CHAPTER 1.

2:

ISSUES IN STUDYING ADULT

DEVELOPMENT AND AGING
LEARNING OBJECTIVES

 What four main forces shape development?

 What are normative age-graded influences, normative history-graded influences, and
non-normative influences?
 How do culture and ethnicity influence aging?
 What is the meaning of age?
 What are the nature-nurture, stability-change, continuity-discontinuity, and the
universal vs. context-specific development controversies?
ISSUES IN STUDYING AGING
 Everyone ages differently.
 Thus, researchers must consider the various forces that shape us as individuals
throughout development.
 Special emphasis on four influences in development:
 Biological
 Psychological
 Sociocultural
 Life cycle
ISSUES IN STUDYING AGING: FORCES OF DEVELOPMENT
 Biological forces
 All genetic and health-related factors that affect development
 Examples?

 Psychological forces
 All internal perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and personality factors that affect development
 E.g., characteristics that make people individuals

 Sociocultural forces
 Include interpersonal, societal, cultural, and ethnic factors that affect development
 Examples?

 Life-cycle forces
 How three prior forces combine, interact, and influence who we are
FORCES OF DEVELOPMENT
BIOPSYCHOSOCIAL FRAMEWORK

 Way of organizing the biological, psychological, and sociocultural forces on human

development.
 Each of us is a product of a unique combination of these 3 forces

 If someone experiences frequent forgetfulness – what factors would we need to

consider?
 Biological
 Psychological
 Sociocultural
 Life-cycle
DEVELOPMENTAL INFLUENCES

Normative age-graded influences

 Experiences caused by biological, psychological, and sociocultural forces that
occur to most people of a particular age
 Correlated with chronological age
 Usually indicate a major change in someone’s life
 Most convenient way to judge where we are on our “social clock”
 What would a biological example be?
 What would a psychological example be?
 What would a sociocultural example be?
DEVELOPMENTAL INFLUENCES
Normative history-graded influences
 Events that most people in a specific culture experience at the same time.
 Normally gives a generation its unique identity
 Biological examples?
 Psychological examples?
 Sociocultural examples?
DEVELOPMENTAL INFLUENCES

Non-normative influences
 Random or rare events that may be important for a specific individual but not
experienced by most people
 Can be favorable or unfavorable
 Examples?
 The unpredictability of these events are what makes them unique experiences
CULTURE & ETHNICITY
Culture
 Shared basic value orientations, norms,
beliefs, and customary habits and ways
of living.
 Important to gerontology- influences the
way people define basic concepts like
person, age, and life course
 Provides basic explanations about the
meanings and goals of everyday life
Ethnicity
 individual and collective sense of identity
based on historical and cultural group
membership and related behaviors and
beliefs.
 First influenced by one’s parents, but how one
incorporates, or even adapts their ethnic identity
throughout life is ever-changing and is dependent
on age, numerous psychological forces, the
environment, etc.

We know very little about how culture and ethnicity influences the experience of old age
Most research has focused on European Americans (but that is starting to change)
THE MEANING OF AGE
 How would you define the word age?
 Age is a complex concept; there are many definitions of age
 Chronological age
 Perceived age
 Biological age
 Psychological age
 Sociocultural age
 Example of complexity of age: When does adulthood begin?
TYPES OF AGING
 Primary aging: normal, disease-free development
during adulthood.
 Normal age-related declines in memory, reaction time
 Inevitable part of the aging process

 Secondary aging: developmental changes that are

related to disease, lifestyle, and other environmentally
induced changes that are not inevitable.
 Alzheimer’s disease & dementia

 Tertiary aging: rapid losses that occur shortly before

death.
 Terminal drop
CORE ISSUES IN DEVELOPMENT
 Is it your genes or experiences that determine your intelligence?
 Is change gradual or sporadic?
 Is aging the same around the world?

 Four main issues in research have been the source of controversy for
decades:
1. Nature-Nurture
2. Stability-Change
3. Continuity-Discontinuity
4. Universal vs. Context-Specific
THE NATURE-NURTURE DEBATE
 Are you friendly and outgoing? Or timid and shy?
 Did you inherit this trait from your parents? Or is it because of where and how you
grew up?
 Nature Nurture Debate:
 The degree to which genetic or hereditary influences and
experiential/environmental influences determine the kind of person you are
STABILITY-CHANGE
 Degree to which you remain the same over time
 Reflect
 At some level, stability is essential for us to be “us”
 Little controversy about whether we change in early adulthood, but
MUCH controversy concerning whether adults change as well
 No resolution
CONTINUITY-DISCONTINUITY
 Whether a particular developmental phenomenon represents a smooth progression
(continuity) or a series of abrupt shifts (discontinuity)
 Continuity:
 reaction time in older adulthood slows down over time
 Personality remains relatively the same with slight changes

 Discontinuity:
 Stages of Alzheimer’s disease that are qualitatively different from one another
UNIVERSAL VS. CONTEXT-SPECIFIC
 Is there one or multiple paths of development?
 Some cultures (e.g., !Kung tribe in South Africa) do not keep track of how many
years they have been alive
 Social roles do not differ from age, everyone performs the same tasks
 Sharply contrasted with aging in the U.S., where social roles vastly differ

 Can one theory explain both of these situations?

 We MUST understand development within the contexts in which they occur