Fundamentals on Adulthood and Aging

Question 1

What are the types of aging?

Answer 1

• Primary
• Secondary
• Tertiary

Question 2

Primary Aging

Answer 2

• Something that everyone experiences, and disease-free development, thus called normative
• Differences in intensity, how much, how quickly and when it happens
• Examples: Puberty, menopause, cognitive and sensory changes

Question 3

Secondary Aging

Answer 3

• Changes that some humans experience and not others, thus called non-normative
• Related to different environmental changes, injuries or illnesses
  Examples: Trauma, skiing accidents, diabetes, cancer, radiation

Question 4

Tertiary Aging

Answer 4

• Happens at the end of life
• Signals impending death where functions drop significantly
• Not universal, seems to happen a few years in advance for some people

Question 5

What are 3 ways of conceptualizing age?

Answer 5

• Chronological age: time since birth, a poor proxy for development as it doesnt say much of development, elapsed time
• Perceived age: Your on perception of your age, often in relation to your chronological age. Something you have to ask the person
• Sociocultural age: perceptions of others or of yourself, tied to chronological age, hat you should or shouldnt do “at your age”, cultural expectations ‘, expectations

Question 6

What is the lifespan perspective?

Answer 6

• Placing adulthood in a bigger and broader context
• To understand how my friend is like now as adult, I need to take into consideration of her early phase (childhood and adolescent)
• Need of different types of perspectives

Question 7

What are the four key features in life-time perspective?

Answer 7

• Multidirectionality
  Losses and gains, a balance throughout life
• Plasticity
  Nothing is set in stone from the get go, we change and adapt to the environment we are in. To a degree, and declines with age
• Historical Context
  Our past experiences, our culture in which we grew up in influence how we age
• Multiple causation
  How we develop is caused by different sources, its a dynamic system that happens in it specific context

Question 8

What influences shapes development?

Answer 8

• Genetic influences
  Nature
• Physical and social contexts
  Nurture

Question 9

What are the genetic influences on development?

Answer 9

• Gene-environment correlations
• Gene-environment interactions
• Epigenetic inheritance

Question 10

Gene-environment correlation

Answer 10

On how they work together, their associations
- Passive
Environment supportive of both parent and offspring genes, what works for me should work for my children
- Evocative
Different types of phenotype variation leads to different environmental responses, such as halo effect
- Active
Niche picking based on phenotype, happens in adolescent

Question 11

Genetic-environment interactions

Answer 11

Phenotype expressed only when triggered by environment
- Vulnerable for depression

Question 12

Epigenetic inheritance

Answer 12

When an environmental trigger cause a change in phenotype

Question 13

Examples on how the physical context can shape development

Answer 13

Conditions of the physical space
- The amount of oxygen
- Water and food supply
- Living conditions
- Cause of stress, second hand smoking

Question 14

What are the developmental influences?

Answer 14

• Normative age-graded
• Normative history-graded
• Non-normative

Question 15

Normative age-graded

Answer 15

• Experienced by the majority of the population
• Its widespread
• Often experienced at a specific age or age range; going to school, getting a job, physiological changes
• Inherent changes

Question 16

Normative history-graded

Answer 16

• Experienced by the majority of the population
• Happened during specific historical periods such as illnesses(covid) or changes in attitude (women’s right, retirement)
• Biological: illnesses
• Psychological: ageism
• Socio-cultural: beliefs about gender, when one should get children and settle down
• Cohort; experiences and circumstances that are unique to a specific generation, affect underpinnings

Question 17

Longevity

Answer 17

• Average: at the age where half of the people in any given year is dead
• Maximum: Oldest known age

Question 18

Expectancy

Answer 18

• Active: years expected to live healthy and independent
• Dependent: years of living after relying on others to survive

Question 19

What are reasons as to why we live longer than humans did 100 years ago?

Answer 19

• Better living conditions
• Better healthcare systems, lower rates of childbirth
• Better education
  Leads to well paid job, more opportunities and more money, knowledge
• Advances with technology

Question 20

What influence our longevity and life expectancy?

Answer 20

Genetic factors
- How old were my grandparents at time of death
- 25%
Environmental factors
- Combination with genes
- SES, poverty vs higher class?
- Lifestyle
- Exposure to illness and/or toxins (pollution)
Interactive factors
- Ethnicity
- Gender

Question 21

What is the Hayflick limit?

Answer 21

• Part of a cellular theory on why we age
• A phenomena where cells have a fixed number of divisions that can limit the life span

Question 22

What cause the cells to limit their number of divisions?

Answer 22

• Evidence suggests it is due to telomeres, protective covering, shortening with each division, 40-60 times
• Caused by a stress response and DNA damage
• Enzyme telomerase needed for DNA replication to fully reproduce but is not present in somatic cells
• Regulates reproduction of telomeres
• We dont get to the limit

Question 23

Genetic Programming Theories

Answer 23

Aging programmed into our genetic code
- Caused by cell death, appears random but could be underlying cause
- Innate ability to self-destruct
- Dying cells triggering key processes in other cells (external factors)
- How is it triggered and how does it work
- Evidence supporting it is that many illnesses is associated with genetic aspects
- Very ambiguous, few research, is it possible to answer this? How could we find out?