Lecture 8: Becoming an adult

Question 1

Physical Functioning Peaks in Young adulthood

Answer 1

• physical strength
• coordination
• dexterity
• sensory acuity in vision and hearing
• general health

Question 2

intelligence is …(def.)

Answer 2

• the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills

- a collection of info of military or political values

Question 3

Intelligence is..

Answer 3

1. multidimensional
2. Multidirectional
3. Interindividual variable
4. Malleable (Plasticity)

Question 4

Primary mental abilities

Answer 4

1. number skills
2. word fluency
3. verbal meaning
4. inductive reasoning
5. spatial orientation

Question 5

The cohort seqquential design of the Seattle Longitudinal Study (SLS)

Answer 5

• starts in 1956
• measuring every single year until 2005
• huge dropout (N=25 at the end)

Question 6

Development of Primary mental abilities (graph)

Answer 6

there is quite a flat curve at the beginning and then a sudden decline of all mental abilities (at the age of 65)

Question 7

Are there Cohort differences in the SLS?

Answer 7

• later born corhorts do better in inductive reason, verbal meaning and spatial orientation
• > increase in intelligence?

Question 8

What accounts for individual differences in age related change in adulthood?

Answer 8

• absence of cardiovascular and other chronic diseases
• a favorable environemnt mediated by a high socioeconmic status
• involvement in a complex and intellectually stimulating environment
• etc.

Question 9

Secondary mental abilities

Answer 9

1. fluid intelligence

2. Crystallized intelligence

Question 10

fluid intelligence

Answer 10

abilities that make you a flexible and adaptive thinker, allow you to make inferences and enable you to understand the relations among concepts

• from birth on
• needed in novel situations

Question 11

crystallized intelligence

Answer 11

knowledge that you have acquired through life experience and education in a culture
- tested with vocabulary, verbal similarities

Question 12

Lifespan developmenf of fluid and crystallized intelligence (graph)

Answer 12

• cryztallized intelligence is low at a very young age and then increases over lifespan
• fluid intelligence is the other way around
  (you learn fastern when you are younger)

Question 13

Significance of possible selves

Answer 13

• motivational function: orients a person towards a goal
• stable over some time
• change with efforts towards personal growth

Question 14

Personal control beliefs

Answer 14

the degree to which you belief your performance in a situation depends on something you do vs. your performance is under the control of forces other than your own

Question 15

Heckhausen and Wrosch (2013) - Motivational Theory of Lifespan Development

Answer 15

1. Primary Control (change in the external world)

2. Secondary control (change in the internal world)

Question 16

Development changes in primary and secondary control

Answer 16

• primary control capacity increases a lot until midlife, then decreases until later life
• secondary control is rising a lot until midlife but then even increases furhter (no delcine)

Question 17

Questions of the Seattle Longitudinal Study (SLS)

Answer 17

1. Does intelligence change uniformly? (Multidirectionality)
2. What are the patterns of cohort differences?
3. Decrement of abilities, when? (Retirement)
4. What accounts for interindividual differences?
5. Can intellictual decline with increasing age be revearsed by educational intervention?