DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

VIII. MIDDLE ADULTHOOD

Middle adulthood, or midlife, refers to the period of the lifespan between early
adulthood and late adulthood. Although ages and tasks are culturally defined, the most
common age definition is from 40-45 to 60-65.

• Primary aging - biological factors, such as molecular and cellular changes, and
oxidative damage.
• Secondary aging occurs due to controllable factors, such as an unhealthy
lifestyle including lack of physical exercise and poor diet.

A. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
• fluid intelligence, which refers to the capacity to learn new ways of solving
problems and performing activities quickly and abstractly
• crystallized intelligence, which refers to the accumulated knowledge of the
world we have acquired throughout our lives
• Flow is the mental state of being completely present and fully absorbed in a task
• Tacit knowledge is knowledge that is pragmatic or practical and learned
through experience rather than explicitly taught
• Expertise refers to specialized skills and knowledge that pertain to a particular
topic or activity.
o Intuitive: Novices follow particular steps and rules when problem
solving, whereas experts can call upon a vast amount of knowledge and
past experience
o Automatic: Complex thoughts and actions become more routine for
experts
o Strategic: Experts have more effective strategies than non-experts
o Flexible: Experts in all fields are more curious and creative; they enjoy a
challenge and experiment with new ideas or procedures
• Novice is someone who has limited experiences with a particular task.

B. PSYCHOSOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
• stress is defined as a pattern of physical and psychological responses in an
organism after it perceives a threatening event that disturbs its homeostasis and
taxes its abilities to cope with the event
• stressor to label a stimulus that had this effect on the body (that is, causing
stress).
• General Adaptation Syndrome, which is a three-phase model of stress, which
includes a mobilization of physiological resources phase, a coping phase, and an
exhaustion phase (i.e., when an organism fails to cope with the stress
adequately and depletes its resources).
 DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

• Social integration is the concept used to describe the number of social roles
that you have
• biofeedback, a technique where the individual is shown bodily information that
is not normally available to them (e.g., heart rate), and then taught strategies to
alter this signal.
• Problem-focused coping is thought of as actively addressing the event that is
causing stress in an effort to solve the issue at hand.
• Emotion-focused coping, on the other hand, regulates the emotions that
come with stress.
• GENERATIVITY VS. STAGNATION
o generativity encompasses procreativity, productivity, and creativity

C. MIDLIFE RELATIONSHIPS
• sandwich generation refers to adults who have at least one parent age 65 or
older and are either raising their own children or providing support for their
grown children.
• Kinkeeper is a person or persons who keep the family connected and who
promote solidarity and continuity in the family
• empty nest, or post-parental period refers to the time period when children are
grown up and have left home
• empty nest syndrome refers to great emotional distress experienced by
parents, typically mothers, after children have left home.
• Boomerang kids - young adults who are returning after having lived
independently outside the home.
• Linked lives - the notion that people in important relationships, such as children
and parents, mutually influence each other’s developmental pathways.

D. RELIGION AND SPIRITUALITY

• religiosity refers to engaging with a formal religious group’s doctrines, values,
traditions, and co-members
• spirituality refers to an individual’s intrapsychic sense of connection with
something transcendent (that which exists apart from and not limited by the
material universe) and the subsequent feelings of awe, gratitude, compassion,
and forgiveness.