Lecture 10: physical, cognitive and psychosocial development in middle adulthood Flashcards
Middle Age: A Social Construct
- No consensus on when it begins and ends
- Changes in appearance and body functioning
- Highly variable outcomes and expectations
- No specific biological or social events that mark its boundaries
- Life expectancy determines “middle age”
- A state of mind?
Life expectancy
Aus & NZ
Ageing
Primary
Secondary
Physical functioning patterns
Organ reserve
Primary ageing
• Normal age-related changes
Secondary ageing
• Effects of illness or disease
• More variable
Physical functioning
• Peaks in early adulthood, plateaus, then starts to
decline (about 50)
• Organ reserve first to decline (the extra capacity of the lungs, heart etc to respond to exertion)
Physical Changes in:
- Strength
- Appearance
• Skin, hair colour, body build
- Cardiovascular system
- Respiratory system
- Sensory system
- Vision and hearing loss gradual
• Taste and smell slowly decrease
Health and Health Compromising Behaviours
Morbidity
- Greater focus on maintaining health in middle- age
- Body monitoring
- Morbidity (cases of disease) and mortality rates increase
- Australian risk behaviours (National Health Survey 2007-2008):
- 19% smokers; 21% risky alcohol consumption; 62% overweight or obese
- Health-promoting behaviours have physical and psychosocial benefits
Breast Cancer
- Breast cancer the most commonly diagnosed cancer in Australian women
- New cases doubled in last 20 years, mortality rate declined (early detection)
- Early detection predicts higher survival rate
- Breast self-examinations
- Causes unknown – important to consider socio- historical context
- Psychosocial aspects (linked with depression and stress)
Prostate Cancer
- Prostate cancer the most common cancer in Australian men
- Number of deaths similar to women with breast cancer
- Causes unknown
- Family history, age
- Young men less likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer, but more likely to die from it
- Slow to grow
Health and inequality
non-Indigenous vs Indigenous
Health Risk Factors
Menopause
Menopause marks the end of the reproductive phase of life
- Physical changes
- ERT (estrogen replacement),HRT (hormone replacement) – pros and cons
Post-menopause:
• Hormone levels stabilise and menopausal signs subside
Reproductive Changes: Men
Climacteric
- Male climacteric reduces fertility (age around 40-50, doesnt result in infertility)
- Male reproductive change is longer and slower than for females
- Physical changes
- Physical signs
no research supports male enaropause (male menopause)
Conditions for good functioning in middle age (7)
- the absence of cardiovascular disease and other chonic diseases
- living in favourable circumstances
- substantial involvement in complex and intellectually stimulating activities
- flexible personality style at midlife
- being married to a spouse with high cognitive functioning
- high levels of performance speed
- personaly satisfaction with one’s life’s accomplishments in midlife or earlier
Crystallised and Fluid Intelligence
Crystallised intelligence
• Learned processes, stored responses (vocabulary)
- Primary abilities
- Remain relatively stable with age
Fluid intelligence
• Processing new information and reasoning ability
• Relates to neurological development
• Declines from early adulthood (tied to neurological development)
Changes in Intelligence
Practical Intelligence
- Application of intellectual skills to everyday situations
- Tested by solving real-world problems rather than abstract tasks
- Practical abilities increase with age, may improve in middle age
- Interpersonal problem-solving skills similar across adult age groups
Expertise
- Form of crystallised intelligence
- Specialised experience and knowledge in specific domain
- Experience and expertise compensate for declining abilities
- Compensatory mechanisms are domain- specific
- Most intellectual functions are maintained through middle age and often beyond
Variety of Experience
- Popular images of midlife:
- Boring, monotonous
- Time of crisis
- Alternative perspective:
- Prime of life
- Self-descriptions most positive in 60s
Midlife Crisis?
Occurance
Ego-resiliency
- Stressful crisis of identity?
- Second adolescence?
Triggered by:
- Review of one’s life
- Awareness of mortality
- Occurrence is rare (25%)
Ego-resiliency, or the ability to adapt, cope, and grow from negative life events
- A key to transition rather than crisis
Perceptions of Age
- More flexibility around what constitutes midlife than in the past
- Perceptions of life stages vary by SES, work role, age, gender
- Lower SES and negative health status associated with an older age identity
- Social markers may be important in signalling mid-life
Theories of Crisis: Jung
Psyche
Process of individuation
Psyche seen as collection of conflicts
- Collective vs. personal unconscious
- Unconscious vs. conscious
- Anima vs. animus
- Unifying force of self not developed until middle age
Process of individuation
• Self takes over the role of the ego
Normative Perspective: Helson
Social clock
• Age-related personal goals and expectations
• More variation than previously
Normative events
• Age-marked or history-marked
Non-normative events
• Largely unpredictable
• May have positive or negative impact
Erikson’s Stage Theory
Generativity versus stagnation
Generativity versus stagnation
- Personal legacy
- Virtue of “care”
- Most important in middle age
- Link between generativity and well-being stronger for women than men
Generative acts
- Agentic (concerned with self)
- Communal (concerned with others)
Limited application to lesbian women
Normative Crisis Models
• Gould’s (1978) UCLA study
• Significant middle adult transformation
• Vaillant’s (1977) Harvard Grant study
• Invincibility gives way to limitations
• Levinson’s (1978) Yale study
• Emphasis moves from past to future
• Dream of adult accomplishment revised
Women experience role change rather than crisis
Stability of Personality Traits
Increase with age
Decrease with age
Continuity and change within middle age
• Work on personality traits has been used to debunk the myth of the midlife crisis
Increasing with age:
• Conscientiousness, agreeableness, dominance, emotional stability
Decreasing in old age:
• Openness to experience
Lifespan continuity and change
- Continuity – genes
- Change – normative and non-normative events
