Exam 4 - Ch. 13 -19 & Flim

Question 1

What shapes represent past populations? What is the current and future shape of populations?

Answer 1

The past was pyramid shaped. The current and future shape is barrel shaped. We have more old people than young.

Question 2

What happens when the elderly internalize negative stereotypes?

Answer 2

Their cognitive and physical states suffer; it declines.

Question 3

Why is raising the age at which one is eligible to receive social security benefits problematic?

Answer 3

It is a problem because of social inequality; people of higher income have more benefits than those of lower income. People with higher income have more sick hours, PTO, etc.

Question 4

Candice Saunders comments on “brain drain” and how WellStar Health System addressed this problem?

Answer 4

“brain drain” is losing a lot of mastery in the experienced worker. WellStar addressed this by part time models, flexible models, accommodate their needs, brought young and old together, changed the environment, and etc.

Question 5

Physical and sensory changes in early adulthood

Answer 5

Physical development peaks in early adulthood (20 and 30s) then declines
Sensory sharpness peaks in early 20s and then begins gradual decline in middle adulthood (40 to 60s)
Vision remains good until middle adulthood - leads to farsighted and reading glasses
Hearing declines beginning of late 20s for high pitches

Question 6

Stress management tips

Answer 6

Get in touch with the ways you experience stress
Identify stressors such as people and situations
Get in touch with the way you handle or don’t handle stress
Work on creating better ways to cope with stress
Take care of your health
Obtain social support

Question 7

Crystallized and Fluid intelligence

Answer 7

Crystallized (increases with age) - retain verbal skills and may improve vocabulary and general knowledge as they age, factual information
Fluid (declines with age) - memory shows general decline, the process of info., how to apply it

Question 8

Perry’s theory of epistemic cognition (dualistic and relativistic thinking)

Answer 8

Epistemic cognition - concerns our ideas about how we arrive at our beliefs, facts, and ideas
Dualistic - the assumption that there is clearly right and wrong, good versus evil
Relativistic - a deeper way of thinking

Question 9

Extrinsic and Intrinsic motives for work

Answer 9

Extrinsic - money, fringe benefits, security
Intrinsic - the work ethic, self fulfillment, self worth, socialization, public roles

Question 10

Super’s stages of career development

Answer 10

Fantasy stage - involves child’s unrealistic conception of self potential and of the world of work (until 11)
Tentative choice stage - focus is on some realistic self assessment and knowledge of occupations, based on interests, abilities, limitations, and glamour (11-17)
Realistic choice stage - choices narrow as student weighs job requirements and rewards against interests, abilities, and values (after 17)
Maintenance stage - settle into career role, career continues to develop, and there is a feeling of moving forward, job hopping, return to school for different training (30s)
Retirement stage - severs bonds with the workplace

Question 11

Individuation

Answer 11

Individuation - Young adults go through a process of becoming an individual
Women - consider social relationships of primary importance
Men - consider separation and individuation key goals to personality development, more likely to show struggle or fight for independence

Question 12

Erikson’s intimacy vs. isolation

Answer 12

Young adults with firm identity seek to fuse relationships into marriage or abiding friendships
It is difficult to commit to others until ego identity is achieved
It was normal to develop intimate relationships and bear children within a generally stable and nurturing environment during early adulthood

Question 13

Attraction - Elliot & Niesta (2008)

Answer 13

Attraction - psychological forces that draw people together
Elliot & Niesta (2008) examined attractiveness ratings when red used in background or as part of dress - both men and women rated people more attractive with red compared to other colors, may have biological roots - signals good health/fertility

Question 14

Attraction similarity hypothesis

Answer 14

Attraction similarity hypothesis - people develop romantic relationships with others who are similar to themselves in attractiveness and other traits
Opposites do not attract - people in committed relationships most likely to be similar to their parents in attitude and cultural attributes are typically alike in race and ethnicity, age, level of education, and religion

Question 15

Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love

Answer 15

1. intimacy
2. passion
3. commitment
   liking - intimacy alone
   companionate love - intimacy + commitment
   empty love - commitment alone
   fatuous love - passion + commitment
   infatuation - passion alone
   romantic love - intimacy + passion

Question 16

Marriage, Parenthood, and Divorce

Answer 16

Marriage - legitimizes sexual relations, provides institution where children can be supported/ socialized, provides sense of security and opportunities to share feelings, experiences
Parenthood - strengthen marital bonds, provide social security, assist with labor, maintain family lineage; secure property rights and inheritance, care for one in old age
Divorce - US rates between 40-50%, women’ income drops 24%, men’s income drops 6%
Benefits of divorce - may permit personal growth and renewal, can be an opportunity to take stock of oneself and establish a new, more rewarding life

Question 17

Physical and sensory changes in middle adulthood

Answer 17

Changes in - metabolism, muscle mass, strength, bone density, aerobic capacity, blood sugar tolerance, ability to regulate body temperature
Vision - presbyopia (lose the ability to focus on objects
Reaction time - increases as we age due to change in nervous system
Lung capacity - may decline by half between early and late adulthood

Question 18

Cancer and heart disease

Answer 18

Cancer behavior/personality - smoking, drinking alcohol, eating animal fats, sunbathing, prolonged depression, prolonged stress
Heart disease behavior/personality - type a behavior (consistently stress), job strain, hostility and holding in feelings of anger, chronic fatigue, stress, anxiety, depression, and emotional strain, heavy drinking, smoking, overeating, sudden stressors, physical inactivity, most common form is atherosclerosis (fat build’s up and blocks blood flow)

Question 19

Sexuality, sex hormones and fertility

Answer 19

Sexuality gradual decline, men - erectile dysfunction, women - lack of sexual desire and difficulty becoming sexually aroused
Women - climacteric - a process that occurs in 15 years of middle adulthood, perimenopause - a decrease of estrogen, beginning of menopause, menopause - menstrual cycle ends
Men - a decline in male sex hormone production and fertility

Question 20

Changes intellectual abilities (multidirectionality, interindiviual variability, plasticity)

Answer 20

Interindividual variability - no two people age in the same way or at the same rate
Multidirectionality - some cognitive ability will decrease or increase
Plasticity - our cognitive ability is not fixed, it can be modified

Question 21

Memory

Answer 21

middle and late adulthood perform less well than young adults at memorizing lists of words, numbers, or passages, rote rehearsal
As we age, we are less able to keep information in working memory long enough to memorize it, screen out distractions as we try to focus on material
Procedural memory (how you do things) can be maintained for a lifetime

Question 22

Creativity

Answer 22

Middle adulthood are at their height of their creativity

Question 23

Erikson’s Generativity vs Stagnation

Answer 23

Generativity - ability to generate or produce; based on instinctual drive toward bearing and rearing children
Stagnation - rejection of generativity drive can result in a life stripped of meaning and purpose

Question 24

Life- events approach to midlife

Answer 24

Stressful life events - death of a spouse, child, parent, or sibling, changes in health, caring for one’s parents, concern about one’s appearance, weight or aging, children moving out, changes in employment, relationships, and responsibilities at work

Question 25

Grandparenting

Answer 25

Grandparents have less influence on their grandchildren when they live with them

Question 26

Sandwich generation

Answer 26

adults in their 40s and 50s who are simultaneously caring for aging parents and either raising young children or financially supporting grown children

Question 27

Longevity, life expectancy, and ageism

Answer 27

Men - 77 years
Women - 82 years
Factors that contribute to these differences are men are more likely to die from causes linked to unhealthy habits and reckless behavior, and less likely to utilize medical services
Ageism - the aged experienced prejudice

Question 28

Physical and sensory changes in late adulthood

Answer 28

Vision - Presbyopia - farsighted
cataracts - a cloudy area in the lens of your eye
glaucoma - a group of eye diseases that can cause vision loss and blindness by damaging a nerve in the back of your eye called the optic nerve
Hearing - presbycusis -a complex and multifactorial disorder characterized by symmetrical progressive loss of hearing over many years, more common in men
Taste and smell - decreases almost ninefold from youth to late adulthood

Question 29

osteoporosis

Answer 29

A disorder where bones lose so much density that they become porous, brittle, and prone to breakage, more common in women

Question 30

Sexuality in late adulthood

Answer 30

People do not lose their sexuality as they age
Sexual daydreaming, sex drive, and sexual activity all tend to decline with age but sexual satisfaction may remain high

Question 31

Normal and pathological aging

Answer 31

Normal - processes of aging that represent a gradual decline of systems and body functions, enabling people to enjoy health and vitality well into late adulthood
Pathological - aging in which chronic diseases or degenerative processes, such as heart disease, diabetes, and cancer, lead to disability or premature death

Question 32

Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease

Answer 32

Dementia - a condition characterized by dramatic deterioration of mental abilities involving thinking, memory, judgment, and reasoning
Alzheimer’s - a severe form of dementia characterized by memory lapses, confusion, emotional instability, and progressive loss of cognitive functioning

Question 33

Retrospective and Prospective memory

Answer 33

Retrospective - memory of past events and general knowledge
Prospective - memory pf things one has planned for the future

Question 34

Erikson’s integrity vs despair

Answer 34

Basic challenge - maintain belief that life is meaningful and worthwhile in the face of physical decline and the inevitability of death
Ego integrity derives from wisdom and acceptance of one’s lifespan as limited and occurring at a certain point in history

Question 35

Depression

Answer 35

About 10%, sometimes continuation from earlier life or new development, goes undetected, untreated in older people because symptoms masked by physical complaints - low energy, loss of appetite, insomnia

Question 36

Housing in late adulthood

Answer 36

They prefer to remain in their homes as long as their physical/mental conditions allows them, older adults don’t want to go to nursing homes bc of lost of independence, they’ll go if they believe they are in poor health and/or close family lives near by

Question 37

Elder abuse

Answer 37

Sometimes elderly are abused or neglected in nursing homes
Abuse in ways - financial exploitations, physicals, mental, sexual

Question 38

Successful aging

Answer 38

Physical activity, social contacts, self rated good health, the absence of cognitive impairment and depression, the absence of disabilities and chronic disease such as arthritis and diabetes, not smoking

Question 39

Kubler Ross and 5 stages of dying

Answer 39

Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Final Acceptance

Question 40

Hospice care

Answer 40

Preparing the patient and family for the death
Treats the person not the disease, emphasizes quality rather than length of life, considers the entire family to be the unit of care, bereavement counseling provided after death, support is available to the patient and family (24/7)

Question 41

Supporting a dying person

Answer 41

Be there for the person
Give them opportunity to talk about death and to grieve
Be aware of their emotional state on any given day
Don’t minimize their emotional pain or need to grieve by changing the subject or refusing to acknowledge it
Be sensitive to their feelings, offering consolation and support
People with cognitive impairment may repeat certain thoughts many times

Question 42

Coping and helping others cope

Answer 42

Take care of yourself
Allow yourself to feel your loss
Don’t reject offers of help
Give yourself time to grieve
Join a bereavement support group

Others:
Spend time with them
Don’t feel that you need to have all the answers
Don’t be afraid to talk about the deceased person, but don’t force it
Keep in touch regularly
The bereaved person may be too depressed or lack the energy to reach out