Aging & Mental Health

Question 1

What is the main symptom of MDD?

Answer 1

Dysphoria

Question 2

TO qualify for DSM Diagnosis the patient must have how many other symptoms?

Answer 2

4-5

Question 3

Why might depression increase with age?

Answer 3

loss of sense of meaning in life

Question 4

How could someone lose the meaning in life? (4)

Answer 4

o Meaning is derived from achieving personal goals
o Depletion of goal-relevant resources leads to failure to achieve goals
o Leads to loss of sense of meaning
o Leads to depression

Question 5

What research supports loss of meaning of life is why they are getting depressed

Answer 5

Correlations between resources and depression

Question 6

What were Brandstadter & Rothermund (2002) interested in?

Answer 6

Must depleted resources result in loss of meaning? - Why do some older adults get depressed when they lose resources, but other do not?

Question 7

What were Brandstadter & Rothermund (2002) 2 findings?

Answer 7

o Feeling old:
Those who continue to try to change their life or environment to achieve their goals rather than changing their goals are more likely to experience depression

o Stereotype Fulfilment

Question 8

Explain Eichbach’s study

Answer 8

He gave degraded stimuli to make the elderly feel old.
In the explained condition he told told them that the printer wasn’t working therefore the participant would be externalizing.
In the unexplained condition he did not explain why the stimuli was degraded therefore the participant probably internalized it.
The DV, SWB, was lowest for those where the degraded stimuli was not the explained and there was a negative prime.

Question 9

Mock & Eichbach conducted a 10 year long study, what did they measure at time 1 and time 2?

Answer 9

Time 1: Attitudes re. aging

Time 2: Subjective age, mood and SWB

Question 10

What did Mock & Eichbach find?

Answer 10

1. Those who had pos and negative attitudes towards aging did not influence your subjective wellbeing when young.
2. Its feeling old and having a negative attitude that affects subjective well being
3. Negative affect was significantly higher when old and have negative attitudes

Question 11

After inducing certain affective states on elderly and young people, what did Levenston find?

Answer 11

They did show difference for different affective states however – the physiological response is much less than in younger adults.

An older adult who is happy is showing less of a physiological response than a younger adult who is just as happy

Question 12

What could be 2 explanations for older adults showing less of a physiological response?

Answer 12

 Older adults may be less expressive than younger adults

 Older adults may build up a certain immunity – after losing so many friends they don’t react as much

Question 13

What are 3 related hypotheses for older adults showing less of a physiological response?

Answer 13

1. Decreased emotional responsiveness
2. Increased emotional control
   - Socioemotional Selectivity Theory: Much more selective about when and how they socialize
3. Psychological immunization

Question 14

Research using standard definitions of depression but controlling for age-related presentation differences found:

Answer 14

o Decreased risk during most adulthood

o Increased risk in old age

Question 15

There is evidence for two separate syndromes

Answer 15

o Depressive Syndrome -> regular depression

o Depletion Syndrome -> depression of the elderly

Question 16

Neumann Longitudinal study defined depressive syndrome as having what two facets?

Answer 16

• History of mood disorder

- Feelings of guilt and self-blame

Question 17

Neumann Longitudinal study defined depletion syndrome as having what two facets?

Answer 17

• Loneliness

- Chronic and/or debilitating

Question 18

What did the Neumann longitudinal study find? (4)

Answer 18

1. Depletion and depressive syndrome seem different with regards to their symptoms
2. Those showing depressive syndrome decreased with age - in line with cross-sectional data
3. Significant rise in depletion syndrome
4. Loneliness and energy dropped as well

Question 19

traditionally, theres been emphasis on the distinction between

Answer 19

pathologic and non-pathologic older adults

Question 20

In the absence of disease, other alterations in physical function thought to be ‘normal’ aspects of the aging process are

Answer 20

High BP and memory impairments

Question 21

There been a new focus on the distinction between two groups of non-diseased older adults

Answer 21

o	Usual (non-pathologic but high risk)
o	Successful (low risk and high function)

Question 22

The MacArthur Foundation Model argues that there are 3 overlapping components that contribute to successful aging…

Answer 22

oAvoiding disease and disability
oHigh cognitive and physical function
oEngagement with life

Question 23

Explain Avoiding disease and disability

Answer 23

Not just the absence or presence of disease

Also the absence, presence, or severity of risk factors

Question 24

explain high cognitive and physical function

Answer 24

Physical and cognitive capacities are potentials for activity

Question 25

explain engagement with life

Answer 25

Interpersonal relationships and productive activity

Question 26

Explain the digram about predictors of engagement with life

Answer 26

Directly supported by interpersonal relationships and productive activity

IR is supported by emotional and instrumental support

PA is supported by functional capacity, education and self-efficacy

Question 27

What is SWB?

Answer 27

a person’s cognitive and affective evaluations of his or her life

Question 28

Despite objective difficulties, older people feel

Answer 28

relatively good

Question 29

What are the 3 components to SWB that are measured independently?

Answer 29

• Positive emotion
• Negative emotion
• Life satisfaction

Question 30

What would be high SWB?

Answer 30

o Pleasant emotions, low levels of negative mood, high life satisfaction

Question 31

What are 4 predictors of SWB?

Answer 31

1. Ability to adapt
2. Extent to which we are able to make progress towards our goals
3. Use of downwards social comparisons
4. Emotion regulation

Question 32

What is meant by the use of downwards social comparison?

Answer 32

a. Feeling #blessed

Question 33

In terms of emotional regulation, someone scoring low on neuroticism would score high on

Answer 33

SWB

Question 34

how do old and young people differ in their observation of time in respect to socioemotional selectivity theory?

Answer 34

• Young people perceive time as expansive

- Older people perceive time as limited

Question 35

Therefore, how would you market a camera?

Answer 35

 To young people “go out and capture the world”

 To older people “go capture those special moments”

Question 36

Define the positivity effect

Answer 36

o Rather spend time with people who add positivity to their life
o Older people also tend to focus on more positive things in their world and ignore negative stimuli

Question 37

Explain the study by - Mather & Carstensen on selective attention in regards to the positivity effect

Answer 37

IV: face pairings (neutral + positive; neutral + negative)
DV: reaction time
Results:
 Young: biased towards the emotional images (negative or positive)
 Old: much faster to respond to the dot if paired with the positive face. They are the slowest towards the negative face. Seems to be an inhibition or avoidance to negative stimuli

Question 38

Explain recall results between young and older adults after viewing positive, negative and neutral images

Answer 38

o Emotionality effect for young because they recalled more details about the positive and negative than the neutral
o Whereas the older tended to remember many more details about the positive images than negative and neutral

Question 39

Explain amygdala activation results between young and older adults after viewing positive, negative and neutral images

Answer 39

o More activation for the emotional images, less for neutral in young
o More activation for positive images for older, less for negative and neutral

Question 40

Explain the positivity effect found by Isaacowitz et al. 2006 looking at motivated gaze

Answer 40

% of Time Spent Looking at Each Face
 Younger adults don’t have a face preference, older adults prefer the happy face. This is a clear demonstration of the positivity effect
 Older adults tend to look at the neutral face instead of the angry face

Question 41

What did Isaacowitz hypothesize about older adults different patterns of looking based on mood?

Answer 41

o Older adults: Positivity effect should be particularly likely when mood is negative
o Younger adults: no positivity effect, but instead mood congruency (if they’re in a bad mood they’ll have a bias towards negative stimuli)