Emerging Adulthood and - Higher income people rate their health as better and live
Young Adulthood
Emerging Adulthood
- Proposed transitional period between adolescence and
adulthood.
- It is an exploratory period, a time of possibilities, an
opportunity to try out new and different ways of living—a
time when young people are no longer adolescents but
have not yet settled into adult roles
- Using sociological definitions, people may be considered
adults when they are self- supporting or have chosen a
career, have married or formed a significant romantic
partnership, or have started a family.
- Psychological maturity may depend on such achievements
as discovering one’s identity, becoming independent of
parents, developing a system of values, and forming
relationships.
- Some psychologists suggest that the onset of adulthood is
marked, not by external criteria, but by such internal
indicators as a sense of autonomy, self-control, and
personal responsibility—that it is more a state of mind
than a discrete event
➔ From this point of view, some people never become
adults, no matter what their chronological age
Criteria defining adulthood
1. Accepting responsibility for oneself
2. Making independent decisions
3. Becoming financially independent
Physical Development
- During this period, the foundation for lifelong physical
functioning is laid.
- Health may be influenced by the genes, but behavioral
factors—what young adults eat, whether they get enough
sleep, how physically active they are, and whether they
smoke, drink, or use drugs—contribute greatly to health and
well-being
- - Too many emerging and young adults are overweight and get
too little exercise. In part because the institutional safety net that
cushions adolescents, including the parental home and the school,
is no longer there, it is easier to engage unchecked in
health-threatening behaviors.
- Emerging and young adults have the highest poverty rate and
the lowest level of health insurance of any age group
Influences on Health and Fitness
1. Diet and Nutrition
2. Physical Activity
3. Sleep – many emerging and young adults often go without
adequate sleep
Indirect Influences on Health and Fitness
1. Socioeconomic Status and Race/Ethnicity
longer than lower income people
- The less schooling people have had greater chance that
they will develop and die from communicable diseases,
injuries, or chronic ailments, or that they will become
victims of homicide or suicide
- This does not mean that income and education cause good
health; instead, they are related to environmental and
lifestyle factors that tend to be causative.
- Better educated and more affluent people tend to have
healthier diets and better preventive health care and
medical treatment. They exercise more, are less likely to
be overweight, smoke less, are less likely to use illicit
drugs, and are more likely to use alcohol in moderation
2. Relationships and Health
- Social relationships seem to be vital to health and
wellbeing
2.1 Social Integration – active engagement in broad range
of social relationships, activities, and roles; related to lower
mortality rates
2.2 Social Support – refers to material, informational, and
psychological resources derived from the social network,
on which a person can rely for help in coping with stress
Mental Health Problems
- For most emerging adults, mental health and well-being
improve, and problem behaviors diminish
- The overall prevalence of antisocial behavior, which
rises during adolescence, drops sharply during emerging
adulthood
- Adolescence and emerging adulthood appear to be
sensitive periods for the onset of depressive disorders.
Between ages 15 and 22, the incidence of depression
increases gradually
Sexually and Reproductive Issues
- Emerging adults tend to have more sexual partners
than in older age groups, but they have sex less
frequently.
- People who become sexually active during emerging
adulthood tend to engage in fewer risky
behaviors—those that may lead to STDs or unplanned
pregnancies—than those who began in adolescence.
- Condoms are the most commonly used contraceptive,
though their use is inconsistent
Sexually and Reproductive Issues
Menstrual Disorders (under SRI)
- PMS is a disorder that produces physical discomfort
and emotional tension for up to the two weeks before
menstrual period
- Symptoms may include fatigue, headaches,
swelling and tenderness of the breasts, swollen
hands and feet, abdominal bloating, nausea, cramps,
constipation, food cravings, weight gain, anxiety,
 depression, irritability, mood swings, tearfulness, similar problems, or through a product, a concrete solution to the
and difficulty concentrating or remembering particular problem
- The cause of PMS is not fully understood, but it appears Pragmatism – ability to choose the best of several possible
to be a response to normal monthly surges of the female logical solutions and to recognize criteria for choosing
hormones estrogen and progesterone as well as to levels Multiple solutions – awareness that most problems have more
of the male hormone testosterone and of serotonin than one cause, that people may have differing goals, and that a
variety of methods can be used to arrive at more than one
Cognitive Development solution
Beyond Piaget Awareness of paradox – Recognition that a problem or solution
1. Reflective Thinking involves inherent conflict
- Type of logical thinking that may emerge in adulthood, Self-referential thought – A person’s awareness that he or she
involving continuous, active evaluation of information and must be the judge ofwhich logic to use: in other words, that he or
beliefs in the light of evidence and implications. she is using postformal thought
- a complex form of cognition, first defined by the ➢ The shift to postformal thought can be emotionally
American philosopher and educator John Dewey unsettling. “Emerging adults may be easily swayed by their
- Reflective thinkers continually question supposed facts, emotions to distort their thinking in self-serving and
draw inferences, and make connections; reflective thinkers self-protective ways”
can create complex intellectual systems that reconcile
apparently conflicting ideas or considerations Schaie: A life-span model of cognitive development
- The capacity for reflective thinking seems to emerge - His seven stages revolve around motivating goals that
between ages 20 and 25 come to the fore at various stages of life.
- Not until then are the cortical regions of the brain that - These goals shift from acquisition of information and
handle higher-level thinking fully myelinated skills (what I need to know)to practical integration of
- Although almost all adults develop the capacity for knowledge and skills (how to use what I know) to a
becoming reflective thinkers, few attain optimal search for meaning and purpose (why I should know).
proficiency in this skill, and even fewer can apply it 1. Acquisitive stage (childhood and adolescence) –
consistently to various kinds of problems. Children and adolescents acquire information and skills
mainly for their own sake or as preparation for
2. Postformal Thought participation in society
- Mature type of thinking that relies on subjective 2. Achieving stage (late teens or early twenties to early
experience and intuition as well as logic and is useful in thirties) - Young adults no longer acquire knowledge
dealing with ambiguity, uncertainty, inconsistency, merely for its own sake; they use what they know to
contradiction, imperfection, and compromise pursue goals, such as career and family.
- generally begins in emerging adulthood, often through 3. Responsible stage (late thirties to early sixties) –
exposure to higher education Middle-aged people use their minds to solve practical
- Postformal thought is flexible, open, adaptive, and problems associated with responsibilities to others, such as
individualistic. It draws on intuition and emotion as well family members or employees.
as on logic to help people cope with a seemingly chaotic 4. Executive stage (thirties or forties through middle age)
world - People in the executive stage, which may overlap with
- Postformal thought is relativistic. Like reflective thinking, the achieving and responsible stages, are responsible for
it enables adults to transcend a single logical system and societal systems or social movements. They deal with
reconcile or choose among conflicting ideas or demands, complex relationships on multiple levels
each of which, from its perspective, may have a valid 5. Reorganizational stage (end of middle age, beginning
claim to truth of late adulthood) - People who enter retirement
reorganize their lives and intellectual energies around
Criteria for postformal thought: meaningful pursuits that take the place of paid work.
1. Shifting gears – ability to think within at least two 6. Reintegrative stage (late adulthood) - Older adults may
different logical systems and to shift back and forth be experiencine biological and cognitive changes and tend
between abstract reasoning and practical, real-world to be more selective about what tasks they expend effort
considerations on. They focus on the purpose of what they do and
2. Problem definition – ability to define a problem as concentrate on tasks that have the most meaning for them.
falling within a class or category of logical problems 7. Legacy-creating stage (advanced old age) - Near the end
and to define its parameters of life, once reintegration has been completed (or along
3. Process-product shift – ability to see that a problem can be with it), older people may create instructions for the
solved either through a process, with general application to disposition of prized possessions, make funeral
arrangements, provide oral histories, or write their life
 stories as a legacy for their loved ones. All of these tasks
involve the exercise of cognitive competencies within a
social and emotional context
Moral Reasoning
- According to Kohlberg, advancement to the third level of
moral reasoning— fully principled, postconventional
morality—is chiefly a function of experience.
- Most people do not reach this level until their twenties, if ever
Two experiences that spur moral reasoning in young adults are
encountering conflicting values away from home (as may happen
in college or the armed services or in foreign travel) and being
responsible for the welfare of others (as in parenthood)
- Experience may lead adults to reevaluate their criteria for what
is right and fair.
- Some adults spontaneously offer personal experiences as
reasons for their answers to moral dilemmas.
Gender and Moral Reasoning
- Carol Gilligan suggested that a woman’s central moral
dilemma is the conflict between her needs and those of
others
- Gilligan concluded that women think less about abstract
justice and fairness than men do and more about their
responsibilities to specific people
Psychosocial Development
1. Identity Development
- Emerging adulthood offers a moratorium, or time out,
from developmental pressures and the freedom to
experiment with various roles and lifestyles, but it
also represents a turning point during which adult role
commitments gradually crystallize.
- By the end of these years, the self “consolidates
around a set of roles and beliefs that define a
relatively stable adult personality,” and young
adulthood begins.
- Until and unless that task is accomplished,
however, identity confusion may set in
1.1 Recentering - Process that underlies the shift to an
adult identity; Recentering is a three-stage process in
which power, responsibility, and decision making
gradually shift from the family of origin to the
independent young adult
Stage 1 – the beginning of emerging adulthood, the
individual is still embedded in the family of origin, but
expectations for self-reliance and self-directedness begin to
increase
Stage 2 - the individual remains connected to (and may be
financially dependent on) but no longer embedded within the
family of origin
Stage 3 – usually by age 30, the individual moves into
young adulthood; this stage is marked by independence from
the family of origin and commitment to a career, a partner,
and possibly children.
2. Personality Development
2.1 Normative-stage models
- Theoretical models that describe psychosocial
development in terms of a definite sequence of
age-related changes
- changes are normative in that they seem to be
common to most members of a population; and they
emerge in successive periods, or stages, sometimes
marked by emotional crises that pave the way for
further development.
2.2 Timing-of-Events Model
- Theoretical model of personality development that
describes adult psychosocial development as a
response to the expected or unexpected occurrence
and timing of important life events.
➔ Normative life events - commonly expected life
experiences that occur at customary times
➔ Social clocks - Set of cultural norms or expectations
for the times of life when certain important events,
such as marriage, parenthood, entry into work, and
retirement, should occur.
2.3 Trait Model
- Theoretical models of personality development that focus on
mental, emotional, temperamental, and behavioral traits, or
attributes.
- Five-factor model - Theoretical model of personality,
developed and tested by Costa and McCrae, based on the
“Big Five” factors underlying clusters of related personality
traits: neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience,
conscientiousness, and agreeableness.
2.4 Typological Models - Theoretical approach that
identifies broad personality types, or styles.
2.4.1 Ego-resilient - people are well-adjusted:
self-confident, independent, articulate, attentive, helpful,
cooperative, and task-focused.
2.4.2 Overcontrolled - people are shy, quiet, anxious, and
dependable; they tend to keep their thoughts to themselves
and to withdraw from conflict, and they are the most subject
to depression
2.4.3 Undercontrolled - people are active, energetic,
impulsive, stubborn, and easily distracted
Foundations of Intimate Relationships
- Erikson saw the development of intimate relationships as the
crucial task of young adulthood.
- The need to form strong, stable, close, caring relationships is
a powerful motivator of human behavior
Friendship
- Friendships during emerging adulthood may be less stable
than in earlier and later periods because of the frequency
with which people this age relocate
- Friendships in young adulthood tend to center on work and
parenting activities and the sharing of confidences and
advice
- Cohabitation
- Marriage - In most societies, the institution of marriage is
considered the best way to ensure the protection and raisingPuberty
of children
Four (4) perspectives on women’s happiness in marriage:
1. companionate model - holds that egalitarian marriages,
in which both husband and wife share work and family - These dramatic physical changes are part of a long,
responsibilities, are likely to be happiest and the most
intimate.
2. Institutional model - suggests that women are happier in
marriage if they are committed to the traditional
institution of marriage.
3. Equity model - claims that a woman’s perception of
fairness in the marriage, and not the actual division of
labor, affects marital quality
4. Gender model - suggests that women are happiest in
marriages characterized by gender-typical role
Parenthood
- new parents experience some anxiety about the
responsibility of caring for a child, the commitment of
time and energy it entails, and the feeling of permanence
that parenthood imposes on a marriage.
- Pregnancy and the recovery from childbirth can affect a
couple’s relationship, sometimes increasing intimacy and
sometimes creating barriers
- Today women in industrialized societies are having fewer
children and having them later in life, and an increasing
number choose to remain childless.
- Fathers are usually less involved in child raising than
mothers, but more so than in previous generations.
- Marital satisfaction typically declines during the
childbearing years.
- In most cases, the burdens of a dual-earner lifestyle fall
most heavily on the woman.
- Family-friendly workplace policies may help alleviate
marital stress.
Divorce
Adolescence
Adolescence
- a developmental transition that involves physical,
cognitive, emotional, and social changes and takes varying
forms in different social, cultural, and economic settings.
- was no such concept in preindustrial societies; there,
children were considered adults when they matured
physically
- Adolescence offers opportunities for growth, not only in
physical dimensions, but also in cognitive and social
competence, autonomy, self-esteem, and intimacy
Physical Development
-
The biological changes of puberty, which signal the end of
childhood, include rapid growth in height and weight,
changes in body proportions and form, and attainment of
sexual maturity.
complex process of maturation that began before birth, and
their psychological ramifications continue into adulthood
 - Puberty results from heightened production of sex-related
hormones and takes place in two stages:
1. Adrenarche - the maturing of the adrenal glands
2. Gonadarche - the maturing of the sex organs
- sometime around age 7 or 8, the adrenal glands, located
above the kidneys, secrete gradually increasing levels of
androgens, principally dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA).
- DHEA plays a part in the growth of pubic, axillary (armpit),
and facial hair, as well as in faster body growth, oilier skin,
and the development of body odor.
- By age 10, levels of DHEA are 10 times what they were
between ages 1 and 4
- The precise time when this rush of hormonal activity begins
seems to depend on reaching a critical amount of body fat
necessary for successful reproduction.
● Girls with a higher percentage of body fat in early
childhood and those who experience unusual weight
gain between ages 5 and 9 tend to show earlier pubertal
development
Timing, signs and Sequence of Puberty and Sexual
Maturity
- Primary sex characteristics - Organs directly related to
reproduction, which enlarge and mature during adolescence.
- Secondary sex characteristics - Physiological signs of sexual
maturation (such as breast development and growth of body hair)
- Risk taking appears to result from the interaction of two
that do not involve the sex organs.
- The first external signs of puberty typically are breast tissue and
= a socioemotional network that is sensitive to social and
pubic hair in girls and enlargement of the testes in boys
emotional stimuli, such as peer influence
- A girl’s nipples enlarge and protrude, the areolae (the
● The socioemotional network becomes more active at
pigmented areas surrounding the nipples) enlarge, and the
breasts assume first a conical and then a rounded shape.
= a cognitive-control network that regulates responses to stimuli
- Some adolescent boys experience temporary breast
enlargement, much to their distress; this development is
normal and may last up to 18 months.
- Pubic hair, at first straight and silky, eventually becomes
coarse, dark, and curly. It appears in different patterns in
males and females
- The adolescent growth spurt - a rapid increase in height,
weight, and muscle and bone growth that occurs during
puberty—generally begins in girls between ages 9½ and
14½ (usually at about 10) and in boys, between 10½ and
16 (usually at 12 or 13).
- It typically lasts about two years; soon after it ends, the
young person reaches sexual maturity. Both growth
hormone and the sex hormones (androgens and estrogen)
contribute to this normal pubertal growth pattern
- Because girls’ growth spurt usually occurs two years
earlier than that of boys, girls between ages 11 and 13 tend
to be taller, heavier, and stronger than boys the same age.
- After their growth spurt, boys are again larger. Girls
typically reach full height at age 15 and boys at age 17.
The rate of muscular growth peaks at age 12½ for girls
and 14½ for boys
- Boys and girls grow differently, not only in rates of
growth, but also in form and shape. A boy becomes larger
overall: his shoulders wider, his legs longer relative to his
trunk, and his forearms longer relative to his upper arms
and his height.
- A girl’s pelvis widens to make childbearing easier, and
layers of fat accumulate under her skin, giving her a more
rounded appearance. Fat accumulates twice as rapidly in
girls as in boys. Because each of these changes follows its
own timetable, parts of the body may be out of proportion
for a while.
- The maturation of the reproductive organs brings the
beginning of menstruation in girls and the production of
sperm in boys
- The first ejaculation, or spermarche, occurs at an average
age of 13.
● A boy may wake up to find a wet spot or a hardened,
dried spot on the sheets— the result of a nocturnal
emission, an involuntary ejaculation of semen
- The principal sign of sexual maturity in girls is
menstruation, a monthly shedding of tissue from the lining
of the womb.
- The first menstruation, called menarche, occurs fairly late
in the sequence of female development; its normal timing
can vary from age 10 to 16½
The Adolescent Brain
brain networks:
puberty
 ● the cognitive-control network matures more gradually into
early adulthood.
- These findings may help explain teenagers’ tendency toward
emotional outbursts and risky behavior and why risk taking
often occurs in groups
- adolescents process information about emotions differently
than adults do
- Early adolescents (ages 11 to 13) tended to use the
amygdala, a small, almond-shaped structure deep in the
temporal lobe that is heavily involved in emotional and
instinctual reactions.
- Older adolescents (ages 14 to 17) showed more adultlike
patterns, using the frontal lobes, which handle
planning,reasoning, judgment, emotional regulation, and
impulse control and thus permit more accurate, reasoned
judgments.
- This difference might explain early adolescents’ unwise
choices, such as substance abuse and sexual risk taking
Nutrition and Eating Disorders
- Obesity - Overweight teenagers tend to be in poorer health
than their peers and are more likely to have difficulty attending
school, performing household chores, or engaging in strenuous
activity or personal care
- Body Image – descriptive and evaluative beliefs about one’s
appearance
● Because of the normal increase in girls’ body fat during
puberty, many girls, especially if they are advanced in
pubertal development, become unhappy about their
appearance, reflecting the cultural emphasis on female
physical attributes
● Girls’ dissatisfaction with their bodies increases during
early to midadolescence, whereas boys, who are becoming
more muscular, become more satisfied with their bodies
● Anorexia Nervosa - Eating disorder characterized by
self-starvation.
● Bulimia Nervosa - regularly eats huge quantities of food
and then purges the body by laxatives, induced vomiting,
fasting, or excessive exercise
Cognitive Development
Formal Operations Stage - Piaget’s final stage of cognitive
development, characterized by the ability to think abstractly;
They can better appreciate metaphor and allegory and thus can
find richer meanings in literature. They can think in terms of
what might be, not just what is. They can imagine possibilities
and can form and test hypotheses.
- Hypothetical-deductive reasoning – accompany the
stage of formal operations to develop and test
hypotheses
Changes in information processing
- Changes in the way adolescents process information
reflect the maturation of the brain’s frontal lobes and
may help explain the cognitive advances
1. Structural changes
1.1 Changes in working memory capacity
1.2 The increasing amount of knowledge stored in long-term
memory
- Declarative knowledge – acquired factual
knowledge stored in long-term memory
- Procedural knowledge - Acquired skills stored in
long-term memory.
- Conceptual knowledge - Acquired interpretive
understandings stored in long-term memory
2.Functional Change
- Processes for obtaining, handling, and retaining
information are functional aspects of cognition.
- Among these are learning, remembering, and
reasoning, all of which improve during adolescence.
- Among the most important functional changes are
● a continued increase in processing speed
● further development of executive function, which
includes such skills as selective attention, decision
making, inhibitory control of impulsive responses,
and management of working memory
Psychosocial Development
Marcia: Identity Status – Crisis and Commitment
- Identity statuses - Marcia’s term for states of ego
development that depend on the presence or
absence of crisis and commitment.
- Marcia defined crisis as a period of conscious
decision making and commitment as a personal
investment in an occupation or system of beliefs
(ideology)
1. Identity achievement (crisis leading to commitment)
● characterized by commitment to choices made
following a crisis, a period spent in exploring
alternatives.
2. Foreclosure (commitment without crisis)
● a person who has not spent time considering
alternatives (that is, has not been in crisis) is
committed to other people’s plans for his or her life.
 3. Moratorium (crisis with no commitment yet)
● person is currently considering alternatives (in
crisis) and seems headed for commitment.
4. Identity diffusion (no commitment, no crisis)
● characterized by absence of commitment and lack
of serious consideration of alternatives.
Sexuality
- Sexual identity - Seeing oneself as a sexual being,
recognizing one’s sexual orientation, coming to terms with
sexual stirrings, and forming romantic or sexual attachments;
Awareness of sexuality is an important aspect of identity
formation, profoundly affecting self-image and relationships.
Although this process is biologically driven, its expression is
in part culturally defined.
- Sexual Orientation - Focus of consistent sexual, romantic,
and affectionate interest, either heterosexual, homosexual, or
bisexual.
- What people do and how they live has much to do with how
- Middle age can be a time not primarily of decline and loss
Relationships with Family, Peers, and Adult society
- Adolescent rebellion - Pattern of emotional turmoil,
characteristic of a minority of adolescents, which may
involve conflict with family, alienation from adult
society, reckless behavior, and rejection of adult values.
- Adolescents spend an increasing amount of time with
peers, but relationships with parents continue to be
influential.
- Conflict with parents tends to be greatest during early
adolescence. Authoritative parenting is associated with
the most positive outcomes.
- Effects of family structure and maternal employment on
adolescents’ development may depend on such factors as
economic resources, the quality of the home
environment, and how closely parents monitor
adolescents’ whereabouts.
- Relationships with siblings tend to become more distant
during adolescence, and the balance of power between
older and younger siblings becomes more equal.
- The influence of the peer group is strongest in early
adolescence. The structure of the peer group becomes
more elaborate, involving cliques and crowds as well as
friendships.
- Friendships, especially among girls, become more
intimate, stable, and supportive in adolescence.
- Romantic relationships meet a variety of needs and
develop with age and experience
Middle Adulthood
- in chronological terms as the years between ages 40 and
65, but this definition is arbitrary.
- There is no consensus on when middle age begins and
ends or on specific biological or social events that mark
its boundaries
- the experience of middle age varies with health, gender,
race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, cohort, and culture,
as well as with personality, marital and parental status,
and employment
- Many adults in the middle years feel a stable sense of
control over their lives as they handle weighty
responsibilities and multiple, demanding roles: running
households, departments, or enterprises; launching
children; and perhaps caring for aging parents or starting
new careers. Others, having made their mark and raised
their children, have an increased feeling of freedom and
independence.
- Some are at the height of creativity or careers; others
have gotten a slow start or have reached dead ends.
Still others dust off mothballed dreams or pursue new
and more challenging goals.
they age.
but also of mastery, competence, and growth—a time of
reevaluating goals and aspirations and deciding how best to
use the remaining part of the life span.
Physical Development
Physical Changes
- some physiological changes are direct results of biological
aging and genetic makeup, behavioral and lifestyle factors
dating from youth can affect the likelihood, timing, and
extent of physical change.
- health and lifestyle habits in the middle years influence what
happens in the years beyond
- People who lead sedentary lives lose muscle tone and energy
and become even less inclined to exert themselves physically
Sensory and Psychomotor Functioning
- Age-related visual problems occur mainly in five areas: near
vision, dynamic vision (reading moving signs), sensitivity to
light, visual search (for example, locating a sign), and speed
of processing visual information common is a slight loss in
visual acuity, or sharpness of vision. Because of changes in
the pupil of the eye, middle-aged people may need about
one-third more brightness to compensate for the loss of light
reaching the retina
- Because the lens of the eye becomes progressively less
flexible, its ability to shift focus diminishes. This change
usually becomes noticeable in early middle age and is
practically complete by age 60
- Many people ages 40 and older need reading glasses for
presbyopia - a lessened ability to focus on near objects—a
condition associated with aging. (The prefix presby- means
“with age.”)
- The incidence of myopia (nearsightedness) also increases
through middle age
- A gradual hearing loss, rarely noticed earlier in life, speeds
up in the fifties. This condition,
presbycusis, normally is limited to higher-pitched sounds
than those used in speech
- Hearing loss proceeds twice as quickly in men as in women
- a preventable increase in hearing loss is occurring among
45-to 64-year-olds due to continuous or
sudden exposure to noise at work, at loud concerts, through
earphones, and the like
- Sensitivity to taste and smell generally begins to decline
in midlife; As the taste buds become less sensitive and
the number of olfactory cells diminishes, foods may seem
more bland; Women tend to retain these senses longer
than men
- Adults begin to lose sensitivity to touch after age 45, and
to pain after age 50. However, pain’s protective function
remains: Although people feel pain less, they become
less able to tolerate it
- Strength and coordination decline gradually from their
peak during the twenties. Some loss of muscle strength is
usually noticeable by age 45; 10 to 15 percent of
maximum strength may be gone by 60.
- The reason is a loss of muscle fiber, which is replaced by
fat.
- Grip strength reflects birth weight and muscle growth
earlier in life as well as parents’ childhood
socioeconomic status and is an important predictor of
future disability, functional losses, and mortality
- Decline is not inevitable; strength training in middle age
can prevent muscle loss and even regain strength
- Endurance often holds up much better than strength. Loss
of endurance results from a gradual decrease in the rate
of basal metabolism (use of energy to maintain vital
functions) after age 40
- Manual dexterity generally becomes less efficient after
the midthirties
- Simple reaction time (as in pressing a button when a light
flashes) slows very little until about age 50, but choice
reaction time (as in pressing one of four numbered
buttons when the same number appears on a screen)
slows gradually throughout adulthood
Structural and Systematic Changes
- Changes in appearance may become noticeable during
the middle years.
- By the fifth or sixth decade, the skin may become less
taut and smooth as the layer of fat below the surface
becomes thinner, collagen molecules more rigid, and
elastin fibers more brittle.
- Hair may become thinner, due to a slowed replacement
rate, and grayer as production of melanin, the pigmenting
agent, declines.
- Middle-aged people tend to gain weight as a result of
accumulation of body fat and lose height due to
shrinkage of the intervertebral disks
- Bone density normally peaks in the twenties or thirties.
From then on, people typically experience some bone
loss as more calcium is absorbed than replaced, causing
bones to become thinner and more brittle. Bone loss
accelerates in the fifties and sixties; it occurs twice as
rapidly in women as in men, sometimes leading to
osteoporosis
- Smoking, alcohol use, and a poor diet earlier in
adulthood tend to speed bone loss; it can be slowed by
aerobic exercise, resistance training with weights,
increased calcium intake, and vitamin C.
- Joints may become stiffer as a result of accumulated
stress. Exercises that expand range of motion and
strengthen the muscles supporting a joint can improve
functioning
- Large proportions of middle-aged and even older adults
show little or no decline in organ functioning
- In some, however, the heart begins to pump more slowly
and irregularly in the midfifties; by 65, it may lose up to
40 percent of its aerobic power. Arterial walls may
become thicker and more rigid.
Heart disease becomes more common beginning in the late
forties or early fifties.
Vital capacity —the maximum volume of air the lungs can
draw in and expel—may begin to diminish at about age 40 and
may drop by as much as 40 percent by age 70.
- Temperature regulation and immune response may begin to
weaken, and sleep may become less deep
- Although both sexes experience losses in reproductive capacity
sometime during middle adulthood—women become unable to
bear children and men’s fertility begins to decline—sexual
enjoyment can continue throughout adult life

Menopause
- Cessation of menstruation and of ability to bear children
- takes place when a woman permanently stops ovulating and Changes in Male Sexual Functioning
menstruating and can no longer conceive a child; it is - Men have no experience quite comparable to menopause.
generally considered to have occurred one year after the last They do not undergo a sudden drop in hormone
menstrual period. This happens, on average, at about age 50 production at midlife, as women do, and they can
to 52 continue to reproduce until late in life.
- Menopause is not a single event but a process, now called - Men do seem to have a biological clock, however.
the menopausal transition Testosterone levels decrease slowly after the
● Beginning in her midthirties to midforties, a woman’s thirties—about 1 percent a year, with wide individual
production of mature ova begins to decline, and the variations
ovaries produce less of the female hormone estrogen. - Men’s sperm count declines with age, making conception
● the period of three to five years during which this less likely. The genetic quality of the sperm declines as
slowing of hormone production and ovulation occurs, well
prior to and during the first year after menopause, is - The decline in testosterone has been associated with
called perimenopause reductions in bone density and muscle mass as well as
** Period of several years during which a woman decreased energy, lower sex drive, overweight, emotional
experiences physiological changes of menopause; irritability, and depressed mood
includes first year after end of menstruation; also - Low testosterone also has been linked to diabetes and
called climacteric cardiovascular disease and may increase mortality
** During perimenopause, menstruation becomes - A drop in testosterone levels does not necessarily mean
irregular, with less flow than before and a longer an end to sexual activity.
time between menstrual periods, before it ceases - However, some middle-aged and older men experience
altogether. erectile dysfunction (popularly called impotence)
** The timing of menopause varies greatly, but ● Inability of a man to achieve or maintain an erect penis
most women experience it between ages 45 and 55 sufficient for satisfactory sexual performance.
- Short-term, low-dose administration of artificial estrogen is ● Diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, kidney
the most effective way to alleviate hot flashes, but it carries failure, depression, neurological disorders, and many
serious risks chronic diseases are associated with erectile
dysfunction.
● Alcohol, drugs, smoking, poor sexual techniques, lack
of knowledge, unsatisfying relationships, anxiety, and
stress can be contributing factors

Sexual Activity
- Frequency of sexual activity and satisfaction with sex life
do tend to diminish gradually during the forties and
fifties
 - Possible physical causes include chronic disease, surgery,
medications, and too much food or alcohol.
- However, a decline in frequency has nonphysiologically
causes: monotony in a relationship
- may have less energy than in their youth and are likely to
experience occasional or chronic pains and fatigue. They
can no longer stay awake late with ease.
- They are more likely to contract certain diseases, such as
hypertension and diabetes, and they take longer to
recover from illness or extreme exertion
Hypertension - Chronically high blood pressure.
Diabetes - Disease in which the body does not produce or
properly use insulin, a hormone that converts sugar, starches, and
other foods into energy needed for daily life.
- As in young adulthood, nutrition, smoking, alcohol and drug
use, and physical activity continue to affect health in middle
age and beyond.
- People who do not smoke, exercise regularly, drink alcohol
only in moderation, and eat plenty of fruits and vegetables
have four times less mortality risk in midlife and old
age—equivalent to 14 years’ difference—than people who do
not follow those behaviors
- Excess weight in middle age increases the risk of impaired
health and death, even in healthy people and those who have
never smoked
Socioeconomic Status and Health
- Social inequalities continue to affect health in middle age.
- People with low socioeconomic status tend to have poorer
health, shorter life expectancy, more activity limitations due
to chronic disease, lower well-being, and more restricted
access to health care than people with higher SES
- In part, the reasons for the connection between SES and
health may be psychosocial.
● People with low SES tend to have more negative
emotions and thoughts and live in more stressful
environments.
● People with higher SES tend to have a greater sense of
control over what happens to them as they age; they
tend to choose healthier lifestyles and seek medical
attention and social support when they need it
- Men are less likely to seek professional help for health
problems, but they have longer hospital stays, and their
health problems are more likely to be chronic and
life-threatening
- Women’s greater tendency to seek medical care does not
necessarily mean that they are in worse health than men,
nor that they are imagining ailments or are preoccupied
with illness.
- They may simply be more health conscious. Women
devote more effort to maintaining their health
- Men may feel that admitting illness is not masculine, and
seeking help means a loss of control
- It may well be that the better care women take of
themselves helps them live longer than men
- Women are at increased risk after menopause,
particularly for osteoporosis, breast cancer, and heart
disease.
- With longer life spans, women in many developed
countries now can expect to live half their adult lives
after menopause. As a result, increasing attention is being
paid to women’s health issues at this time of life
- In women, bone loss rapidly accelerates in the first five
to ten years after menopause as levels of estrogen, which
helps in calcium absorption, fall.
- Extreme bone loss may lead to osteoporosis (“porous
bones”), a condition in which the bones become thin and
brittle as a result of calcium depletion.
- Common signs of osteoporosis are marked loss in height
and a hunchbacked posture that results from compression
and collapse of a weakened spinal column.

Gender and Health

- We know that women have a higher life expectancy than
men and lower death rates throughout life
- Women’s greater longevity has been attributed to genetic
protection given by the second X chromosome (which men
do not have) and, before menopause, to beneficial effects of
the female hormone estrogen, particularly on cardiovascular
health
- However, psychosocial and cultural factors, such as men’s
greater propensity for risk taking, also may play a part
- Despite their longer life, women are more likely than men to
report being in fair or poor health,
and they go to doctors or seek outpatient or emergency room
care more often.
Hormone Therapy - Treatment with artificial estrogen,
sometimes in combination with the hormone progesterone,
to relieve or prevent symptoms caused by decline in estrogen
levels after menopause
- Stress (Response to physical or psychological demands) is
the damage that occurs when perceived environmental
demands, or stressors, exceed a person’s capacity to cope
with them
- The body’s capacity to adapt to stress involves the brain,
which perceives danger (either real or imagined); the adrenal
glands, which mobilize the body to fight it; and the immune
system, which provides the defenses
- Middle-aged people may be better equipped to cope with
stress than people in other age groups
- They have a better sense of what they can do to change
stressful circumstances and may be better able to accept
what cannot be changed.
- They also have learned more effective strategies for avoiding
or minimizing stress
- Women tend to report more extreme stress than men (35
percent compared to 28 percent) and to be more concerned
about stress
- Women’s response pattern is more typically tend and
befriend—nurturant activities that promote safety, and
reliance on social networks to exchange resources and
responsibilities.
● These patterns, activated by oxytocin and other female
reproductive hormones, may have evolved through
natural selection and may draw on women’s
involvement in attachment and caregiving
- Daily stressors—irritations, frustrations, and
overloads—may be less severe in their impact than life
changes, but their buildup also can affect health and
emotional adjustment
- Stress is under increasing scrutiny as a factor in such
age-related diseases as hypertension, heart ailments, stroke,
diabetes, osteoporosis, peptic ulcers, depression, HIV/AIDS,
and cancer
- Distinct types of stressors affect the immune system
differently.
- Acute, or short-term, stress, such as the challenge of taking
a test or speaking before an audience, strengthens the
immune system; but intense or prolonged stress, such as
results from poverty or disability, can weaken or break it
down, increasing susceptibility to illness
- Stress may harm health indirectly, through other lifestyle
factors.
- People under stress may sleep less, smoke and drink more,
eat poorly, and pay too little attention to their health even
though regular exercise, good nutrition, at least seven hours
of sleep a night, and frequent socializing are associated with
lower stress
- Middle-aged adults are more likely than younger or older
adults to suffer from serious psychological distress: extreme
sadness, nervousness, restlessness, hopelessness, and
feelings of worthlessness much of the time.
- Adults with serious psychological distress are more likely
than their peers to be diagnosed with heart disease, diabetes,
arthritis, or stroke and to report needing help with activities
of daily living, such as bathing and dressing
Cognitive Development
Measuring Cognitive Abilities
(Schaie: The Seattle Longitudinal Study)
- Cognitively speaking, in many respects middle-aged
people are in their prime
- h both gains and losses occurred, several abilities peaked
during middle age, and verbal meaning improved into old
age.
- Only 13 to 17 percent of adults declined in number,
memory recall, or verbal fluency between ages 39 and
53.
- Although most participants showed remarkable stability,
one might decline early, while another might show great
plasticity
- most participants in the Seattle study showed no
significant reduction in most abilities until after age 60,
and then not in most areas.
- Individuals who scored highest tended to have high
educational levels, to have flexible personalities, to be in
intact families, to pursue cognitively complex
occupations and other activities, to be married to
someone more cognitively advanced, and to be satisfied
with their accomplishments
Horn and Cattell: Fluid and Crystallized Intelligence
- 1. Fluid Intelligence - Type of intelligence, proposed by
Horn and Cattell, that is applied to novel problems and
is relatively independent of educational and cultural
influences; the ability to solve novel problems that
require little or no previous knowledge, such as
discovering the pattern in a sequence of figures.
- 2. Crystallized Intelligence - Type of intelligence,
proposed by Horn and Cattell, involving the ability to
remember and use learned information; it is largely
dependent on education and culture; the ability to
remember and use information acquired over a lifetime,
such as finding a synonym for a word. It is measured by
tests of vocabulary, general information, and responsesn
to social situations and dilemmas, abilities that depend
largely on education and cultural experience.
- fluid intelligence has been found to peak in young
adulthood, whereas crystallized intelligence improves
through middle age and often until near the end of life
The Distinctiveness of Adult Cognition
1. The Role of Expertise
- Advances in expertise continue at least through
middle adulthood and are relatively independent of
 general intelligence and of and declines in the
brain’s information-processing machinery.
- With experience, it has been suggested, information
processing and fluid abilities become encapsulated, or
dedicated to specific kinds of knowledge, making that
knowledge easier to access, add to, and use.
- In other words, encapsulation captures fluid abilities for
expert problem solving. Thus, although middle-aged
people may take somewhat longer than younger people to
process new information, in solving problems in their
own fields they more than compensate with judgment
developed from experience
- Experts notice different aspects of a situation than
novices do, and they process information and solve
problems differently. Their thinking is often more
flexible and adaptable.
- They assimilate and interpret new knowledge more
efficiently by referring to a rich, highly organized
storehouse of mental representations of what they already
know. They sort information on the basis of underlying
principles, rather than surface similarities and
differences. And they are more aware of what they do not
know
- Expert thinking often seems automatic and intuitive.
Experts generally are not fully aware of the thought
processes that lie behind their
- They cannot readily explain how they arrive at a
conclusion or where a nonexpert has gone wrong. Such
intuitive, experience based thinking is also characteristic
of what has been called postformal thought
2. Integrative Thought
- Mature adults integrate logic with intuition and emotion;
they integrate conflicting facts and ideas; and they
integrate new information with what they already know.
- They interpret what they read, see, or hear in terms of its
meaning for them. Instead of accepting something at face
value, they filter it through their life experience and
previous learning.
3. Creativity
- Many creative people have reached their greatest
achievements in middle age.
- Children may show creative potential; but in adults, what
counts is creative performance: what, and how much, a
creative mind produces
- Creativity develops in a social context, and not
necessarily in nurturing environments. Instead, it seems
to emerge from diverse experiences that weaken
conventional
4. Work and Education
- A shift away from early retirement and toward
more flexible options is occurring.
- Complex work may improve cognitive flexibility.
- Many adults go to college at a nontraditional age or
participate in other educational activities, often to
improve work-related skills and knowledge.
- Mature adults have special educational needs and
strengths. constraints and from challenging
experiences that strengthen the ability to persevere
and overcome obstacles
Psychosocial Development
1. Change at Midlife: Theoretical Approaches
- In psychosocial terms, middle adulthood once was
considered a relatively settled period.
- Freud (1906/1942) saw no point in psychotherapy
for people over 50 because he believed
personality is permanently formed by that age.
- Humanistic theorists such as Abraham Maslow
and Carl Rogers looked on middle age as an
opportunity for positive change. According to
Maslow (1968), the full realization of human
potential, which he called self-actualization, can
come only with maturity.
- Rogers (1961) held that full human functioning
requires a constant, lifelong process of bringing
the self in harmony with experience.
2. Trait Model
- Costa and McCrae’s trait research, which
originally claimed continuity or consistency of
personality after age 30 in the Big Five trait
groupings— neuroticism (anxiety, hostility,
instability), extraversion, openness to experience,
conscientiousness, and agreeableness—has now
acknowledged slower change during the middle
and older years as well
- In middle age, conscientiousness, for example,
tends to show remarkable gains apparently
attendant on work experience, while emotional
stability continues the steady upward climb begun
in young adulthood.
- People tend to become more socially
mature—confident, warm, responsible, and
calm—as they move through the prime of life, and
maturity in turn enables them to be more
productive contributors at work and to society and
to lead longer and healthier lives
 3. Normative-Stage Models
● Carl G. Jung: Individuation and Transcendence
- Individuation - Jung’s term for emergence of the
true self through balancing or integration of
conflicting parts of the personality.
- Until about age 40, said Jung, adults concentrate on
obligations to family and society and develop
aspects of personality that will help them reach
external goals.
- Women emphasize expressiveness and nurturance;
men are primarily oriented toward achievement.
- At midlife, people shift their preoccupation to their
inner, spiritual, selves. Both men and women seek a
union of opposites by expressing their previously
disowned aspects.
- Two necessary but difficult tasks of midlife are
giving up the image of youth and acknowledging
mortality.
- According to Jung (1966), the need to acknowledge
mortality requires a search for meaning within the
self. This inward turn may be unsettling; as people
question their commitments, they may temporarily
lose their moorings
● Erik Erikson: Generativity versus Stagnation
- In contrast to Jung, who saw midlife as a time of
turning inward, Erikson described an outward turn.
- Erikson saw the years around age 40 as the time
when people enter their seventh normative stage,
generativity versus stagnation.
- generativity versus stagnation - Erikson’s seventh
stage of psychosocial development, in which the
middle-aged adult develops a concern with
establishing, guiding, and influencing the next
generation or else experiences stagnation (a sense
of inactivity or lifelessness); The virtue of this
period is care: “a widening commitment to take
care of the persons, the products, and the ideas one
has learned to care for
- generativity - Erikson’s term for concern of mature
adults for establishing, guiding, and influencing the
next generation.
- Generativity, according to Erikson, is “a sign of
both psychological maturity and psychological
health”
- It typically emerges during midlife because the
demands of work and family during this period call
for generative responses. Highly generative parents
tend to be more involved in their children’s
schooling than those who are less generative and
tend to have authoritative parenting styles
● Jung’s and Erikson’s Legacy: Vaillant and
Levinson
- Vaillant, like Jung, reported a lessening of gender
differentiation at midlife and a tendency for men to
become more nurturant and expressive.
- Likewise, Levinson’s men at midlife became less
obsessed with personal achievement and more
concerned with relationships; and they showed
generativity by becoming mentors to younger
people
4. Timing of Events: The Social Clock
- Middle age often brings a restructuring of social
roles: launching children, becoming grandparents,
changing jobs or careers, and eventually,
retirement.
5. The Self at Midlife: Issues and Themes
- Many people feel and observe personality change
occurring at midlife. Whether we look at
middle-aged people objectively, in terms of their
outward behavior, or subjectively, in terms of how
they describe themselves, certain issues and themes
emerge
- Midlife crisis - In some normative-crisis models,
stressful life period precipitated by the review and
reevaluation of one’s past, typically occurring in
the early to middle forties; The midlife crisis was
conceptualized as a crisis of identity; indeed, it has
been called a second adolescence
** midlife is just one of life’s turning points
—psychological transitions that involve
significant change or transformation in the
perceived meaning, purpose, or direction of a
person’s life. Turning points may be triggered by
major life events, normative changes, or a new
understanding of past experience, either positive
or negative, and they may be stressful
- The midlife review can be a time of stocktaking,
yielding new insights into the self and spurring
midcourse corrections in the design and trajectory
of one’s life.
** Along with recognition of the finiteness of
life, a midlife review may bring regret over
failure to achieve a dream or keener awareness of
developmental deadlines —time constraints on,
say, the ability to have a child or to make up with
an estranged friend or family member

** People high in neuroticism are more likely to
experience midlife crises
** People with ego-resiliency —the ability to adapt
flexibly and resourcefully to potential
sources of stress—and those who have a sense of
mastery and control are more likely to navigate the
midlife crossing successfully
6. Identity development
● Susan Krauss Whitbourne: Identity Processes
- identity process theory (IPT) Whitbourne’s theory of
identity development based on processes of
assimilation and accommodation.
- Perceived physical characteristics, cognitive abilities,
and personality traits (“I am sensitive” or “I am
stubborn”) are incorporated into identity schemas.
- These self-perceptions are continually confirmed or
revised in response to incoming information, which can
come from intimate relationships, work-related
situations, community activities, and other experiences.
- identity assimilation - Whitbourne’s term for effort to
fit new experience into an existing self-concept.
- identity accommodation - Whitbourne’s term for
adjusting the self-concept to fit new experience.
- People who constantly assimilate are inflexible and do
not learn from experience. People who constantly
accommodate are weak and highly vulnerable to
criticism; their identity is easily undermined.
● Narrative Psychology: Identity as a Life Story
- The field of narrative psychology views the
development of the self as a continuous process of
constructing one’s life story—a dramatic narrative,
or personal myth, to help make sense of one’s life
and connect the past and present with the future
- This evolving story provides a person with a
“narrative identity”.
- narrative psychologists view identity itself as this
internalized script or story. People follow the script
they have created as they act out their identity
- Midlife often is a time for revision of the life story
or a break in the continuity and coherence of the
story line
- people’s scripts tend to reflect their personalities
- Highly generative adults tend to construct
generativity scripts. These scripts often feature a
theme of redemption, or deliverance from suffering,
and are associated with psychological well-being
● Gender I dentity and Gender Roles
- Traditional gender roles, according to Gutmann,
evolved to ensure the well-being of growing
children: The mother must be the caregiver, the
father the provider.
- Once active parenting is over, there is not just a
balancing but a reversal of roles—a gender
crossover - Gutmann’s term for reversal of gender
roles after the end of active parenting.
- Men, now free to explore their previously repressed
feminine side, become more passive; women, free to
explore their masculine side, become more
dominant and independent.
7. Psychological well-being and positive mental
health
● Emotionality, Personality, and Age
- positive emotionality (such as cheerfulness)
increases, on average, among men but falls among
women in middle age and then rises sharply for both
sexes, but especially men, in late adulthood.
- The general trends in positive and negative
emotionality seem to suggest that as people age,
they tend to have learned to accept what comes and
to regulate their emotions effectively
- Only physical health had a consistent impact on
emotionality in adults of all ages, but two other
factors—marital status and education—had
significant impacts in middle age.
- Married people at midlife tended to report more
positive emotion and less negative emotion than
unmarried people.
- People with higher education reported more positive
emotion and less negative emotional—but only
when stress, which tends to be high at midlife, was
controlled
● Life satisfaction and age
- most adults of all ages, both sexes, and all races
report being satisfied with their lives
- One reason for this general finding of life
satisfaction is that the positive emotions associated
with pleasant memories tend to persist, whereas the
negative feelings associated with unpleasant
memories fade.
- Most people have good coping skills, After either
especially happy or distressing events, such as
marriage or divorce, they generally adapt, and
subjective well-being returns to, or close to, its
previous level
 ● Carol Ryff: Multiple Dimensions of
Well-Being
- The six dimensions are self acceptance, positive
relations with others, autonomy, environmental
mastery, purpose in life, and personal growth
- They make their own decisions and regulate their
behavior, and they choose or shape environments
compatible with their needs. They have goals that make
their lives meaningful, and they strive to explore and
develop themselves as fully as possible
8. Relationships at Midlife
8.1 Theories of Social Construct
● social convoy theory
- proposed by Kahn and Antonucci, that people move
through life surrounded by concentric circles of
intimate relationships on which they rely for assistance,
well-being, and social support.
- Although convoys usually show long-term stability,
their composition can change.
- At one time, bonds with siblings may be more
significant; at another time, ties with friends
- Middle-aged people in industrialized countries tend to
have the largest convoys because they are likely to be
married, to have children, to have living parents, and to
be in the workforce unless they have retired early
- Women’s convoys, particularly the inner circle, tend
to be larger than men’s
● socioemotional selectivity theory
- proposed by Carstensen, that people select social
contacts on the basis of the changing relative
importance of social interaction as a source of
information, as an aid in developing and
maintaining a self-concept, and as a source of
emotional well-being.
** According to Carstensen, social interaction has
three main goals:
1. It is a source of information;
2. it helps people develop and maintain a sense of
self;
3. it is a source of pleasure and comfort, or
emotional well-being.
- In infancy, the third goal, the need for emotional
support, is paramount.
- From childhood through young adulthood,
information-seeking comes to the fore.
- As young people strive to learn about their society
and their place in it, strangers may well be the best
sources of knowledge.
- By middle age, although information-seeking
remains important, the original, emotion-regulating
function of social contacts begins to reassert itself.
In other words, middle-aged people increasingly
seek out others who make them feel good
8.2 Consensual Relationships
- a dip in marital satisfaction during the years of child
rearing, followed by an improved relationship after
the children leave home.
- Cohabitation in midlife may negatively affect men’s
but not women’s well-being.
- Divorce at midlife is relatively uncommon but is
increasing; it can be stressful and life-changing.
Marital capital tends to dissuade midlife divorce.
- Divorce today may be less threatening to well-being
in middle age than in young adulthood.
- Married people tend to be happier at middle age
than people with any other marital status.
- Because some gays and lesbians delayed coming
out, at midlife they may be just establishing intimate
relationships.
- Middle-aged people tend to invest less time in
friendships than younger adults do but depend on
friends for emotional support and practical guidance.
- Friendships may have special importance for gays and
lesbians.
8.3 Relationships with Maturing Children
- Parents of adolescents have to come to terms with a
loss of control over their children’s lives.
- The emptying of the nest is liberating for most women
but may be stressful for couples whose identity is
dependent on the parental role or those who now must
face previously submerged marital problems.
** empty nest - Transitional phase of parenting
following the last child’s leaving the parents’ home.
- Middle-aged parents tend to remain involved with their
adult children, and most are generally happy with the
way their children turned out. Conflict may arise over
grown children’s need to be treated as adults and
parents’ continuing concern about them.
- Today, more young adults are delaying departure from
their childhood home or are returning to it, sometimes
with their own families. Adjustment tends to be
smoother if the parents see the adult child as moving
toward autonomy.
- With the lengthening of the life span, some
developmental scientists have proposed a new
life stage called filial maturity, when middle-aged
children “learn to accept and to meet
their parents’ dependency needs”
** filial maturity - Stage of life, proposed by
Marcoen and others, in which middle-aged children,
as the outcome of a filial crisis, learn to accept and
meet their parents’ need to depend on them.
- This normative development is seen as the
healthy outcome of a, in which adults learn to
balance love and duty to their parents wifilial
crisisth autonomy within a two-way
relationship.
** filial crisis - In Marcoen’s terminology,
normative development of middle age, in which
adults learn to balance love and duty to their parents
with autonomy within a two-way relationship.
- Most middle-aged people willingly accept their
obligations to their parents
- sandwich generation - Middle-aged adults squeezed
by competing needs to raise or launch children and to
care for elderly parents.
- caregiver burnout - Condition of physical, mental,
and emotional exhaustion affecting adults who
provide continuous care for sick or aged persons
- kinship care - Care of children living without
parents in the home of grandparents or other
relatives, with or without a change of legal custody
LATE ADULTHOOD
The Graying of the Population - An aging population
result from declines in fertility accompanied by
economic growth, better nutrition, healthier lifestyles,
improved control of infectious disease, safer water and
sanitation facilities, and advances in science,
technology, and medicine
- The fastest growing age group worldwide are
people in their eighties and older
Young Old to Oldest Old
● Primary Aging - gradual, inevitable process of
bodily deterioration throughout the life span
● Secondary Aging - aging process that result from
disease and bodily abuse and disuse and are often
preventable
- Health and longevity are closely linked to
education and other aspects of SES
Current studies have three groups of older adults
1. Young old – 65 years old to 74 years old
2. Old old – 75 years old to 84 years old
3. Oldest old – 85 and above
Functional Age - A more meaningful classification of
age. Measure of a person’s ability to function
effectively in their physical and social environment
compared with others of the same chronological age
Example: a 90 year old is still in good health and
is more functional than a person who is 65 years
old
Gerontology - The study of the aged and aging process
Geriatrics - Branch of medicine concerned with aging
PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
● Longevity and Aging
Life Expectancy - Age to which a person in a
particular cohort is statistically likely to love on the
basis of average longevity of a population
Longevity - Length of an individual’s life
Life Span - The longest period that members of a
species can live

● Factor affecting Life Expectancy
Gender
- Women typically live longer than men
- Women’s longer lives are attributed to their greater
tendency to take care of themselves and see medical
care
- Estrogen is linked in helping women protect against
heart disease and strengthens their immune system
Regional and Racial / Ethnic Difference
- More than 6 out of 10 people in developed countries,
but only 3 out of 10 in developing countries live to
their 70th birthdays
● Why People Age
Senescenc
- A period marked by obvious declines in body
functioning associated with aging
- The rhythm of the heart tends to be slower and
irregular. Deposits of fat accumulate around the heart
and may interfere with functioning, and blood
pressure often rise as well as they once did
Reserve Capacity
- also called organ reserve is the ability of body organs
that helps the systems function to their utmost limits
in times of stress
- With age, this tends to drop and many older people
cannot respond to extra physical demands as well as
they once did
The Aging Brain
- The brain gradually diminishes in volume and weight,
particularly in the frontal cortex which controls
executive functions
** Loss of executive function may lessen the ability
to inhibit irrelevant or unwanted thoughts that may
cause older adults to talk too much about matters
apparently unconnected to the topic.
** The amygdala shows lessened response to
negative, but not positive events
- Decrease of dopamine neurotransmitters due to losses
of synapse, this causes slowed response time.
- Myelin sheaths begins to thin out and this is
associated with cognitive and motor declines

Sensory and Psychomotor Functioning

Physical Changes
- Paler and less elastic skin
- Fat and muscle shrink
- Wrinkles
- Formation of varicose veins
- Hair thinning and graying, eventually turning to
white
- Becomes shorter due to spinal vertebrae atrophy
- Chemical composition of bones changes creating
greater risk of fractures
Organic and Systematic Changes
- Changes in organic and systematic functioning are
highly variable – some body systems decline rapidly -
while others hardly at all
- Aging, mixed with chronic stress, depresses immune
function making older people susceptible to
respiratory infections
- The digestive system remains relatively efficient
- Individual differences in sensory and motor
functioning increase with age
- Older eyes need more light to see, are more sensitive
to glare, and may have trouble locating and reading
signs
- Older adults may have difficulty with depth/color
perception (eg., difficulty in reading, shopping)
- Difficulty in reading tiny and light print
- Hearing impairments increase with age
Sleep and Sexual Functioning
- Older people tend to sleep less and dream less
- Their hours of deep sleep are more restricted and they
may awaken more easily because of physical
problems or exposure to light
In late adulthood, men takes longer to develop
erection and to ejaculate, may need more manual
stimulation, and may experience longer intervals
between erections
- Women’s breast engorgement and other signs of
sexual arousal are less intense than before
 Chronic Conditions and Disabilities
- Hypertension
- Diabetes
- Arthritis
- Heart disease
- Cancer
** Women are more likely to report hypertension,
asthma, chronic bronchitis, and arthritis
**Men are more likely to have heart disease, stroke,
cancer, diabetes, and emphysema
- Depression
- Dementia – deterioration in cognitive and behavioral
functioning due to physiological causes
- Alzheimer’s disease – progressive, irreversible,
degenerative brain disorder characterized by
cognitive deterioration and loss of control of bodily
function, leading to death
- Parkinson’s Disease - progressive, irreversible,
degenerative brain disorder characterized by tremor,
stiffness, slowed movement, and unstable posture
COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
Intelligence and Processing Abilities
- Some abilities (eg., speed of mental processes and
abstract reasoning) may decline but other abilities
tend to improve
- The impact of cognitive changes is influenced by
earlier cognitive ability, SES, and educational status
- The effectiveness of everyday problem solving
remains stable from young adulthood until late life
and then declines
- Older adults solves interpersonal problems more
effectively
- A general slowdown in central nervous system
functioning is a major contributor to losses of
efficiency of information processing and changes in
cognitive abilities
- Speed of processing, the first abilities to decline, is
related to health status, balance, and gait and
performance of daily activities
Memory
- Failing memory is often considered a sign of aging
- Older adults tend to be less efficient and precise in
encoding new information to make it easier to
remember
- There are hypothesis stating that stored memories
may deteriorate to the point where retrieval becomes
difficult or impossible
- Older adults have more trouble with recall and
recognitiion
PSYCHOSOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
Erikson: Normative Issues and Tasks
- According to normative-stage theorists, growth
depends on carrying out the psychological tasks of
each stage of life in an emotionally healthy way
- The crowning achievement of late adulthood is ego
integrity
- Ego Integrity – also known as integrity of the self
is an achievement based on reflection about one’s
life itself. Accepting the life one has lived without
regrets
Erikson: Normative Issues and Tasks
● Ego Integrity vs despair
- older adults need to evaluate and accept their lives
so as to accept death.
- Building on the outcomes of the seven previous
stages, they struggle to achieve a sense of coherence
and wholeness, rather than despair over their
inability to relive the past differently
- Although integrity must outweigh despair, it is
inevitable to experience it. People need to mourn
not only for their own misfortunes and lost chances
but for the vulnerability and transience of human
condition
- People who succeed in this final task gain a sense of
meaning in their lives within the larger social order
and the virtue of wisdom develops
** Wisdom – an informed and detached concern
with life itself in the face of death itself. Accepting
the life one has lived without regrets
The Five-Factor Model: Personality Traits in Old
Age
- There are contrasting studies regarding the stability
and change in personality with regards to using the
Five-Factor Personality Test by McCrae and Costa.
** Some studies indicate change in certain aspects
(eg., Neuroticism) while results show that
personality becomes more rigid in old age
- Negative emotions (eg., restlessness, boredom)
decrease with age whereas positive emotion (eg.,
excitement, interest) remain stable until late life
Coping and Mental Health
- Coping – adaptive thinking or behavior aimed at
reducing or relieving stress that arises from harmful,
threatening or challening conditions
 - In order to age successfully a person must remain
1. Adaptive Defenses by George Vaillant as active as possible
- Older adults show the best psychosocial adjustment
when, during earlier adulthood, had used mature 3. Continuity Theory
adaptive defenses as altruism, humor, suppression, - Proposed by Atchley
anticipation, and sublimation - In order to age successfully people must
- Adaptive defenses enable people to change their maintain a balance of continuity and change in
perceptions of realities that the are powerless to both the internal and external structures of their
change. These are unconscious or intuitive lives

2. Cognitive-Appraisal Model by Lazarus and 4. Selective Optimization with Compensation (SOC)

Folkman
- People choose appropriate coping strategies to deal
with situations that tax their normal resources as a
result of their constant appraisal of their environment
and relationships
** Problem-focused coping – directed toward
eliminating, managing, or improving a stressful
situation
** Emotion-focused coping – directed toward
managing the emotional response to a stressful
situation to lessen the physical and psychological
impact
Religion and Spirituality
- Religion becomes increasingly important to many
people as they age and it plays a supportive role for
many
- This may be due to it being a social support,
encouragement of healthy lifestyles, the perception
of a measure of control over life though prayer,
fostering of positive emotional states, reduction of
stress, and faith in God as a way of interpreting
misfortunes
- Enhancing over all cognitive functioning by
using stronger abilities to compensate for those
that have weakened
- SOC enables adults to conserve resources by
selecting fewer and more meaningful activities
on which to focus their efforts; optimizing or
making the most of the resources they have to
achieve their goals; and compensating for
losses of mobilizing resources in alternative
was
Theories of Social Contact and Social Support
1. Social Convoy Theory – aging adults
maintain their level of social support by
identifying members of their social network
who can help them and avoiding those who are
not supportive
2. Socioemotional Selectivity Theory – older
adults choose to spend time with people and on
activities that meet immediate emotional needs

Models of “successful” or “optimal” aging

● Main components of successful aging
1. Avoidance of disease or disease-related disability
2. Maintenance of high physical and cognitive
functioning
3. Sustained, active engagement in social and
productive activities

● Current theories on aging

1. Disengagement Theory
- Proposed by Cumming and Henry
- Successful aging is characterized by mutual
withdrawal of the older person and society
2. Activity Theory
- Proposed by Neugarten