Chapter 8: Problem 4
Describe risk factors and preventive measures for heart disease and cancer in middle adulthood.
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Chapter 8: Problem 4
Describe risk factors and preventive measures for heart disease and cancer in middle adulthood.
These are the key concepts you need to understand to accurately answer the question.
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Describe how aging affects memory and how memory can be improved. Memory may appear to decline in middle age, but, in fact, long-term memory deficits are probably as a result of ineffective strategies of storage and retrieval. People categorize and interpret new information according to the schemas they have developed about how the world is organized and operates. Mnemonics help people organize material in ways that improve recall. These formal strategies include getting organized, visualizing, rehearsing paying attention, and using the encoding specificity phenomenon.
Analyze changes in the nature and use of intelligence in middle adulthood. The question of whether intelligence declines in middle adulthood is complicated by limitations in cross-sectional studies and longitudinal studies. Intelligence appears to be divided into components, some of which decline, whereas others hold steady or even improve. In general, cognitive competence in middle adulthood holds fairly steady despite declines in some areas of intellectual functioning. Many people develop strategies to optimize their intellectual performance as they age, often concentrating on particular skill areas to make up for declines in other areas, a process called selective optimization with compensation. Expertise the skill or knowledge acquired in a particular area-develops as people devote attention and practice to a subject or skill and, in so doing, gain experience.
Describe the physical changes that affect people in middle adulthood.
Explain varied perspectives on personality development during middle adulthood. Traditional views of adult personality development have suggested that people move through a fixed series of stages, each tied closely to age. These stages are related to specific crises in which an individual undergoes an intense period of questioning and psy* chological turmoil. This perspective is a feature of the normative-crisis models of personality development. Normative- crisis models see personality development as universal stages of sequential, age-related crises. For example, Erik Erikson's psychosocial theory predicts that people move through a series of stages and crises throughout their life span. Some critics suggest that normative-crisis approaches may be outmoded. They arose at a time when society had fairly rigid and uniform roles for people. Traditionally, men were expected to work and support a family; women were expected to stay at home and take care of the children. These roles played out at relatively uniform ages. Today, there is considerable variety in both the roles and the timing. Some people marry and have children at \(40 .\) Others have children and marry later. Others never marry and live with a partner of the same or opposite sex and perhaps adopt a child or forgo children altogether. In sum, social changes have called into question the normative-crisis models closely tied to age (Fugate \& Mitchell, 1997; Barnett \&c Hyde, 2001; Fraenkel, 2003).
Analyze whether personality is stable or changes over the life span. Harry Hennesey, age 53 and a vice president of an investment banking firm, says he still feels like a kid. Many middle-aged adults would agree. Although most people say they have changed a good deal since adolescence- and mostly for the better-many also perceive important similarities in basic personality traits between their present and younger selves. The degree to which personality is stable across the life span or changes as we age is a major issue of personality development in middle adulthood. Theorists such as Erikson and Levinson clearly suggest that substantial change occurs over time. Erikson's stages and Levinson's seasons describe set patterns of change. The change may be predictable and age related, but it is substantial. An impressive body of research, however, suggests that for individual traits, personality is quite stable and continuous over the life span. Developmental psychologists Paul Costa and Robert MoCrae find remarkable stability in particular traits. Eventempered 20-year-olds are even-tempered at age 75 ; affectionate 25 -year-olds become affectionate 50 -year-olds; and disorganized 26 -year-olds are still disorganized at age 60\. Similarly, self-concept at age 30 is a good indication of self-concept at age \(80 .\) In fact, traits may become more ingrained as people age (Terracciano, McCrae, \&c Costa, 2009 ; Mottus, Johnson, \& Deary, \(2012 ;\) Curtis, Windsor, \& Soubelet, \(2015 ;\) also see Figure \(8-7\) ). STABILITY AND CHANGE IN THE "BIG FIVE" PERSONALITYTRAITS Quite a bit of research has centered on the personality traits known as the "Big Five" -because they represent the five major clusters of personality characteristics. These are: \- Neuroticism, the degree to which a person is moody, anxious, and self- critical \- Extraversion, how outgoing or shy a person is \- Openness, a person's level of curiosity and interest in new experiences \- Agreeableness, how easygoing and helpful a person tends to be \- Conscientiousness, a person's tendencies to be organized and responsible
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