Chapter 1 - Studying Adult Development and Aging Flashcards
Scientific study of aging from maturity through old age
Gerontology
Area of specialization within the field of medicine that deals with the study of the diseases and care of older adults
Geriatrics
Scientific study of the relationship between brain and cognition in older adults
Cognitive neuroscience / neuropsychology of aging
A form of discrimination against older adults based on their age, which comes about due to myths of aging
Ageism
Number of years that have elapsed since a person’s birth
Chronological age
The age you think of yourself as
Perceived age
Assessed by measuring the functioning of various vital, or life-limiting organ systems, such as the cardiovascular system
biological age
Functional level of psychological abilities that people use to adapt to changing environmental demands
Psychological age
Set of roles that individuals adopt in relations to their age and culture
Socio-cultural age
normal, disease-free development over the life span
primary aging
developmental changes that are related to disease, lifestyle, and other environmentally-induced changes that are not inevitable
secondary aging
Rapid losses that occur shortly before death (terminal drop)
tertiary aging
What are the two development phases?
Early (childhood and adolescence) and later (young adulthood, middle age, and old age)
During the early phase of development, _______ age-related changes in size and abilities occur
Rapid
During later development, changes are __________ but abilities continue to develop.
slower
What are the four key features of the life span perspective as identified by Paul Baltes?
Mult directionality, Plasticity, Historical context, Multiple causation
Includes both growth and decline
multidirectionality
role of practice and training
plasticity
specific set of circumstances and culture
historical context
interactions between biological, psychological, socio-cultural, and life-cycle forces
multiple causation
Genetic and health-related factors
Biological forces
Perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and personality factors
Psychological forces
Interpersonal, societal, cultural, and ethnic factors
Socio-cultural forces
How the same event or combination of forces affect people at different points in their lives
Life-cycle forces
events that may be important for a particular individual but are not experienced by most people
Non-normative influences
Biological, psychological, and sociocultural forces that are highly correlated with chronological age
Normative age-graded influences
Events that most people in a culture experience at the same time
Normative history-graded influences
Statistical study of large populations
Demography
Group of people born within a specified short period of time, who travel through life at the same point in history.
cohort
everyone you want to study
population
subset of the population that you enroll in the study
sample
selecting, or “screening” participants with certain characteristics
representative sample
Determines whether a finding generalizes across many studies looking at the same issue
meta-analysis
