Chapter One: Studying Adult Development and Aging

the study of aging from maturity through old age

a form of discrimination against older adults based on their age, which comes about due to myths of aging

Though it is not just against older adults, the elderly population gets that type of treatment all of the time

• The Life-Span Perspective divides human development into two phases:
• 1) early (infancy, childhood, and adolescence)
• 2) later (young adulthood, middle age, and old age)

Paul Baltes (1987)

• multidirectionality
• plasticity
• historical context
• multiple causation

development involves both growth and decline

• 1) Mental tasks increase, but speed of use decreases
• 2) Acceptance of things goes up (ex: death), while fear declines
• 3) increase in vocabulary

Skills can be trained/ improved even later in life with limitation

Using post-it notes to increase memory`

circumstances associated with the historical time we are born

• 1) 9/11
• 2) education

development is impacted by biopsychosocial and life cycle forces 

--> when the same event can affect/ impact someone differently depending on when it happened

having a child

There are more people over the age of 88 than ever before.

• health care improveents
• less women killed during childbirth
• baby boomers (1946-1964)

entitlement programs such as social security and pension systems such as Medicare

The middle aged people are the most prominent. Women live longer

More people are living longer. There are very similar percentages among those less than five and those up to 69

The population is leveling out. By 2100, there will be a relatively uniform population.

• This is when the Baby Boomlet occurs. 
• Pop: 400 million
• 20% will be 65+

If old surpasses the young, who pays for social security, for exampe?

Although people in this country will live longer, we will still have a strong youthful population, which is crucial. This is unlike in other countries. For example, China will lose 10% of its population.

• Adults among minority groups are increasing. 
• Future adults will be better educated--> Domino effect

Domino effect: better jobs--> higher income/ resources--> better health care--> healthier lifestyles

Essentially, better education leads to better decisions

individualism: US is individualistic; 'I' am the focus competitive; me, me, me

Collectivism: about the group; group before everything

Impact on intervention with the elderly population

For example, individualistic people will say, "Leave the elderly alone."

Though the Hispanic population is growing significantly (800%), non-Hispanic European Americans will still dominate

The number of older adults will increase dramatically in nearly all areas of the world over the next few decades

• Birth rate declines
• resource limitations
• economic conditions
• jobs and health care strains

True

• biological forces
• psychological forces
• social forces
• life-cycle forces

• They include all genetic and health related factors
• Examples:
• - brain part sizes
• - metabolism/ hormones
• - family medical histories

• include all internal perceptual, cognitive (memory, problem-solving, learning and logic), emotional, and personality factors
• - How you interpret things

include interpersonal, societal, cultural, and ethnic factors

• Examples:
• - society we live in
• - religion
• - ethnicity

Reflect differences in how the same event or combo of biopsychosocial forces affects people at different points in life

Examples: pregnancy and technology

Biological, psychological, and sociocultural forces all hit you throughout life and, combined with life-cycle forces, they make you a person

Biological, psychological, sociocultural--> Life-cycle forces--> Person

• Cohort effect
• normative age-graded influences
• normative history-graded influences
• non-normative influences

culture and ethnicity

group of people born at the same point in historical time (depend on when you're born)

• experiences caused by biopsychosocial forces that occur to most people of particular age
• ex: puberty, menopause
• --> Things everyone goes through

events that most people in the same culture experience; influences that impact you because of your culture (major events)

ex: Pearl Harbor, 9/11, Baby Boomers

Random or rare events that may be important for a specific individual but are not experienced by most

ex: winning the lottery, losing a job

culture: shared basic value orientations, norms, beliefs, and customary habits and ways of living

beliefs, etc. all the different features of your family

ethnicity: individual and collective sense of identity based on historical/ cultural group membership and related behaviors and beliefs

culture that you have a membership in as your country of origin; where our family came from

Primary aging: normal, disease-free development during adulthood

Secondary aging: developmental changes that are related to disease, lifestyle, and other environmentally induced changes that are not inevitable (i.e., pollution/ lifestyle affects you/ they happen)

Tertiary aging: rapid losses that occur shortly before death; terminal drop (you're gone quickly)

chronological age

perceived age

biological age

psychological age

sociocultural age

index variable for your age

age you think of yourself as

functional level of organ system

functional level of the abilities used to adapt to changing environments (memory, intelligence, feelings, motivation, etc.)

specific set of roles an individual adopts to other members of society (marriage, children, careers, stereotypes, dress, language, etc.)

genetics or the environment

it is actually both: interactionist approach

personality traits

• Smooth or abrupt changes
• amount versus kinds
• plasticity--capacity learned/ improved with practice

All people or some instances

reliability: the extent to which it provides a consistent index of the behavior or topic of interest 

validity: the extent to which it measures what researchers think it measures

systematic observation: watching people and recording what they do or say

naturalistic observation: going into the real world 

structured observation: used for rare/ difficult to study (i.e. emergencies); used in real world but made to happen/ drills and recording

create tasks that are thought to sample the behavior of interest; make them do behaviors that you're interested in studying

people's answers to question about the topic of interest

Questionnaire, survey

measures attitudes and feelings about something

• Sample
• generalizability

• random sample: everyone ha equal chance of being selected
• representative sample: have to represent what you are studying
• biased sample not random nor representative
• random assignment: randomly put them into groups of research

Take population sample--> research--> apply findings to entire population, which is generalizability

• Variables
• - independent variables: manipulated
• - dependent variables: measured

• Groups
• - Experimental group: gets independent variable
• - Control group: doesn't get independent 

• Other considerations:
• - Experimental bias
• - placebo effect: give them a pseudo thing
• - double-blind study

Cause and effect

• Pearson's 'r'
• --> +/- correlations
• --> size 0-1

Cause and effect cannot be determined because a third variable exists

it is a correlational coefficient that can be between 0 and 1

• r=0 (no relationship)
• r=1 (perfect relationship, which will never happen because that would mean cause and effect

• r= 0.1-0.3 (weak)
• r= 0.4-0.6 (mild)
• r= 0.7-0.9 (high)

positive r= either both are going up or both are going down

negative r= one goes up and one goes down

• cross-sectional designs
• longitudinal designs
• sequential designs

• testing different ages, same time
• cohort/ age effects
• quick and inexpensive

• same individuals; repeated times
• i.e. microgenetic study
• age/ time of measurement effects

combination of cross-sectional and longitudinal

age effects (within subjects)= biopsychosocial changes at various ages and their effects

cohort effects= unique to the generation

time of measurement effects--> socio-cultural, environmental, and historical events at the time data obtained; confounding variables

allows researchers to synthesize the results of many studies to estimate relations between variables

• take all of the different variables and blend them into one
• --> powerful tool
• --> determines whether a finding generalizes across many studies that used different methods

• minimizes risks to research participants
• describes the research to potential participants--> informed consent
• avoid deception--> debriefing
• results should be anonymous or confidential