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Sociology 200 > Chapter 10 > Flashcards

Chapter 10 Flashcards

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Sociology 101 flashcards
1
Q

individual aging

A
  • the biological, physiological, psychological, and social changes that occur over the life cycle (ie. The greying of one’s hair and the development of dementia)
  • These changes have an impact on the elderly individual as well as on their family members, in both positive and negative ways
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2
Q

subcategories of old

A
  • young-old: 65-74
  • old-old: 75-84
  • oldest-old: 85+
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3
Q

Life expectancy in Canada

A

Male/female difference: Canadian women live approximately 5 years longer than men -> heterosexual women should expect to be windowed for about 7 years on average

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4
Q

ageism

A
  • the stereotyping of older people
  • thought to be the result of our fear of and vulnerability to our own aging and eventual death and due to the separation of young and old cohorts in society
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5
Q

myths of aging

A
  • Senility is a normal part of the aging process: although seniors do become more forgetful as they age, extreme forgetfulness isn’t normal
  • Most older people are lonely: number of close friends remains stable over lifetime
  • Most older people are sick: physical changed to occur, but many elderly people are in good health
  • Most older people are victims of crime: they are less likely to be robbed, assaulted, or raped, but are more likely to be victimized by their own family
  • The elderly become more religious as they age: religion is stable across the lifetime – if they were religious when they were young, they’ll still be religious in old age
  • Most older people are non-productive: although not in the workforce, elderly people still volunteer, work part-time, or are active grandparents
  • People who retire experience a decline in health and die quickly after retirement: people live much longer past retirement now
  • Older people have no interest in and lack the ability for sex: people who were sexually active in adulthood will continue to do so as elderly people
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6
Q

research methods

A
  • Age effects: outcomes that occur due to one’s age or developmental stage
  • Cohort effects: outcomes that occur because one is born in a particular cohort (people born in a particular period of time share certain socio-historical experiences)
  • Period effects: outcomes that occur due to what is happening at the time of measurement
  • Failing to separate age, period, and cohort effects leads to the developmental fallacy in which cross-sectional age differences are interpreted as developmental change (ex. Saying IQ declines with age because young people outperform old people on standardized tests, without taking into account that today young people attain much higher levels of education than the elderly did in the past)
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7
Q

types of aging

A
  • chronological aging
  • biological aging
  • psychological aging
  • social aging
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8
Q

chronological aging

A
  • the passage of time

- Ex. Canada has a legal drinking age (varies by province or territory), a legal driving age, and a legal voting age

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9
Q

biological aging

A
  • the physiological changes that occur over time
  • Ex. Bone mass loss, reduction of growth hormones
  • Due to internal (intrinsic) factors: loss of lung capacity and brain cells, hardening of our arteries
  • Due to external or (extrinsic) factors: exposure to sun and loud noise, our personal health habits (ie. diet)
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10
Q

compression of morbidity hypothesis

A
  • more people today than in the past postpone the onset of chronic disability
  • The period of time between being seriously ill and death has been compressed (shortened)
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11
Q

3 most prevalent illnesses causing death and disability

A
  • heart disease
  • cancer
  • stroke
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12
Q

psychological aging

A
  • changes in personality, cognition, emotional arousal, memory, learning, and motivation
  • big changes occur in memory, attention control, and wisdom
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13
Q

memory

A
  • Large losses occur in: Episodic memory (memory for personal events and experiences) and working memory (our ability to hold a small amount of info in an available state)
  • Smaller losses occur in: implicit memory (“autopilot memory”, like knowing how to ride a bike) and semantic memory (memory for factual information)
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14
Q

attention

A
  • The main factor that affects our ability to process information is attention
  • Selective attention: the ability to focus on relevant information while ignoring what is irrelevant
  • Sustained attention: ability to stay focused on a particular thing overtime
  • Attentional control: ability to multitask with our attention – allotting our attention to several tasks at once
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15
Q

wisdom

A
  • ability to apply knowledge of life events and conditions to make optimal decisions when trying to solve life problems; one of the “gains” in later life
  • Older people may be better at foreshadowing problems (problem finding) and problem solving due to their vast life experiences
  • Older adults also tend to have less negative emotion, and more emotional control and stability than young peopl
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16
Q

social aging

A
  • the changes in our social roles and social status over time
  • Ex. Retirement is a status change from “working” to “non-working”
17
Q

sensory changes

A

yellow lenses, peripheral vision loss/other eye challenges, hearing loss, loss of sensation in hands, loss of taste, etc.

18
Q

widowhood

A
  • Most seniors are married (vs. Common-law, single, divorced), and can expect to eventually be widows (or widowers, but that’s less likely)
  • Approximately 30% of individuals aged 65 years and older are windowed
  • Widowhood occurs more frequently for women than for men
  • About half of women aged 75 to 79 years are windowed, while only 16 percent of men of this age are widowed -> occurs in part because women marry older men (about 2 years older on average) and are less likely to remarry
19
Q

divorce in later life

A
  • Only about 5-6% of the elderly are divorced and 10-13% of those aged 65 years and older have experienced a divorce in their lifetime
  • We expect these rates to increase as younger cohorts move into the later life, since there is more acceptance of divorce today than in the past
  • For many older individuals, there are few benefits to divorcing -> without the need or desire to remarry, the costs of a formal divorce may outweigh the benefits
  • Divorce in general is more difficult economically for women than for men, because traditionally men are the breadwinners and women are the homemakers, and women are less likely to form a post-divorce union
  • Older people lose financially after divorce because they cannot regain their lost income since they are no longer working
20
Q

divorce and disrupted networks

A
  • Divorce erodes one’s support network
  • The loss is said to be greater for men than for women, as men typically have a smaller support network (friends who they can emotionally talk to and rely on)
  • Women are often kinkeepers, or the individual in the family who keeps family members connected, so men tend to lose family connections as well
  • Divorce can also affect grandparent-grandchild relations as it changes the balance of resources
  • Divorce also disrupts the family links, making it difficult for adult children and grandchildren to spend time with both parents, especially on holidays
21
Q

remarriage in later life

A
  • Due to a marriage squeeze, remarriage rates are higher for men than for women
  • An imbalance in the sex ratio can make it difficult for older women to find new partners
  • Generally, those in poor health, those with poor finances, and the very old do not remarry
  • Fewer incentives to remarry at this stage: no need to conform to life cycle timing of marriage, not going to have kids, may feel need/pressure from family to protect estate
22
Q

positive reasons to remarry include

A
  • Enlarging your kin network
  • Being generally happy with the relationship
  • Having increased financial and emotional stability
  • Enhancing relationships with your children (if the children are supportive) since you will become less of a burden to them
23
Q

never-married

A
  • Educated women make up largest proportion of this group
  • With no economic need for a spouse, decreasing stigma associated with remaining single. Getting an education before getting involved in a serious relationship often leads women to be squeezed out of marriage
  • Not lifelong social isolates (ie. They still have strong family and friend relationships, and some even date and cohabit, they just don’t marry)
  • usually have no children, although this isn’t always the case
  • Some say that they regret never marrying and some report being lonely, but they generally have high well-being and are spared spousal bereavement and desertion
24
Q

grandparenthood

A
  • Usually happens in middle age, but this is changing now that people are delaying starting a family until they have attained high levels of education
  • Grandmothers tend to emphasize closeness and fun where grandfathers tend to assume the role of advisor
  • Generally, the role of grandparent is more flexible than that of parent
  • Usually told what NOT to do in caregiving by their adult children
  • The role of grandparent is also not chosen; you become a grandparent if your own children choose to become parents
  • Divorce of parents can affect the grandparent-grandchild bond – because child custody is usually granted to mothers, the maternal grandparents will likely have more contact with their grandchildren post-divorce than the paternal grandparents
25
Q

3 types of grandparents

A
  1. Companionate grandparent: close to their grandchildren but do not have a parental role (most common type)
  2. Remote grandparents: grandparent is less involved in grandchild’s life, usually because they live far away from one another
  3. Involved grandparent: less warm that companionate and remote grandparents (because they must discipline their children). Least common type, and have parent-like duties
26
Q

retirement

A
  • Used to be viewed as negative -> purpose of life (especially for men) was diminished since they were no longer in the workforce
  • Now early retirement is seen as a goal, as only those who have “made it” can afford to retire early
  • Women tend to retire earlier than men (because typically they have saved enough money to retire around the same time their spouse does)
  • For an elderly couple, this can be a challenging time -> More time available to spend together can lead to irritation or to greater intimacy. Many housewives, however, report less freedom as they increase couple activities at the expense of individual ones
  • Married women tend to retire earlier than unmarried women
27
Q

5 stages that an individual (and the individual’s family) goes through in the process of dying

A
  1. Denial
  2. anger
  3. bargaining
  4. depression
  5. acceptance
28
Q

end of life

A
  • conflicts may occur, as family members try to determine how the loved one should be cared for at the end of life
  • The role of non-kin is often unclear – may be cut off from the loved one and excluded from end-of-life planning
  • There has been a concern among older gay and lesbian couples – they are concerned that their role in their partner’s health care plan will not be recognized by service providers (Because non-kin are typically not allowed to visit critically ill loved ones)
  • Death rituals are rites of passage that provide formal recognition of the transition from life to death -> common options in Canada include burial, cremation, and entombment
29
Q

3 key tips to successful aging

A
  • Eating a low-fat diet
  • Getting adequate exercise
  • Having a strong support network
30
Q

how to measure “old”

A
  • chronological age (one’s age in years)
  • functional age (one’s age measured by competence or performance)
  • life expectancy (number of years an individual born in a particular year/cohort can expect to live)
31
Q

changes in ethnic diversity

A
  • A large percentage of immigrants and Aboriginals in Canada will soon move into old age
  • BC and Ontario have highest immigrant population
  • Many elderly Aboriginal people live in poverty, and they provide a key link to maintaining aboriginal culture
32
Q

Erikson: mid-life is a challenge between what?

A
  • generativity and self absorption + stagnation
  • Generativity: moving beyond your own interests and toward helping the generation to come
  • Stagnation: inability to find value in guiding and aiding the next generation
33
Q

Erikson: late-life is a challenge between what?

A
  • integrity and despair
  • Integrity: ability to accept one’s life as something that it had to be rather than regretting what it was not
  • Despair: feeling that life has been in vain, unsatisfied with how life turned out
34
Q

4 types of generativity

A
  • Biological generativity: contributing to society by having kids
  • Parental generativity: nurturing and socializing children
  • Technical generativity: teaching skills to next generation
  • Cultural generativity: passing on cultural values/traditions to next generation
35
Q

3 main areas of physiological effects of aging

A
  1. musculoskeletal system (ie. Bone loss)
  2. endocrine system (ie. Decrease in sex hormones, menopause)
  3. sensory changes (ie. Deteriorating smell, touch, vision, and hearing)
36
Q

7 dimensions of well-being

A
  1. Positive self-evaluation/acceptance
  2. Positive relationships with others
  3. Autonomy and self-determination
  4. Mastery over one’s environment
  5. Effectively managing one’s life
  6. Having a sense of purpose
  7. Having a feeling of growth and development as a person
    - Among old people, environmental mastery and autonomy are higher, but purpose in life and personal growth are lower than for younger adults
37
Q

empty nest and launching

A
  • Launching is usually a time of increased satisfaction – parental responsibilities are done and the parents can now pursue their own hobbies
  • Delayed launching can decrease satisfaction – parents feel that they have failed in some way since their children aren’t moving on and becoming productive members of society
  • As more young adults pursue higher education, launching his happening later and later (typically late 20’s), but this varies by culture
38
Q

boomerang children

A

adult children who were launched but come back home due to divorce, job loss, etc.

39
Q

cluttered nest

A

when an adult child is expected to reside with their parents and take care of them (common among people of Asian descent)

Sociology 200 (12 decks)

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