Chapter 1: Concepts Flashcards
what is gerontology? How does ageism relate to stereotypes of aging?
Gerontology is the scientific study of aging from maturity through old age. Stereotypes of aging are myths that people believe about older adults that are not backed by scientific evidence. The stereotyping of older adults is considered wrong because the myths can lead to discrimination based on how old someone is.
what is the life-span perspective?
the life span perspective divides human development into two phases: an early phase (childhood and adolescence) and a later phase (young adulthood, middle age, and old age.) Early stage is defined by great growth, while the later stage is defined by acquisition of skills and adaptation to their environment.
what are the characteristics of the older adult population?
More women than men, more with higher education levels, more majority-minority representation than before.
how are they likely to change?
the number of people over 85 will increase by 500% between 2000 and 2050. by 2044, majority minority, up from 39% in 2014. by 2030, 85% will have a high school diploma and 75% will have a college degree.
Paul Baltes (1987; Baltes et al., 2006) four key features of the life-spa perspective:
- multidirectionality: growth and decline; ex: vocab increases, but reaction time declines.
- plasticity: capacity is not concrete. Skills can still be trained and improved, within limits.
- historical context: set of circumstances defined by time we are born (ex: WW2, Vietnam, depression era mistrust of banks.)
- multiple causation: development results from a wide variety of forces.
Development is shaped by what forces?
biological, psychological, sociocultural and life-cycle forces.
Three critical factors (Baltes et al 2006):
- as people age, they begin to focus on or select those abilities deemed essential for functioning.
- people then optimize their behavior by focusing on this more limited set of abilities.
- people learn to compensate for declines by designing workaround strategies.
What is the selective optimization with compensation (SOC) approach?
the ability of people to shift more and more resources to maintain function and deal with biologically related losses as we age, leaving fewer resources to be devoted to continued growth.
What four main forces shape development?
Biological forces: genetic, health related. ex: menopause, facial wrinkling, and changes in the major organ systems.
Psychological forces: internal perceptual, cognitive, emotional and personality factors.
Sociocultural forces: interpersonal, societal, cultural, and ethic factors.
Life-cycle forces: provide the context for the developmental differences of interest in adult development and aging. (how one person could react differently to similar events.)
what are normative age-graded influences, normative history-graded influences, and nonnormative influences?
Normative age graded: experiences caused by biological, psychological, and sociocultural forces that occur to most people of a particular age.
Normative history graded: events that most people in a specific culture experience at the same time. may be biological (pandemic), psychological(stereotypes) or sociocultural (changing attitudes toward sexuality.) Give a generation a unique identity (ex: baby boomers, millennials, etc.)
non-normative: random or rare events that may be important for a specific individual but are not experienced by most people. (ex: winning the lottery, accident, etc.)
how do culture and ethnicity influence aging?
culture connects to biological forces through family lineage, which is sometimes the way in which members of a particular culture are defined. Psych: culture shapes people’s core beliefs. being socialized as a child in a given culture will result in different effects than being adopted into a culture later in life. important in gerontology because of how people define basic concepts such as person, age, and life course.
Ethnicity influences aging by both solid and fluid factors, reflecting the fact that there are both unchanging and situation-specific aspects to ethnic identity. Ex: changing terms used for African Americans throughout history.
what is the meaning of age?
consists of three distinct processes: primary, secondary and tertiary aging.
Primary: normal, disease free development during adulthood( menopause, decline in reaction time and loss of loved ones).
Secondary: developmental changes that are related to disease, lifestyle, and other environmentally induced changes that are not inevitable (Alzheimer’s).
Tertiary: rapid losses that occur shortly before death. (ex: terminal drop)
what is the nature-nurture controversy?
involves the degree to which genetic or hereditary influences (nature) and experiential or environmental influences (nurture) determine the kind of person you are. Once thought of as separate, most scientists now believe the combination of the two are responsible.
what is the stability-change controveresy?
concerns the degree to which people remain the same over time. There is much controversy about whether people change across adulthood, and how much should be considered normative.
what is the continuity-discontinuity controversy?
concerns whether a particular developmental phenomenon represents a smooth progression over time (continuity) or a series of abrupt shifts (discontinuity.) continuity focuses on amount of a characteristic, whereas discontinuity focuses on the different characteristics a person has.
