Social A Cognitive Development In Middle Adulthood Flashcards
Launching children
◦ Adolescents in the household
‣ Can be highly stressful
‣ Trying to get them ready for adulthood and launching them forward
◦ Empty nesting
‣ The idea that the whole life many be changing or hard.
• Who are they when their children are no longer at home
caring for parents
‣ Can cause a lot of stress
◦ Medical
‣ Getting them to appointments, dealing with issues, arguing with insurance
◦ Financial
‣ Getting old is very expensive in the U.S.
◦ Emotional
‣ We still think of our parents as our parents not matter how old they are
Sandwich generation
Sandwich generation -> often forced between two generations or two parts.
the parents are very focused on launching their children into adulthood
other stressors of middle adulthood
◦ Financial stressors
‣ Worrying about your parents financial issues but also your own. Typically reaching peak financial time, hopefully paying off debt, and being done with that. Some however then have to start paying for their kid’s retirement
◦ Medical stressors
◦ Time
‣ Not having time on a day to day basis. The pure pressure of not having enough time in a day to get things done
◦ Role reversals
‣ Thinking or yourself as the younger person but realizing that a lot of people actually see you as the older person and look up to you.
• May not match your image of yourself
The good news of middle adulthood
◦ Coping skills
‣ Being able to figure out ways to relax, self-care, and cope.
◦ Priorities/seeing the big picture
‣ Knowing that its going to be hard but you will come out of it
‣ Knowing what you can control and doing all that you can do
Fluid intelligence
‣ The ability to learn new things quickly
◦ Decreases over time
◦ May take longer to learn new tasks
◦ Slower responses on reaction time-based assessments
‣ Tetris - played a lot but in this age may be slower than they used to be but not too slow. However if a new task was learned the first few times playing were relatively slow.
Crystallized intelligence
◦ Increases over time
‣ Continues to increase over the entire lifespan. Older people do no more things
◦ More stored knowledge about facts and processes
Cross sectional strengths and weaknesses
• cross-sectional
‣ Different groups or ages all at the same time
◦ Strengths
‣ Can ask time sensitive questions
◦ Weaknesses
‣ If we find group difference we don’t necessarily know if it’s because of difference in the group, a response to a crisis, or were they never good at it
Longitudinal strengths and weaknesses
• Longitudinal
‣ The same groups compared over time
◦ Strengths
‣ Can talk about growth and change, and the difference of how things are done
◦ Weaknesses
‣ Takes a long time
‣ Does not allow us to do a lot in terms of time sensitive matters, unless it is a long-term effect
Research findings on age and cognition in cross-sectional
◦ Tend to find cognitive declines in almost every area
◦ Results could be due to many factors including a failure to account fro other differences in the group
‣ How long someone has been doing something, older people already having done it or not wanting to do it.
Research findings on age and cognition in longitudinal
◦ Generally found that many skills peak in middle adulthood
◦ Fairer comparison
‣ Still really important that the study is done well
◦ Must still control for those who drop out of the study
‣ Also keep track of those who may have left the study because of financial or health reasons, or even for dying. Make sure to remove their results so avoid from a bias.
To keep brain healthy you should avoid
- avoid brain injuries and incidents
- avoiding and being careful around brain injuries and concussions
Keeping brains healthy
◦ Healthy diets
‣ Relatively low fat but focus on healthy fats
‣ Lots of fruits and vegetables
‣ Only moderate use of alcohol
◦ Exercise
‣ Good biochemically and don’t forget that a lot of Bain functioning is tied to physical motion and sensations
◦ Learning new things
◦ Traveling
◦ Social interactions
Careers during midlife
• many people reach their career peak during middle adulthood
◦ Is based on a hierarchical system in which raises come with time and effort
◦ Those whose work is valued more as they accumulate knowledge and contacts
• Some careers tend to peak in young adulthood
◦ Largely dependent on physical labor
◦ Focused on creativity
◦ Based on reaction times and vigilance tasks
Leisure time in middle adulthood
• good luck finding leisure time:
◦ Heavy family responsibilities
◦ Serious financial obligations
◦ Increased work expectations
