Exam 4 - Ch. 13 -19 & Flim Flashcards
What shapes represent past populations? What is the current and future shape of populations?
The past was pyramid shaped. The current and future shape is barrel shaped. We have more old people than young.
What happens when the elderly internalize negative stereotypes?
Their cognitive and physical states suffer; it declines.
Why is raising the age at which one is eligible to receive social security benefits problematic?
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.
Candice Saunders comments on “brain drain” and how WellStar Health System addressed this problem?
“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.
Physical and sensory changes in early adulthood
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
Stress management tips
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
Crystallized and Fluid intelligence
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
Perry’s theory of epistemic cognition (dualistic and relativistic thinking)
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
Extrinsic and Intrinsic motives for work
Extrinsic - money, fringe benefits, security
Intrinsic - the work ethic, self fulfillment, self worth, socialization, public roles
Super’s stages of career development
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
Individuation
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
Erikson’s intimacy vs. isolation
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
Attraction - Elliot & Niesta (2008)
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
Attraction similarity hypothesis
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
Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love
- intimacy
- passion
- commitment
liking - intimacy alone
companionate love - intimacy + commitment
empty love - commitment alone
fatuous love - passion + commitment
infatuation - passion alone
romantic love - intimacy + passion
Marriage, Parenthood, and Divorce
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
Physical and sensory changes in middle adulthood
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
Cancer and heart disease
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)
Sexuality, sex hormones and fertility
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
Changes intellectual abilities (multidirectionality, interindiviual variability, plasticity)
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
Memory
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
Creativity
Middle adulthood are at their height of their creativity
Erikson’s Generativity vs Stagnation
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
Life- events approach to midlife
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
Grandparenting
Grandparents have less influence on their grandchildren when they live with them
Sandwich generation
adults in their 40s and 50s who are simultaneously caring for aging parents and either raising young children or financially supporting grown children
Longevity, life expectancy, and ageism
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
Physical and sensory changes in late adulthood
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
osteoporosis
A disorder where bones lose so much density that they become porous, brittle, and prone to breakage, more common in women
Sexuality in late adulthood
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
Normal and pathological aging
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
Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease
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
Retrospective and Prospective memory
Retrospective - memory of past events and general knowledge
Prospective - memory pf things one has planned for the future
Erikson’s integrity vs despair
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
Depression
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
Housing in late adulthood
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
Elder abuse
Sometimes elderly are abused or neglected in nursing homes
Abuse in ways - financial exploitations, physicals, mental, sexual
Successful aging
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
Kubler Ross and 5 stages of dying
Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Final Acceptance
Hospice care
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)
Supporting a dying person
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
Coping and helping others cope
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
