Primary and Secondary Ageing

Question 1

Why is ageing research important?

Answer 1

Life expectancy is increasing
- Need to understand how people can have a happy life as an older adult
- Understand how to slow ageing or manage the process

Question 2

Ageing influences

Answer 2

1. Physical ageing - wrinkles, grey hair
2. Developmental influences - learning disabilities
3. Social and environmental influences - perceptions of ageing
4. Cognitive influences - memory, personality

Question 3

Primary ageing

Answer 3

Occurs due to maturation
- Normal and natural changes
- Universal - occurs to everyone
- Gradual changes
- Inevitable
- Biological - happens due to genes

Question 4

signs of primary ageing

Answer 4

• Loss in skin elasticity and firmness
• Hair loss and greying
• Weakened immune system
• Impaired hearing and vision
• Slower heart rate
• Decline in cognitive functions
• Loss of muscle mass and bone density

Inevitable changes that can’t be stopped

Question 5

Secondary ageing

Answer 5

Not a normal part of decline and happens due to environmental factors
- Individual
- More rapid decline
- Disease (alzhiemers, diabetes)
- Bad habits (diet, exercise, smoking)

Question 6

Curing secondary ageing diseases

Answer 6

Most cannot be cured, but symptoms can be managed or slowed down
- Exercise - physical decline
- Diet and medication - diabetes
- Cognitive training - alzheimers

Question 7

Successful ageing

Answer 7

Ageing with minimal loss of cognitive or developmental functioning

Question 8

Slowing developmental decline (primary ageing)

Answer 8

1. Communications - involvement in social groups (gives value, meaning and sense of purpose)
2. Build relationships - romantic and friendships
3. Puzzles - keeps cognition active

Question 9

Slowing developmental decline (Secondary ageing)

Answer 9

1. Diet - Eat healthy, avoid unhealthy substances (drugs, alcohol, cigarettes
2. Exercise - age approprioate: walks, yoga
3. Social interactions - individual and in social groups

Question 10

Emotions in older age

Answer 10

• Denial
• Guilt in not preventing loss - eat better, exercise more, etc..
• Lonliness - relationships decline
• Helplessness
• Grief - loss of loved ones, past relationsips, life we once had
• Dwell in past
• Stubborness

Question 11

Disengagement Theory: Cumming & Henry, 1961

Answer 11

Emotional blunting: Elders withdraw with social contact and disengage due to health and loss of opportunities
- Natural process

Question 12

Issues with disengagement theory

Answer 12

• Doesn’t explain the cause
• Theoretical perspective - doesn’t always happen
• Causal relationship questionable - disengage because of health or disengagement causes issues with health

Opposed by the view of superior emotional regulation

Question 13

Appraisal Approach to Ageing and Emotion (AAAE): Young et al., 2021

Answer 13

Changes to the appraisal system (how we view the world) is why emotional regulation is better
- Older people put themselves in fewer difficult situations
- Previous experience and wisdom

1. Age-related cognitive, motivational, and physical changes fundamentally change the appraisal system in certain ways
2. Older adults often deploy appraisal processes in different ways relative to their younger counterparts.

Question 14

Superior emotional regulation

Answer 14

By an older age, individuals have learnt to regulate the emotions more effectively so they can cope with differing situations

Question 15

Emotion recognition: Amorim et al. (2021)

Answer 15

The ability to recognise emotions (visual, vocal) changes with age

• Forced-choice emotion categorisation task with nonverbal vocalisations.
• Improvements from childhood to adulthood, however declines into older adulthood.
• Older adults had more issues with the nonverbal emotion recognition

Cross-sectional - can’t define cause and effect

However recognition and management is different

Question 16

Activity Theory of Ageing (Havighurst, 1961)

Answer 16

Older people are happiest when they maintain good social relationships
- Emphasises being socially active → social groups
- Ageing well is correlated with social interactions

Self-concept is related to roles held - Positive sense of self - roles must be substituted for those lost due to age

Question 17

Continuity Theory of Ageing: Atchley, 1989

Answer 17

Older adults will usually maintain the same activities, behaviours and relationships as they did in earlier life
- Internal continuity - sense of self
- External continuity - tasks and behaviours

Some changes are inevitable - pysical ageing, roles changes (mother to grandmother)

Question 18

Perceptions of ageing

Answer 18

Negative perceptions
- Wrinkles
- Grey hair
- Level of activity

Culture also influences perception of ageing

Question 19

Woodruff, 1983: Perceptions of ageing

Answer 19

University students tested for ‘personal and social adjustment’ (18 years)

25 years later - retested under 2 conditions (43 years)
1. Complete as you remember yourself 25 years earlier
2. Complete as you are now

“Remembered” answers inaccurate and overestimated change - People changed less than they thought

Question 20

Culture perceptions of ageing: Lockenhoff et al. (2009)

Answer 20

Perceptions of ageing across 26 cultures:
- Most cultures: increases in wisdom and decreases in the ability to perform everyday activities.
- High socioeconomic development saw ageing less favourably
- Greater contact with older individuals can increase more positive perceptions.
- The traditional notion of respecting elders was eroding

Question 21

Collectivist cultures and ageing

Answer 21

• Participation and engagement within communities had a positive influence on participants perceived feeling of usefulness and self-esteem
• Community engagement within collectivist cultures acts as a buffer to negative perceptions of ageing
• Collectivist cultures have a more positive view of ageing