an A student if having As and Bs, so you revise your
possible self accordingly.

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- Identity process theory

o The goal of development is optimal adaptation to the environment through establishing
a balance between maintaining consistency of the self (identity assimilation) and
changing in response to experiences (identity accommodation)
 Through identity assimilation, people interpret events in a way that is consistent
with their present identity.
 If an event occurs that is so discrepant a person cannot interpret it in terms of
identity accommodation comes into play.
 As we get older, more experiences occur that can potentially erode self-esteem.
 Adults increasingly rely on identity assimilation, and this is how older people are
able to maintain positive self-esteem.
 Self-esteem higher when use both identity balance and assimilation.
 Self-esteem when using identity accommodation throughout adulthood.

5. describe the importance of coping and the ways in which coping might change as we age.

- Coping: things we think and actions we take to reduce the negative aspects of a stressful
situation, in managing both internal and external demands.

-
o Our personality play an important role in how we cope. And how we praise certain
situations.
o Some others will see something as less stressful – less neurotic
o More stressful – more neurotic
o Those who do not seek social support vs those that do (extraverts)
o How many stressors people have
o Those conscientious try not to get into less stressful events, they plan.
o Older adults retain the feeling of being in control of their lives despite being aware of
the constraints they may encounter.
 The experience of stress occurs when you perceive that the situation
overwhelms your ability to manage effectively in that situation.
 Coping refers to the actions people take to reduce stress. There are two main
forms of coping
 Problem-focused coping: people attempt to reduce their stress by
changing something about the situation

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 Emotion-focused coping: people attempt to reduce their stress by

changing the ways they think about the situation.
 Seeking social support, involves acting (by talking to others) and
attempting to feel better (which may result from talking to other people)
 Approach  problem-focused
 Avoidance  emotion-focused
 Resilience: ability to recover from stress. Resilient older adults can overcome
negative emotions and adapt to new situations as these arise, even if those
situations are objectively stressful.

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