Chapter 15 Flashcards
Self theories
Theories of late adulthood that emphasize the core self, or the search to maintain one’s integrity and identity.
Integrity vs despair
The final stage of Erik Erikson’s developmental sequence, in which older adults seek to integrate their unique experiences with their vision of community.
Compulsive hoarding
The urge to accumulate and hold on to familiar objects and possessions, sometimes to the point of their becoming health and/or safety hazards. This impulse tends to increase with age.
Positivity effect
The tendency for older people to perceive, prefer, and remember positive images and experiences more than negative ones.
socio-emotional selectivity theory
older people select familiar social contacts who reinforce their generativity, pride, and joy.
Stratification theories
Theories emphasizing that social forces, particularly those related to a person’s social stratum or social category, limit individual choices and affect a person’s ability to function in late adulthood because past stratification continues to limit life in various ways.
Disengagement theory
The view that aging makes a person’s social sphere increasingly narrow, resulting in role relinquishment, withdrawal, and passivity.
Activity theory
The view that older people want and need to remain active in a variety of social spheres — with relatives, friends, and community groups — and become withdrawn only unwillingly, as a result of ageism.
How does Erikson’s use of the word integrity differ from its usual meaning?
Erikson refers to life as a whole, so integrity is related to the math word integer (whole numbers) rather than to honesty.
How does hoarding relate to self theory?
Older people seek to maintain their identity. Sometimes material objects, accumulated over the years, bestow that sense of self.
Is there any harm in older people striving to become themselves?
It depends on who they think they are! Usually self-maintenance correlates with a sense of control, which improvs health and long life.
Which type of stratification is most burdensome: economic, ethnic, or gender?
Answers vary, depending partly on the current conditions of the person being stratified. Long-life poverty might be worst in the United States at the moment.
How can disengagement be mutual?
If an older person wants a quieter, more peaceful life, and if family and friends want to leave the older person alone, disengagement can be mutual.
If activity theory is correct, what does that suggest older adults should do?
Activity theory suggests that older adults should keep busy. They should invite people to their homes, visit others, go to events, join clubs, take classes!
What is the evidence for, and against, stratification theory?
The evidence for is that people stay within the strata society has put them in, and those strata continue to affect their life in late adulthood. The evidence against is that women, and some immigrants, live longer than men or non-immigrants, so the burdens of earlier in adulthood may no longer pull them down.
