Adult Development, Cognitive Aging, and Personality Across the Lifespan

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering successful aging models, cognitive scaffolding theories, neuroanatomy, longitudinal personality trajectories, and psychosocial lifespan stages.

Successful aging

A multidimensional state characterized by a low risk of disease and disability, high cognitive and physical functioning, and active engagement with life.

Three components of successful aging

The core framework consisting of avoiding disease and disability, maintaining high cognitive and physical functioning, and remaining actively engaged with life.

Usual aging

Aging characterized by the absence of major disease, but accompanied by increased risk factors and some age-related functional decline.

Age-related change

A change or condition that becomes more common with advancing age but is not necessarily caused by the aging process itself.

Age-dependent change

A change or outcome that occurs specifically because of the biological aging process itself.

Intra-individual variability

Fluctuations or changes in functioning within the same person over time, which may indicate changes in physiological reserve.

Cognitive plasticity

The capacity to improve, adapt, or change cognitive functioning, even in later adulthood.

Self-efficacy

An individual's belief in their own capability to manage challenges and successfully learn or perform tasks.

Emotional support

A form of social support that provides affection, reassurance, and encouragement.

Instrumental support

Practical assistance provided to someone, such as transportation or help with everyday tasks.

Resilience

How quickly and completely an individual recovers from a stressful or impairing experience.

Selective Optimization With Compensation (SOC)

A developmental framework by Baltes & Baltes stating that successful aging is achieved by selecting priority goals, optimizing resources and abilities, and compensating when abilities decline.

Internalized ageism

The adoption and application of society's negative beliefs, beauty standards, and stereotypes about aging to oneself.

STAC

Theory that the brain recruits additional neural circuits to compensate for age-related cognitive decline.

Compensatory scaffolding

Recruitment of alternative brain networks to support declining neural systems.

Processing speed theory

Age-related slowing contributes to declines across cognitive tasks.

Inhibitory deficit theory

Aging reduces the ability to filter irrelevant information from working memory.

Dedifferentiation

Brain regions become less specialized in their responses with age.

Hippocampus

A brain structure critical for memory processing that shows significant volume reduction and shrinkage with advancing age.

Prefrontal cortex

A major anterior brain region involved in planning, decision-making, and executive functioning that serves as the primary site for compensatory scaffolding.

White matter tracts

Bundles of nerve fibers—such as the corpus callosum and longitudinal fasciculi—that transmit signals and enable communication between brain regions.

White matter integrity

The structural condition of neural pathways that transmit information between brain regions.

White matter hyperintensities

Abnormalities on brain scans associated with white matter damage.

Prefrontal bilaterality

Increased activation of both prefrontal hemispheres during cognitive tasks.

Default network

Brain network active during rest that normally decreases activity during demanding tasks.

Intrinsic challenge

Internal neurological changes that challenge brain functioning.

Extrinsic challenge

External demands that challenge brain functioning.

Cognitive reserve

Capacity to maintain cognitive performance despite neural decline or damage.

Metacognition

Awareness of one's own thinking and cognitive abilities, which may improve with age and help prioritize information.

State curiosity

Curiosity that is triggered by something interesting in the moment, which research suggests increases after middle age.

Trait curiosity

A general, enduring tendency to be curious, which research suggests tends to decline with age.

Mean-level change

When the average level of a personality trait increases or decreases in a group over time.

Rank-order consistency

Whether individuals maintain their relative personality ranking compared with others over time.

Normative personality change

A general pattern of personality development shared by most people during a life period.

Individual differences in change

People can follow different personality trajectories even when a group shows an overall trend.

Trait theory / Five-factor theory

Personality traits are largely biologically determined and relatively stable after adulthood.

Contextual theory

Personality is influenced by environmental circumstances and social experiences.

Interactional theory

Personality develops through interactions between individual characteristics and the environment.

Social dominance

A facet of extraversion reflecting confidence, assertiveness, independence, and taking charge, which increases through about age 40.

Social vitality

A facet of extraversion reflecting sociability, enthusiasm, energy, and social enjoyment, which increases slightly in college and decreases in the 20s and 60s.

Crossover hypothesis

Prediction that men become more agreeable and women more socially dominant in middle age; not supported by this study.

Cohort effect

Differences associated with shared historical and cultural experiences among people born during a similar period.

Attrition

Loss of participants over the course of a longitudinal study.

Social role explanation

Personality traits may change in response to responsibilities and expectations associated with adult roles.

Personality plasticity

The capacity for personality traits to continue changing throughout life.

Integrity vs. Despair

Erikson's final stage, where older adults reflect on their lives and experience either acceptance and meaning or regret and bitterness.

Wisdom

The psychological strength developed through a healthy balance between integrity and despair.

Epigenetic Principle

Each developmental stage builds on earlier stages, and previous conflicts can reappear throughout life.

Generativity vs. Stagnation

Middle-adulthood conflict between contributing to others and future generations versus becoming self-absorbed.

Intimacy vs. Isolation

Young-adulthood conflict between developing meaningful relationships and experiencing emotional isolation.