Lecture 7 Flashcards
What is socioemotional selective theory
Our social goals and motivation change as we age.
- Older adults: aware of limited time, focus on emotionally meaningful relationships and experiences
Younger adults: focus on broadening their social circles or seeking out novelty.
What is the Positivity effect?
- Older adults focus more on positive information and experiences.
- Pay less attention to negative stimuli.
Shrinking circles
- social circles get smaller
- people die, move away….
Paradox of wellbeing
Despite declining cognitive/physical health, loss of loved ones, and reduced social networks, older adults often report being just as happy as young people
Why?
- older adults focus more on + experiences
- Prioritize more fulfilling goals
- perspective
Self perception of aging
Personal perception of aging process
What can they do compared to others their age?
What are the two different ways an individual can respond to being confronted by a stereotype of aging?
- Integration of stereotypes (labelling theory)
Listen to aging stereotypes and integrate it into self perception - Rejection of stereotypes / resilience theory
Avoid integrating negative steriotypes
✨ “I’m not like other old people (girls)”✨
💅
What is personal control?
The degree to which we believe we are in control of our performance within a given situation
Relates to many aspects of life & wellbeing
Too high = not adaptive
Culturally robust- relatively consistent across cultures
Emotional intelligence
- understanding your emotions and others emotions
- increases with age
- key role in wellbeing
Storytelling culture and memory
Older adults are more fluent and detailed in storytelling contexts compared to young adults
Collective or communicative memory
They are part of the field of collective memory, which focuses on how societies remember their past and pass it on to future generations.
- Shared long term memories of a group
- Tend to span 3-4 generations
- Older people are a big part of maintaining this collective memory
Collaborative cognition
Cognitive performance that results from the interaction of two or more individuals
(Working together to remember things)
*Cultural memory
Memory created through symbolic heritage
Erikson’s stages
Personality is determined by the interactions between inner maturation and external sociocultural demands.
Proposed life cycle has 8 stages of development
each stage must overcome a conflict (or else)
bumbumbummm!
- Infantry (trust vs mistrust)
- Early childhood (autonomy vs shame and doubt)
- Play age (initiative vs guilt)
- School age (industry vs inferiority)
- Adolescence (identity vs identity confusion)
- Young adult (intimacy vs isolation)
- Adult (generativity vs stagnation)
- old age (integrity vs dispair)
What is erikson’s 7ths stage?
Generativity (generate something that’ll benefit others) vs. Stagnation (self-absorption)
Age range: Adulthood 40s – 60s
Life purpose and “Midlife Crisis”
Higher generativity =positive emotion, higher life & work satisfaction
ex. having kids
What is Generativity? What are the five types?
Generativity: desire to “generate” positive outcomes that benefit others, reflecting a need to create or nurture things that will outlast the individual.
1. Biological/parental generativity (raising kids)
2. Technical “” passing specific skills to the next gen
3. Cultural “” being mentor
4. Agentic “” desire to do something that lasts after death
5. Communal “” drive to contribute to society
Strong predictor of emotional wellbeing in middle and old age
What kinds of things encourage generativity?
Commitment scripts: Life stories individuals tell themselves about their dedication to making a difference or creating positive change, often reflecting values of generativity.
*Redemption sequences: transforming negative events into positive outcomes. In these stories, personal hardships or challenges lead to growth, resilience, or the ability to help others.
*Going through difficult things doesn’t automatically make someone more mature, it depends on their outlook and take away
