Chapter 8: Middle Adulthood Flashcards
Generativity vs stagnation
Erickson’s stages of psychosocial development.
40-65
Midlife adults must develop capacity to transcend self-interest to guide the next generation of they feel stagnated.
Extroversion
Orientation to the external world.
Introversion
Orientation to the internal world.
Life span theory
Based in ongoing transactions between persons and environments and begins with the premise that development is lifelong.
Development involves both gains and losses.
Biological influences on development become more negative and cultural support becomes more important.
Increasing age in adulthood means there is an overall decrease in resources.
Even with challenge increase and biological resource decrease in midlife, there is still a possibility for change.
The experience of midlife adults may depend on culture all and historical contexts
Menopause
The permanent cessation of menstruation, and for research purposes is usually defined as 12 consecutive months with absence of menstruation.
Premenopause
Woman begins to have occasional menstrual cycles without ovulation, or the production of eggs.
Primenopause
Period of time that begins immediately prior t menopause, when there are biological and clinical indicators that reproductive capacity is reaching exhaustion, and continues through the first and last menstrual period.
Trait theory
According to this view personality traits are enduring characteristics that are rooted in early temperament and are influenced by genetic and organic factors, but that remain relatively consistent across the life course.
5 broad personality traits:
- neuroticism: moody, anxious, hostile, vulnerable
- extroversion: outgoing, friendly, talkative, active
- conscientiousness: organized, responsible, hard working, persistent
- openness to experience: creative, imaginative, intelligent, adventurous, nonconforming
Contextual model
Avehalom Caspi
Proposes Personality stability across life course but it presents a different explanation for that stability. Asserts that personality influences both the environments we select for ourselves and how we respond to those environments.
Personality leads us to choose similar environments over time, and these similar environments reinforce our personal styles.
Coping mechanisms
Strategies that we use to master the demands of life.
George Vaillant
Immature coping mechanisms
Acting out, senile, dissociation, fantasy, passive-aggression, projection.
Mature coping mechanisms
Altruism, mature humor, sublimation, suppression.
Whitbourne’s Identity Process Model:
Assimilation
Process through which individuals incorporate new experiences into their existing identity.
Whitbourne’s Identity Process Model:
Accommodation
Process through which an individual changes some aspect of identify in response to new experiences.
Whitbourne’s Identity Process Model:
Three identity styles
Assimilation identity style:
midlife individuals see themselves as unchanging and may either deny the physical and other changes that they are experiencing or rationalize them as something else.
Accommodative identity style:
Midlife individuals overreact to physical and other changes, and this undermines their identity and leaves it weak and incoherent.
Balanced identity style:
Midlife individuals, combining goals and inner purpose with the flexibility to adapt to new experiences and accept limitations and what can not be changed.
