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Developmental Psychology > Development in Adulthood > Flashcards

Development in Adulthood Flashcards

1
Q

Important societal changes

A
  • important changes in Australian society and globally
  • rise in the ages of entering marriage and parenthood driven by
    o tolerance for premarital sex in the context of committed and loving relationship
    o increase in the years devoted to pursuing education and training
    o changing roles of women
    o rise in earnings, but also in living costs
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2
Q

Emerging adulthood

A
  • a distinctive developmental stage?
  • Age range of 18-25 (29) years
  • Intense identity explorations in the areas of work, love and worldviews
  • Subjectively and demographically distinct developmental stage
  • Might be a distinct phase in western, post-industrial societies, but not necessarily culturally universal
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3
Q

Developmental features of emerging adulthood

A
  • The age of identity explorations
  • The age of instability
  • The self-focused age
  • The age of feeling in-between
  • The age of possibilities
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4
Q

Development in adulthood

A
  • Characterised by variety of experiences
  • Influenced significantly by cultural, social and personal factors
  • Theories of adulthood focus on common elements in diverse experiences – two basic psychological needs, to love and to work
  • Three important developmental transitions
    o Couple relationships
    o Parenthood
    o Career
  • Social expectations about these create an internalised social timetable
  • Social clock
    o On time – following the social timetable
    o Off time – out of phase with peers
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5
Q

Adult attachment

A
  • Attachment style applicable across the lifespan
    o Adult’s current view of early attachment relationships is a good predictor of current attachment style and relationship quality
    o Distribution of attachment styles similar to infant attachment
  • Infant attachment predictive but not 100% determinant of adult attachment style
  • Adult relationship experiences also influential
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6
Q

Model of self: Secure

A

Secure attachment history

Healthy balance of attachment and autonomy; freedom to explore

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7
Q

Model of self: Preoccupied

A

Resistant attachment history

Desperate for love to feel worthy as a person; worry about abandonment; express anxiety and danger openly

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8
Q

Model of self: Dismissing

A

Avoidant attachment history
Shut out emotions; defend against hurt by avoiding intimacy, dismissing the importance of relationships and being ‘compulsively self-reliant’

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9
Q

Model of self: Fearful

A

Disorganised-disoriented attachment history

Need relationships but doubt own worth and fear intimacy; lack a coherent strategy for meeting attachment needs

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10
Q

Changing family context

A
  • Decrease in marriage rates
  • Increase in cohabitation before marriage
  • Increase in divorce rates
  • Increase in lone parent families
  • However, majority of children still live in ‘intact’ families
  • Increase in average age of first parenting
  • Decrease in number of children per woman
  • Increase in number of children born outside marriage
  • Increase in maternal employment
  • Increase in average maternal employment level
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11
Q

Transition to parenthood

A

People choose to have children for a variety of reasons
- a major life transition – no other transition is as abrupt and complete
- but no or little preparation
- positive and negative changes
o disrupted routine – family, work, social
o fatigue
o roles become more traditional
o sexual relationship deteriorates
o conversation decreases
o fathers withdraw, spend more time at work

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12
Q

Family Life Cycle: Stage 1

A

Beginning families
Transition to parenthood families
Families with preschoolers

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13
Q

Family Life Cycle: Stage 2

A

Families with school-aged children

Families with adolescents

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14
Q

Family Life Cycle: Stage 3

A

Families as launch centres

Empty-nest families

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15
Q

Family Life Cycle: Stage 4

A

Retirement

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16
Q

Career development in adulthood

A
  • Charlotte Buhler
  • Organic, self-determination
  • Intentions, goals and self-determination as driving adult development
  • Intentionality as a developmental process of
    o Choosing life goals
    o Working towards them
    o Evaluating goal achievement
    o Selecting new goals
  • Lifespan psychological growth depends on
    o Realistic initial goal setting
    o Hard work through life to achieve these goals
    o Skilled self-monitoring, assessment and redirection
  • Influences: super, Havinghurst, Levinson
17
Q

What is old age?

A
  • Young old (60-69) – as fit and forward-looking as 50 year olds were some generations ago
  • Third age (70-79) – many of them function better physically and psychologically than their parents did at age of 55
  • Fourth age (80 and over) – old old adults frail physical or mental health directly attributable to their advanced age
18
Q

Cognitive ageing: Intelligence

A
  • Piaget: formal operational thinking as the final stage of cognitive development
  • Postformal thinking – lessened egocentrism of young adults and capacity to view world more relativistically
  • Seattle Longitudinal Study (Schale) – ‘cohort absolescence’ needs to be considered when considering cross-sectional evidence about changes in cognitive abilities with age
  • Fluid (cognitive ability does go down) and crystalilised (formal intelligence, doesn’t go down in age) intelligence
19
Q

Successful cognitive aging

A
  • Selective optimisation with compensation in order to balance gains and losses in cognitive functioning in old age
20
Q

Wisdom

A
  • Wisdom entails:
    o Rich factual knowledge with exceptional scope, depth and balance
    o Rich procedural knowledge about how to behave and seek meaning in lfe
    o Tolerance, respect for context and values
    o Awareness and skill coping with uncertainty and change
  • Wise solutions containing all these elements generally rare, but more common in older than in younger adult
  • According to Erikson resolution of the development task of late adulthood (integrity vs despair) produces wisdom
21
Q

Successful social ageing

A
  • Disengagement theory and activity theory take opposing perspectives on adapting to the loss of roles or activities that occurs in late adulthood
22
Q

Disengagement theory

A
  • Older people have increased preoccupation with the self and decreased investment in society
  • Decreased social interaction in old age comes from mutual withdrawal of both the individual and society
  • Optimal ageing occurs when the ageing person establishes greater psychological distance from those around him or her
  • Decreased social interaction should be expected
23
Q

Activity Theory

A
  • Older people have the same psychosocial needs middle-aged people do
  • Decreased social interaction in old age comes from withdrawal by society from the ageing person
  • Optimal ageing occurs when the person stays active
  • Substitute activities should be found for those that are lost (e.g., for work at retirement)
24
Q

Socio-emotional Selectivity Theory

A
  • Changes in social motives due to people becoming more aware of the limited amount of time they have left
  • Reshaping of one’s life in late adulthood to concentrate on what one finds to be important and meaningful in the face of physical decline and possible cognitive impairment
25
Q

Defining Death

A
  • Death – the irreversible cessation of vital life functions
  • Dying – the end stage of life, in which bodily processes decline, leading to death
  • Previously absence of respiration and heartbeat
  • Now criteria focus on brain death
  • Definition crucial for issues of organ transplant
26
Q

Accepting one’s own death

A
  • Death becomes more salient with age
    o Young children see death as reversible or temporary and not necessarily inevitable
    o Adolescents tend to deny their own mortality
    o Young adults are often very angry when faced with their own death
    o Middle-aged adults become more aware of their own mortality
    o Late adulthood associated with increasing acceptance of death and increasing concern about the process of dying
27
Q

The dying process

A
  • Kubler-Ross’s (1969) classic work on the stages of dying
  • Stages are not necessarily progressive and are not likely to overlap
  • Since they are based on young and middle-aged adults dying of cancer, they do not represent the variability that exists in the course of dying
  • Suggests that bereaved relatives go through the same stages, although not necessarily in synchrony with the dying person
28
Q

Bereavement

A

o The experience of loss of a loved one through death

29
Q

Bereavement has two components

A
  • Bereavement has two components
    o Grief – the emotional response to one’s loss
    o Mourning – the social and cultural experience of grief
30
Q

Grief

A

o Loss of primary relationships
o Relationships of attachment
o Relationships of community

31
Q

Stages of grief

A

o Shock, disbelief, denial
o Intense mourning
o Period of restitution

32
Q

Kubler-Ross Grief Cycle

1) Denial

A
  • Avoidance
  • Confusion
  • Elation
  • Shock
  • Fear
  • ‘not me’
33
Q

Kubler-Ross Grief Cycle

2) Anger

A
  • Frustration
  • Irritation
  • Anxiety
  • ‘Why me?’
34
Q

Kubler-Ross Grief Cycle

3) Depression

A
  • Overwhelmed
  • Helplessness
  • Hostility
  • Flight
  • ‘Yes me.’ (begin to mourn)
35
Q

Kubler-Ross Grief Cycle

4) Bargaining

A

-Struggling to find meaning
-Reaching out to others
-Telling one’s story
‘Yes me, but…’

36
Q

Kubler-Ross Grief Cycle

5)Acceptance

A
  • Exploring options
  • New plan in place
  • Moving on
  • ‘My time is very close now, and it’s alright’

Developmental Psychology (9 decks)

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