Lecture 6 - Stability, Change and Ageing Flashcards
What are the 4 psychological constructs in this lecture
- Intelligence
- Performance
- Personality
- Mood (emotion)
What are the 5 that influence trait expression
- Social Demands
- Expectations
- Social Values
- Biology
- Individual circumstances (etc)
- These factors all change with age
What are the 3 areas that Roberts & Mroczek (2008) said people change in?
- Warmth
- Self-growth
- Emotional Stability
Outline contextual change of being young
For instance, in the 1930s
- Being young meant you were hard working
In the 1950s
- being young meant you were rebellious
Outline Contextual change of being middle-aged
- In the 1940s, being middle age was at a lot younger of an age
- In 2000s, it is at an older age, when you are considered middle aged
Define Age Change
Change to attributalble chronological age
- distance from birth
Define cohort effects
Differences between groups of (similary aged) indivduals who share a common experience
Outline Raven’s Progressive Matrice’s and the different ones for ages
Different versions for different ages:1
- Coloured Progressive Matrices: 4-11 years
- Standard Progressive Matrices: 11-18 years
- Ravens Advanced Progressive Matrices: Adults
Mainly non-verbal stuff, like pattern completion
Outline the Wechsler Abbreaviated Intelligence Scale
- NOT THE WAIS
- Currently in its 2nd revision: WASI-II
- for ages 6-90
- Abbreviated version of the original one, specifically related to age
- 4 subsets, 30 mins each:
1. Similarities - Picture/ word shared characteristics
2. Vocabulary - Word and Picture description
3. Matrix Reasoning - Pattern completion on paper
4. Block Design - Pattern completion with blocks
Items 2 and 3 have 2 subsets of 15 minutes each
Outline some vocabulary tests of intelligence
- Sometimes known as Knowledge, or verbal fluency
- Could be having to tell the researcher the meaning of some words, like what does bed mean?
- Then gets harder, words like:
• Repair
•Conceal
• Edifice
•Ominous
•Travesty
Or name as many animals as possible within this category:
• Dogs, cats, birds, fish etc
Outline a Block Design - visual/ spatial ability test of intelligence
given 9 blocks with shapes on them
- have to rearrange them into a pattern
What did Wechsler (1958) find about the scores on the WASI tests, and age?
- As people got older, they got worse
- The mean scores of different cohorts, of different ages, decresead as participants got older
X - cohort effects? they were different people at different age points, so can you compare them?
What did Schaie (1994) found in response to wechslers results?
- Cross-sectional (like wechsler did), meant scores got worse with age
- But when they did a Longitudinal, scores didnt really change with age, and fluctuated up and down throughout life
what is a limitation of Cross-sectional studies?
X - Results can be contaminated by cohort effects
- something that influenced one group but not another group later on
- E.g. disease
What is a limitation of using Longitudinal studies
√ - can demonstrate the long period of stability, folloed by heterogeneous decline
X - But can Only really show one variable, as decline could be greater/ worse on some tasks than others
Outline the Hold and Dont hold tasks
- Hold tasks - can show deteoriation
- e.g. Verbal stuff in the WASI-II
- Information, comprehension, Arithmetic, Similarities, Digit-span, Vocabulary
- They are based on knowledge that is taught, and can therefore fade
- Especially in cases of Az etc
- Dont Hold Tasks - Cannot deteriorate
- E.g. performance scale in WASI-II
- Digit symbol, Picture completion, Block Design, Picture Arrangement, Object assembly
- Visual and spatial reasoning task
- Dont fade because they are not about knowledge, they can just pass the tasks cos they’re good at it for instance
Outline Fluid intelligence and Crystallised intelligence
- Fluid intelligence
- Innate intellectual power
- Think logically and solve new problems
- Not learnt - Crystallised Intelligence
- Uses experience and education
- Wisdom and knowledge - that has been learnt
Outline Horn (1970) study into the levels of Crystallised, Fluid and General intelligence
- Tracked levels of fluid intelligence, crystallised intelligence and general IQ over age, longitudinal
- Over time - fluid intelligence (innate) reduces
- Over time - crystallised intelligence (taught) increases
- General IQ as a result of this trade off, stays pretty much the same, and if anything gets a tiny bit better with age
What did Schaie (1990, 2004) do?
Seattle Longitudinal Study
Outline the Seattle Longitudinal study (Schaie, 1990, 2004) methods
Looked at individual differences in intellectual change
- Study Began in 1956
- Looked at Cognitive ageing, personality and lifestyle
- Inductive reasoning, spatial, memory, verbal tasks etc
- Longitudinal design to see the path of these variables
Outline the Seattle Longitudinal study (Schaie, 1990, 2004) findings
50-59: average decline, affects a minority of measures and individuals. When people hit 50, they may slow down and abilities slightly decline. Key age where these abilities start to decline
75-79: Average decline affects most measures and individuals. At this age, most abilities decline, at quite a large rate
But at 80: they have hit the point where they cant have any further decline in this ability. So it stops declining
Evaluations of Seattle Longitudinal Study
X - didnt study anything to do with dementia or alzheimers
√ - see decline in different types of ability of tasks
What are some issues with testing aging and intellectual ability?
X - conducting studies in the lab, not as ecological valid as intellect in the real world
- dont refelct real world
- Just a snapshot of ability
- Demand characteristics
What did Wilkinson & Allison (1989) find about reaction time?
- RT Got worse as people aged, but then got better again
- Gets more stable over time
