week 8 - social environments and cog

Question 1

Competence + Environmental Press

Answer 1

Competence is the upper limit of a person’s capacity to function
-Social, physical, psychological

Environments can be classified on the basis of the varying demands they place on the person, a notion called ENVIRONMENTAL PRESS.
-Adaptation Level: Where behavior and affect are normal, slight increases in press improve performance, slight decreases create a Zone of Maximum Comfort.

Question 2

zone of max comfort/enviro press graph

Answer 2

see slide 4

Question 3

Competence + Environmental Press

re institutional care

Answer 3

Each person has the potential of being well-adapted to some (but not all) living conditions

Institutional care often maintains a level of homogeneity in environmental press

• Each individual has differing competencies
• Environment as to be adjusted to dynamically to meet appropriate press conditions
• EP can be both objective and subjective (different levers)

Question 4

How people deal with EP

Proactivity

Answer 4

Environmental: Situations in which an increase in personal competence enhances a person’s ability to make use of environmental resources and achieve a more positive outcome.

Personal: When people exert control over their lives by choosing new behaviours to meet their needs or desires

Question 5

How people deal with EP

Docility

Answer 5

Environmental: Situations in which personal competence declines and behavior is increasingly affected by characteristics of the environment.

Personal: When people allow the situation to dictate the options they have, and have little control

Question 6

Preventive and Corrective Proactivity (PCP) Model

Answer 6

Explains how life stressors and lack of congruence in P/E interactions results in poor life outcomes.

Two types of proactive adaptations:

• -Preventive adaptations – actions that avoid stressors and increase or build social resources
• -Corrective adaptations – actions taken in response to stressors and can be facilitated by internal and external resources

Question 7

Where to live?

place matters in aging?

Answer 7

Home care

• Aging in place
• Home help and day care

Community living

• Retirement villages and congregate housing
• Assisted living

Residential aged care
-Special care units

Question 8

Home Care

Answer 8

Adults live independently in their own home and community

Aging in Place
-Balancing environment press and competence through selection and compensation.

Home Modification
-Helping people deal with tasks of daily living by modifying the environment

Question 9

Adult Home Help and Care

Answer 9

In Australia home care and support packages are government funded and offer:

• Domestic assistance (transport, home help)
• Social and recreational
• Day centres (therapeutic)

Goal is to delay placement in more formal care setting

25% Australians aged 65+ access some form of support or care at home

30% who receive some home help stay at home until death – 50% transition into RAC

17% who receive some home help have dementia

Question 10

Retirement Villages

Answer 10

A managed community for seniors over 55

• Social
• Lifestyle
• Financial

Different types of residence
Independent living units

• Assisted living
• Average entry age in Aus is 75, 8% of those 75+ live in retirement villages

Question 11

Residential Aged Care - who are they for

Answer 11

Residential aged care is for older people who can no longer live at home. Reasons can include illness, disability, bereavement, an emergency, the needs of their carer, family or friends, or because it is no longer possible to manage at home without help.

Question 12

Residential aged care - what are they

Answer 12

Residential aged care facilities, nursing homes, aged care homes, aged care facilities, high and low care facility = SAME

• Offer supported living for those who need daily personal assistance and cannot live alone.
• Skilled nursing staff are employed.
• Are funded

Question 13

Australia Residential Aged Care (RAC)

Answer 13

7% Australians 75+ accessed residential aged care
-57.4% of operational places were provided by the not-for-profit church, charitable and community sector

$14.2B a year on aged care, 0.8% GDP; expected to grow to 1.8% by 2050

2.7 million carers, providing 1.32 b hours of care annually
57% of RAC places are taken by those 85+

91% discharges were due to death (40% before 9 months)

Average length of stay increased by 11% from 2000

Question 14

RAC (stats/avg) characteristics / health issues / functionality

Answer 14

Characteristics:

• Over age 85
• Female
• Recently admitted to a hospital
• Widowed or divorced
• Has no children or siblings nearby
• Has some cognitive impairment
• Has one or more problems with IADL (instrumental activities of daily living)

Health issues and functional impairment

• Average resident has significant mental and physical problems
• Main reason for placement (80%)
• One third of residents have mobility, eating or incontinence problems

Question 15

Dementia Aged Care Facilities

Answer 15

Specialists wings or specialist homes

These must have the right level of environmental support to provide additional care when the person’s competence level continues to decline

Can be high or low care

Need special care for severely cognitively impaired residents

Question 16

RAC and “home”

what can be done to foster a sense of home?

Answer 16

Being included in the decision and selection of a specific RAC
Having prior knowledge of, and positive experience of a specific facility
Defining the home in terms of family and social relationships rather than place, objects, or total autonomy
Establish a continuity between home and RAC
Reminiscing about home may facilitate adjustment

Question 17

Living in RAC

Answer 17

see slide 19

Question 18

Decision-Making

How well can a resident make decisions regarding their care?

Answer 18

Cognitive impairment
Patient Self-Determination Act (PSDA)
Provide written information at time of admission concerning their right to make treatment decisions
Living will
Patients normally give the decision to family members

Question 19

Australian RAC Innovations

Answer 19

Homeshare matches older people living at home with people willing to do household in exchange for almost free accommodation.

Resthaven have a program that focuses on wellness strategies to support people to maintain or regain their independence, goal setting with each person, and finding out what is important to them

And so many more…

https://www.aacqa.gov.au/providers/promoting-quality/better-practice-awards/2018-winners/2018-winners

Question 20

Stereotypes and Aging:

what are stereotypes (as applied to elderly)

Answer 20

Stereotypes: A special kind of social knowledge structure or social belief that represents organized prior knowledge about a group of people that affects how we interpret new information

• Young and older adults hold similar stereotypes about aging.
• An age-based double standard operates when people judge older adults’ failures in memory.

Question 21

Stereotypes and Aging

Activation and Stereotype threat

Answer 21

Activation of Stereotypes

• Implicit stereotypes
• -Automatically activated negative stereotypes about aging guide behaviour beyond our awareness.

-Implicit stereotyping influences the way we communicate with older adults.

Stereotype Threat
-An evoked fear of being judged in accordance with a negative stereotype about a group to which you belong

Question 22

Ageism – the under-researched “ism”?

Answer 22

Ageism is perceived to be less severe and less common

Most older adults in North America (91% of older adults surveyed from Canada and 85% of older adults from the United States) report having experienced ageism

Half of these report being patronized (46%), ignored (43.5%), or having been treated as if they were incompetent (35.5%).

Ageism is a complex prejudice involving positive and negative stereotypes of older adults.

Question 23

Self-Perceptions (of aging)

Answer 23

Self-Perception of Aging: Individuals’ perceptions of their own age and aging

Two frameworks for this influence:

• Labeling theory: When confronting an age-related stereotype, older adults are more likely to integrate into their self-perception
• Resilience theory: Confronting a negative stereotype results in a rejection of that view

Question 24

Perceptions of others

Answer 24

Age differences are found:
In the endorsement of social rules/ norms.

Impression Formation – or the way we form and revise first impressions about others.

Older adults use less detailed information when making an initial impression

Tend to have a Negativity bias:

Question 25

Social Judgment Processes

Answer 25

see slide 27 & slide 28

Question 26

Social Judgment Processes

social knowledge and source judgements

Answer 26

Social knowledge: When we are faced with new situations, we draw on our previous experiences stored in memory.

Source Judgments: Trying to determine the source of a particular piece of information

Declines in cognitive processing resources might impact the social judgment process.

Question 27

Social Judgments and Causal Attributions

Answer 27

Causal attributions
Explanations people construct to explain their behavior

Dispositional attributions
Behavioral explanations that reside within the person

Situational attributions
Behavioral explanations that reside outside the person

Correspondence bias
Relying on dispositional information and ignoring situational information

Question 28

Social Judgments and Causal Attributions

Answer 28

see slide 31

older adults show a higher level of mean blame judgements ? watc