Psychology 203 Human Development

1
Psychology 203 Human Development

• Physical and Cognitive Development
• In
• Middle Adulthood
• Chapter 15

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Middle AgeA Cultural Construct

• Middle adulthood was least studied part of life
  span
• Middle age came into use 1900 because of
  lengthening of life expectancy
• Only present in industrial societies
• No consensus on specific biological or social
  events that mark beginning or end

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Middle Age

• Text book defines middle age in chronological
  terms (40-65 years)
• Meaning of middle age varies with
• Health
• Gender
• Ethnicity
• Socioeconomic status
• Cohort (group or followers)
• Culture

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Middle AgePhysical Development

• Use it or Lose it! research suggest that this
  is true
• The more middle age people do, the more they can
  do
• Physical changes are direct results of
• Biological aging
• Genetic makeup
• Behavioral factors
• Lifestyle factors

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Physical DevelopmentSensory and Psychomotor
Functioning

• Young adulthood middle years
• Sensory and motor changes are small and gradual
• Age-related visual problems in five areas
• Near vision (reading moving sings)
• Sensitivity to light
• Visual search (locating a sign)
• Speed of processing visual information

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Physical DevelopmentSensory and Psychomotor
Functioning

• Lens of eye
• becomes progressively less flexible
• Ability to shift focus diminishes
• 40 and older need reading glasses (presby means
  with age)
• Bifocals and Trifocals glasses
• Hearing loss speeds up at age 50 and beyond

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Physical DevelopmentSensory and Psychomotor
Functioning

• Sensitivity decline in midlife
• Sensitivity to taste
• Sensitivity to smell
• Women tend to retain senses longer than men
• Lose sensitivity to touch after 45
• Strength and coordination decline
• Loss of muscle fiber replaced by fat
• Some muscle strength by age 45
• 10-15 strength may be gone by 60
• First weakening in back and leg muscles, then arm
  and shoulder (in age 60s)
• Manual dexterity generally becomes less efficient
  after 30s

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Physical DevelopmentStructural and Systemic
Changes

• Changes in appearance
• 50-60s skin becomes less taut and smooth
• Hair becomes thinner do to slowed replacement
  rate (collagen molecules become rigid and elastin
  fibers more brittle
• Hair becomes greyer because of melanin decline
• Perspire less because number of sweat glands
  decreases
• Bone density decreases becoming more thin and
  brittle (women twice as rapidly then men)

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Physical DevelopmentStructural and Systemic
Changes

• Heart begins to pump more slowly and irregularly
  in mid 50s
• By 65, may loose up to 40 of aerobic power
• Vital capacity (lung volume of air) diminish at
  age 40 (40 decline by age 70)

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Physical DevelopmentSexuality and Reproductive
Functioning
Female Male
Hormonal change Drop in estrogen and progesterone Drop in testosterone
Symptoms Hot flashes, vaginal dryness, urinary dysfunction undetermined
Sexual changes Less intense arousal, less frequent and quicker orgasms Loss of psychological arousal, less frequent erections, slower orgasms, longer recovery, increased risk of erectile dysfunctions
Reproductive capacity Ends Continues some decrease in fertility may occur
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Physical DevelopmentSexuality and Reproductive
Functioning

• Menopause
• Physical
• Vaginal
• Dryness
• Burning
• Itching
• Infections
• Urinary
• Infections
• Dysfunction (tissue shrinkage)
• Hot flashes

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Physical DevelopmentSexuality and Reproductive
Functioning

• Psychological
• Irritability
• Nervousness
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Memory loss
• Not insanity

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Physical DevelopmentSexuality and Reproductive
Functioning

• Changes in Male Sexuality
• Physical
• Sudden drop in hormone production
• Weakness
• Lower sexual drive
• Erectile failure
• Memory loss
• Fatigue
• Reduced muscle and bone mass
• Reduced body hair
• Climacteric
• Depression
• Anxiety
• Irritability
• Insomnia
• No strong relationship between testosterone
  levels and sexual desire or performance

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Physical DevelopmentSexuality and Reproductive
Functioning

• Sexual Activity
• Diminish only slightly and gradually during 40
  and 50s
• Many find sexual relationship better
• Know their own sexual needs and desires better
• Sexual dysfunction is persistent disturbance in
  sexual desire or sexual response
• Lack of interest
• Painful intercourse
• Difficulty in arousal
• Premature orgasm or ejaculation
• Inability to reach climax
• Anxiety about sexual performace

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Physical DevelopmentSexuality and Reproductive
Functioning

• Appearance and Attractiveness
• 1.6 million had injections of Botox
• Wrinkles and graying hair imply
• Over the hill for woman
• In the prime of life for men
• Self-esteem suffers when people devalue their
  physical being

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HealthHealth Concerns

• Hypertension (chronically high blood pressure)
• Most common chronic condition 45-64 men
• Second most common (after arthritis) in women
• Leads to
• Heart attack
• Stroke
• Cognitive impairment

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HealthHealth Concerns

• Lifestyle diseases (table 15-2)
• Coronary heart disease
• Stroke
• Diabetes
• Breast cancer
• Long cancer
• Prostate cancer
• Colorectal cancer
• Melanoma (skin cancer)
• Osteoporosis
• Osteoarthritis

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HealthHealth Concerns

• Socioeconomic Status
• Lower socioeconomic status lower life expectancy
• Chronic disease
• Lower well-being
• Restricted access to health care

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HealthHealth Concerns

• Race/Ethnicity
• Hypertension
• 33 African American adults
• 25 white Americans
• 20 death African American
• 10 death white Americans
• Diabetes
• 10 African American
• Blindness
• Kidney failure
• Amputation of limbs
• Largest single underlying factor of African
  Americans health problem is POVERTY

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HealthHealth Concerns

• Womens Health After Menopause
• Heart Disease every ten years after menopause
  risk of heart disease X3
• Bone Loss
• Estrogen helps blood absorb calcium from food
• Breast Cancer
• One in eight American women
• 95 survive for at least 5 years
• 50 can expect at least 15 years
• Hysterectomy
• 33 by age 60
• May be overused
• Hormone Replacement Therapy
• 38 of postmenopausal American women
• Risk of breast cancer, heart attack, stroke and
  blood clots
• Replace with
• Losing weight
• Stop smoking
• Lower cholesterol

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HealthHealth Concerns

• Osteoporosis seems to have a genetic basis
• Recommended way to reduce the risk of
  osteoporosis is to eat foods high in calcium

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HealthEmotional States, Personality and Stress

• Negative moods
• Suppress immune functioning
• Increasing susceptibility to illness
• Positive moods
• Increase immune functioning
• Decrease susceptibility to illness
• The more stressful the changes the greater the
  likelihood of illness within one to two years
• Stressful events are less likely to lead to
  illness when the stressful event can be
  controlled by the person experiencing it

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HealthEmotional States, Personality and Stress
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HealthEmotional States, Personality and Stress

• Whether or not an event causes stress may
  depend on  the reaction it produces
• Stress harms health indirectly
• Sleep less
• Smoke and drink more
• Eat poorly
• Pay little attention to their health
• More realistic in coping with stress
• Learned more effective strategies
• Accept what cannot be changed

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HealthEmotional States, Personality and Stress

• Men who use adaptive defenses for 20-47 years see
  themselves having good physical health at 65
• Stress management workshops
• Relaxation techniques
• Meditation
• Biofeedback

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HealthEmotional States, Personality and Stress

• Job related stress
• High job satisfaction and control reduce stress
  casualties
• Social support helps coping with stress and a
  lack of social support correlates with heart
  disease
• Employees with high levels of skills and
  abilities are more resistant to stress
• Type A / Type B personalities
• Hardiness, self-efficacy, and locus of control
• Self-esteem, negative affectivity, type of
  occupation, and sex characteristics

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HealthEmotional States, Personality and Stress

• Unemployment
• Greatest work-related stressor
• Headaches
• Stomach trouble
• High blood pressure
• Physical and metal illness
• Heart attack
• Stroke
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Marital and family problems

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HealthEmotional States, Personality and Stress

• When men who define their worth in terms of
  their ability to support their family lose their
  jobs they experience
• loss of identity
• loss of control of their lives
• loss of a sense of purpose
• decreased ability to structure their time  

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Cognitive DevelopmentMiddle-aged prime of
Cognitive Ability
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Cognitive Development

• Horn and Cattell
• Fluid intelligence (neurological status) Decline
  with age
• Perceiving relations
• Forming concepts
• Drawing inferences
• Crystallized intelligence (education and cultural
  experience) hold or improve with age
• Vocabulary
• General information
• Responses to social situations
• Social dilemmas

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Cognitive Development

• Cognitive development in middle adulthood is
  usually related to acquiring specialized
  knowledge
• Cognitive ability in expertise continue and are
  independent of general intelligence
• Encapsulation captures fluid abilities
  (information processing) for expert problem
  solving
• Thinking is more flexible and adaptable

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Cognitive DevelopmentIntegrative Thought

• Feature of postformal thought is integrative
  nature
• Integrate logic with intuition and emotion
• Integrate conflicting facts and ideas
• Integrate new information with known information
• Filter information through their life experiences
  and previous learning

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Creativity

• Exceptional talents are less born than made
  require systematic training and practice
• Extraordinary creative achievements
• Deep highly organized knowledge of the subject
• Intrinsic motivation to work hard for the sake of
  the work
• Strong emotional attachment to the work
• Creativity develops over a lifetime in social
  context, not nurturing environments

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Creativity

• Highly creative people characteristic
• self-starters
• strong sense of purpose and direction
• can juggle several ideas or projects at a time
• are not easily discouraged

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Creativity and Intelligence

• General intelligence has little relationship to
  creative performance
• Sternberg three aspects of intelligence may play
  a role
• Insightful define a problem and see it in a new
  light
• Analytic evaluate an idea and decide whether
  its worth pursuing
• Practical selling an idea and getting accepted

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Creativity and Age

• Creative peoples last decade of a creative
  career typically produces only abut half as much
  as during the late 30s or early 40s
• Age curve varies depending on field
• Poets, mathematicians and theoretical physicists
  late 20s early 30s
• Research psychologists peak around 40
• Novelist, historians and philosophers late 40s
  or 50s

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Work and Education

• Age-differentiated roles based on age
• Traditional life structure in industrialized
  societies
• Holdover from a time when life was shorter and
  social institutions less diverse
• Age-integrated roles open to adults of all ages

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Occupational Patterns

• Ginzberg two career paths
• Stable
• Stay with a single vocation
• Workaholics last ditch effort to reach
  financial security
• Mellowed come to terms with their level of
  achievement
• Shifting
• Multiple occupational choices
• Try to achieve a better match between what they
  can do
• want and expect from work
• what they are getting out of it

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Work versus Retirement

• 80 for 40-59 years work
• 61 for 60-69 years work full time 36 part time
• 50 year olds work for financial reasons
• 60 year olds work for intrinsic value
• Enjoyment of work
• Remain productive
• Feeling valued
• Respected

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Mature Learners

• 45 of middle-aged people participated in
  continuing or adult education
• Training to update knowledge and skills
• New occupations
• Many adults simply enjoy learning