Adulthood and Aging

Module 6Adulthood and AgingFacts and Falsehood?The timing of social eventssuch as getting a drivers license, marriage, and having children remains relatively consistent across different cultures.Menopause creates significant psychological problems for women.People who live to age 80 have brains that weight 5 percent less than their brains did when they were teenagers.Elderly people can do just as god on a multiple-choice test as people in their 40s.The ability to remember facts increases with age.The empty nest phenomenon brings about more happiness than sadness.Men are 5 times more likely to suffer through the death of a spouse than a women.Periods of AdulthoodPeriodApproximate Age BracketsEarly AdulthoodMiddle AdulthoodLate Adulthood20-3536-6465 and overEarly AdulthoodEarly AdulthoodSocial Clock: the culturally preferred timing of social events such as marriage, parenthood, and retirement.Emerging AdulthoodPhysical ChangesEarly AdulthoodPerformance PeaksReaction timeSensory awarenessCardiac outputMost of they physical abilities will top out sometime during your twentiesMiddle AdulthoodHow do different cultures welcome the outward signs of getting older?Menopause: the time of natural cessation of menstruation, also refers to the biological changes a woman experiences as her ability to reproduce declines.45-55 years of ageDoes not make most women depressed or irrationalWomen are no more or no less depressed than women who are not experiencing this change.Latter AdulthoodOur sight, smell, and hearing usually begin a steep decline once we hit age 65The corneas and lenses become less transparent, letting in only about 30 percent of the light that enters our eyes.Muscles strength and stamina also diminishBodies take longer to heal after injurySlows down travel on the neural pathPortions of the brain start to atrophy, or waste awayIf you live to be 80, your brain will weigh 5 percent less than it does nowRemaining physically and mentally active will compensate for lost brain cells and neural connectionsExercise appears to foster brain cell development while helping prevent heart disease and obesity.Diseases Related to AgingAlzheimers disease: A progressive and irreversible brain disorder characterized by gradual deterioration or memory, reasoning, language, and finally, physical functioning.3% of the worlds population develops by age 75Senile Dementia: the mental disintegration that accompanies alcoholism, tumor, stroke, aging, and most often, Alzheimers disease.Cant teach an old dog new tricks or Never too late to learnCognitive ChangesMemoryYounger adults have better recallRecognition remains stable from 20 to 60Older people maintain the ability to remember meaningful materials, while losing the skills necessary to remember meaningless informationHabitual tasks and time-oriented tasks are also more challenging for older adultsMemory

IntelligenceFluid Intelligence: ones ability to reason speedily and abstractly tends to decrease during late adulthood.Crystallized Intelligence: ones accumulated knowledge and verbal skills tend to increase with age.

Novelists, historians, and philosophers tend to produce there best work in their forties, fifties, and sixties and later, whereas mathematicians and scientists often do their most creative work in their twenties and thirties.Intelligence

Social ChangesSigmund Freud said it best, when he wrote that the healthy adult is one who can work and love.Lifes CommitmentsWorkMost first- or second-year college studentsChange their initial major field of studyCannot accurately predict the careers they will have later in lifeChange careers after entering the work forcePost-college employment is often unrelated to college majorWork that is challenging, provides a sense of accomplishment, and fits your interests is most like to hit the happiness targetLoveCommitment, devotion, intimacy, attachmentVital to a happy adulthoodLove last longer and is most satisfying when marked byIntimate self-disclosureShared emotional and material supportSimilar interests and valuesLoveNinety percent of our population gets married at least onceCritical ingredient to marriage is mutual respectRespect: View others as important people , paying attention to them and seeing their ideas, abilities, needs, and wants as meaningful and worthwhile.Marriage most likely to last ifBoth members are over 20Have a stable income from good employmentDated a long time before getting marriedAre well educatedDivorce rate in the U.S. is around 50 %Three out of four who divorce will marry a second timeThe divorce rate for hose who lived together prior to marriage is higher than for coupes who did not live together.Marriages last when each partner compliments, hugs, and smiles five times more than he or she insults or criticizes.LoveRaising a child requires a serious investment of time, money, and emotion, which can exact a heavy toll on a couples satisfaction with each other.Parents who make the effort to spread the work load more evenly can anticipate a double reward:A more satisfying and successful marriageBetter parent-child relationships with both parentsempty nestThe empty-nest phenomenon brings more happiness than sadness.Late AdulthoodGerontology: the branch of psychology that studies the aging process and the problems of older people.Dying and DeathThanatology: the study of death and the methods of coping with it.One spouse out lives the other, a grief suffered 5 times more often by women than by men.Reactions to death vary from culture to cultureThere is no evidence to support the idea that we progress through predictable stages.Anger, denial, acceptanceSome grieve briefly while others grieve for months or years