Chapter 10: Becoming an Adult - Physical, Cognitive, and Personality Development

Vocabulary building flashcards covering the physical, cognitive, and personality development transitions in emerging and young adulthood based on Chapter 10 notes.

Emerging adulthood

A relatively new term referring to the period when people are not adolescents but are not fully adults, encompassing the years between late adolescence and early $30$s.

Role transitions

New responsibilities and duties that mark movement into the next developmental stages, such as marriage, voting, or beginning full-time employment.

Rites of passage

Important rituals marking initiation into adulthood, such as university graduation, marriage ceremonies, or religious rituals like bar/bat mitzvahs.

Edgework

Living on the boundary between life and death in physically or psychologically risky situations, where men typically show high confidence and women often rehearse to manage lower confidence.

Intimacy versus isolation

Erikson’s sixth stage of psychosocial development, which is a major task for adults to resolve; patterns of resolution may differ by gender and career orientation.

Locked-out form

A type of quarter-life-crisis where an individual feels unable to enter adult roles.

Locked-in form

A type of quarter-life-crisis where an individual feels trapped in adult roles.

Binge drinking

Consuming $5$ or more (men) or $4$ or more (women) drinks in a row within two weeks.

Alcohol Use Disorder

An addiction involving physical dependence on alcohol and withdrawal symptoms when not drinking, affecting brain neurotransmitters.

Metabolism

How much energy the body needs, which slows down as an individual ages.

Body mass index (BMI)

The ratio of body weight to height, related to total body fat; a BMI of $25$ or less is considered healthy.

Low-density lipoproteins (LDL)

Cholesterols that impede blood flow by causing fatty deposits to accumulate in arteries; should be less than $160\,mg/dL$.

High-density lipoproteins (HDL)

Cholesterols that keep arteries clear and break down LDLs; should be at least $40\,mg/dL$ in men and $50\,mg/dL$ in women.

Multidirectionality

One of Baltes et al.’s dimensions of intelligence, stating that some aspects of intelligence improve while others decline during adulthood.

Interindividual variability

A dimension of intelligence suggesting that patterns of change vary between different people.

Plasticity

The concept that intellectual abilities are not fixed and can be modified under the right conditions.

Primary mental abilities

Groups of related skills organised into hypothetical constructs, including Number, Word fluency, Verbal meaning, Inductive reasoning, and Spatial orientation.

Secondary mental abilities

Clusters of related primary abilities used as a framework for describing the structure of intelligence, which are difficult to measure directly.

Fluid intelligence

The ability to be a flexible, adaptive thinker who can make inferences and understand relationships between concepts; this ability declines throughout adulthood.

Crystallised intelligence

Knowledge of facts, definitions, and language acquired through life experience; this ability improves throughout adulthood.

Parieto-frontal integration theory (P-FIT)

A theory proposing that intelligence comes from distributed and integrated networks of neurons in the parietal and frontal lobes.

Neural efficiency hypothesis

The states that intelligent people process information more efficiently, showing increased efficiency in neural processing.

Postformal thought

A stage beyond formal operations characterized by the recognition that truth or the correct answer may vary from situation to situation.

Reflective judgement

The way in which adults reason through real life dilemmas, involving stages such as prereflective, quasi-reflective, and reflective reasoning.

Emotional intelligence (EI)

The ability to recognise and differentiate between one's own and others' emotions and use this information to guide thinking and behaviour.

Life-span construct

An individual's unified sense of the past, present, and future.

Scenario

Expectations of how one’s future life will play out, helping to formulate a game plan and track progress.

Social clock

A personal timetable that tags the time or age by which specific future goals or events are expected to be completed.

Life story

McAdams's model of a personal narrative that organises past events into a coherent sequence reflecting identity, ideology, and goals.

Possible selves

Representations of what one hopes to become (hoped-for-selves) and what one is afraid of becoming (feared-for-selves).

Personal control beliefs

The extent to which an individual believes their performance depends on their own effort or ability rather than outside forces.

Primary control

The act of modifying the external environment to fit one’s own needs and goals.

Secondary control

The act of modifying one’s own cognitions, goals, or behavioural standards to adapt to a situation.