D202 Section 3

Flashcards on Early, Middle, and Late Adulthood

Age of Possibilities in Emerging Adulthood

A time of optimism as more 18- to 25-year-olds feel that they will someday get to where they want to be in life because these dreams have yet to be tested.

Post Formal Thought

This stage of thinking is reflective, relativistic, and contextual, provisional, realistic, recognized as being influenced by emotion and dialectical.

Dialectical Thought

The ability to recognize and blend opposing viewpoints; a more advanced, realistic way of thinking because most people, situations, and ideas are a mix of positives and negatives.

Adult Relationships & Attachment

Securely attached infants are more likely to have a securely attached relationship in adulthood.

Hypothalamus Role in Sexual Functioning

The most important part of the brain for sexual functioning; receives input from the limbic system and controls the pituitary gland, which secretes hormones, including oxytocin.

Climacteric

Describes the midlife transition in which fertility declines for both women and men.

Menopause

The time in middle age, usually during the late 40s or early 50s, when a woman's menstrual periods end.

Fluid Intelligence

Our ability to reason abstractly, and it begins to decline in middle adulthood.

Crystallized Intelligence

Our accumulated information and verbal skills, and it increases in middle adulthood.

Expertise

Having special skills or knowledge in a certain area.

Generativity

In middle adulthood, we face a significant issue of feeling we have left a legacy for the next generation.

Stagnation

In middle adulthood, we face a significant issue of believing we have done nothing for the next generation sometimes called self-absorption.

Homogamy

Marriage between individuals who are culturally and sociologically similar to each other.

Endogamy

Practice of marrying within a specific social group, religious denomination, caste, or ethnic group, rejecting those from others as unsuitable for marriage or other close personal relationships.

Self Disclosure

The tendency to communicate frequently, without fear of reprisal, and in an accepting and empathetic manner; if not reciprocated, the relationship will not last.

Proximity

Effect on liking through the principle of mere exposure, which is the tendency to prefer stimuli (including, but not limited to people) that we have seen more frequently.

Big Five Factors of Personality (OCEAN)

Openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.

Sandwich Generation

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.

Hospice

A program committed to making the end of life as free from pain, anxiety, and depression as possible.

Palliative Care

Involves reducing pain and suffering.

Prolonged Grief

Difficulty moving on after 6 months or more of the person's death.

Complicated Grief

Associated with a difficult or traumatic loss -- for example, loss of a child, loss due to violence.

Disenfranchised Grief

Grief felt that is socially ambiguous; may mean something to you that others don't understand.

Activity Theory

The more actively involved we are in late adulthood, the more likely we are to be satisfied with our lives.

Socioemotional Selectivity Theory

States that as we age, our motivations for relationships change causing us to shift our priorities to favor emotional meaning and satisfaction.

Selective Optimization with Compensation Theory

Successful aging depends on selection, optimization, and compensation.

Scaffolding Theory of Aging and Cognition (STAC)

Model that explains how the brain adapts to aging by recruiting additional brain networks to maintain cognitive function.

Kinkeeping

Keeping the family connected—organizing gatherings, sharing family history, and offering support.

Empty Nest

The stage when children leave home; parents may feel both sadness and relief.

Factors Related to Positive, Successful Aging

Being active (physically, cognitively, socially); perceived control over the environment (self-efficacy); maintaining physical health.

Cognitive Pragmatics

The culture-based “software programs” of the mind, including reading and writing skills, language comprehension, educational qualifications, professional skills.

Cognitive Mechanics

The hardware of the mind, consisting of speed and accuracy of the processes involved in sensory input, attention, visual and motor memory, discrimination, comparison, and categorization.

Episodic Memory

Remembering information about the details of your life, as if your life were a movie and you can remember its episodes.

Semantic Memory

Knowledge about the world. It includes what we have learned, our academic knowledge, and our everyday knowledge.

Explicit Memory

Memory of facts and experiences that we consciously know and can state.

Implicit Memory

Memory without conscious recollection. This involves skills and routines that we perform automatically.

Prospective Memory

Remembering to do something in the future, such as remembering to take your vitamins after lunch, check your mail tomorrow, or go grocery shopping on Saturday.

Activity Theory

A theory that says the more actively involved we are in late adulthood, the more likely we are to be satisfied with our lives.

Dual-Process Model of Coping with Bereavement

This model has two main dimensions: (1) loss-oriented stressors, and (2) restoration-oriented stressors.