Module 11 Flashcards
Erikson’s late adulthood crisis - ego integrity
- Feel whole, complete, serene
- Adapted to success, failure, loss
- Accept life’s course & ageing
- Death loses its “sting”
Erikson’s late adulthood crisis - despair
- Realize made wrong choices, too late to repair
- Bitterness, defeat, hopelessness
- May express anger and contempt (towards self)
- Dread death
- Core psychopathology: Disdain for life
The ‘sting’ of death
- Death is generally associated with old age in modern industrial society-BUT-death anxiety generally decreases as age increases
- That said, clinical depression is the most common mental health problem in older adults – BUT- no evidence occurs more often in older adults; should not be considered “normative”
The new ‘old age’
‘Life expectancy in Australia has improved dramatically for both sexes in the last century. Compared with their counterparts in 1881–1890, boys and girls born in 2013–2015 can expect to live around 33 and 34 years longer, respectively.’
For the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population born in 2010–2012, life expectancy was estimated to be 10.6 years lower than that of the non-Indigenous population for males and 9.5 years for females
Who will take care of us
- Families are the major care providers
- Families provide 70 to 80 percent of the in-home care for older relatives with chronic impairments.
What makes a good life
- Robert Waldinger, Director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, a 2 cohort longitudinal project spanning 75 years (so far!)
- Harvard Cohort: 268 Harvard students (all-male university at the time)
- Boston Cohort: 456 inner-city adolescent males
- Recruited from 1939-1944; followed until present day
- Predictors of psychological and physical well-being
Social theories of aging
- Disengagement Theory (Cumming & Henry, 1961)
- Activity Theory (Havighurts et al, 1963)
- Continuity Theory (Atchley, 1972)
- Socio-emotional Selectivity Theory (Cartensen et al., 1999)
- Selective Optimisation with Compensation (Baltes, 1987)
Disengagement theory (Cumming and Henry 1961)
- Mutual separation of self from others, from social roles & active involvement
Reasons/benefits
-> Allows psychic contemplation needed to resolve integrity/despair crisis
-> Allows reversion to natural egocentrism
Limited support
- > Steady decline in role activity for males from 50yrs & females from 65yrs (1961)
- > Other studies show no decline
- > Methodological criticisms – biased sample
Activity theory (Havighurts et al 1963)
- Social barriers explain disengagement
- High morale & robust mental health best maintained by active social engagement
- Lost roles replaced or compensated for by increased involvement in remaining roles
- Evidence does not fully support (less about number than quality of relations)
Continuity theory (Atchley 1972)
- Compromise between Disengagement & Activity theories
- Pre-existing personality & habits continue into older age
- Needed to achieve ego integrity
Helps preserve:
-> Physical & cognitive functioning
-> Self-esteem & mastery
-> Identity and Sense of personal history
-> Social support network
Socio-emotional selectivity theory
- Emphasis on emotion-regulating function of social interactions
- Emphasis on relationship quality
- Increased avoidance of unpleasant interactions
- Sustenance of family & long term friend relationships until about 80 yrs
- Then decreases to a few very close relationships
- > Unwillingness to make new relationships
Selective optimisation with compensation
- Applies to adjustment to cognitive & physical declines
- Narrow goals, select personally valued activities to optimise & compensate for new ways for losses
- > Example, older golfer:
- > Selection: play 9 holes, not 18
- > Optimisation: exercise specific muscles used for short game
- > Compensation: drive ball shorter distance; less risky shots; increased planning; greater confidence; more positive attitude
Older adulthood - cognitive changes
Information Processing
- > Speed: steady decline from 20s – 90s
- > Only minimal decline; <1 sec
- > More complex tasks, more difficulties
Neural network - older adulthood
- > Neurons die, connections lost
- > Brain forms new connections
- > New connections less efficient
Information loss view - older adulthood
- > Greater loss of info at each step of the cognitive system
- > Whole system slows down to inspect, interpret info
- > Processing speed correlates with memory, reasoning & problem-solving
- > Higher correlation with fluid that crystallised IQ
