HDE 100C: Adult Development and Aging Exam Memorization Guide

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering developmental psychology, biological aging theories, physical changes, cognitive neuroscience, memory systems, neurocognitive models, and socioemotional aging from the HDE 100C Exam Memorization Guide.

Chronological Age

The number of years that have passed since a person's birth.

Biological Age

An estimate of how old the body appears to be based on physiological functioning and physical health.

Psychological Age

A person's ability to adapt to life circumstances and environmental demands, involving coping, learning, memory, and problem-solving.

Social Age

The age-related social roles and expectations an individual holds based on their position in the life course.

Lifespan

The total number of years an individual lives.

Life Course

The meaningful patterns, transitions, social roles, and sequences of experiences across an individual's years of life.

Life-Course Perspective

A theoretical approach stating that human development is shaped by the timing of life events, social roles, historical context, relationships, and sequential life experiences.

Ecological-Systems Model

Bronfenbrenner's model describing nested environmental influences: microsystem (direct settings), mesosystem (interconnections), exosystem (indirect influences), macrosystem (culture and laws), and chronosystem (historical changes over time).

Generativity vs. Stagnation

Erikson's psychosocial stage of middle adulthood, centered on contributing to others and guiding the next generation, producing the virtue of care.

Ego Integrity vs. Despair

Erikson's psychosocial stage of late adulthood, centered on reflecting on, accepting, and finding meaning in one's life, producing the virtue of wisdom.

Plasticity

A core principle of lifespan development stating that abilities can be maintained or improved with practice and support; potential is not completely fixed.

Age-Normative Influences

Biological or environmental events that are commonly linked to a specific chronological age, such as puberty, menopause, or retirement.

History-Normative Influences

Influences or events shared by a generation or society at a particular historical point in time, such as COVID-19 or 9/11.

Non-Normative Influences

Unusual, individualized life events that occur unexpectedly, such as winning the lottery or receiving a serious medical diagnosis.

Selective Optimization with Compensation (SOC)

A strategy for successful aging where an individual selects fewer important goals, optimizes skills and resources through practice, and compensates using alternative strategies when abilities decline.

WEIRD Populations

Samples originating from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic societies that are heavily overrepresented in developmental research.

Cohort

A group of people who share a common experience or historical time period, such as being born in the same year or generation.

Cross-Sectional Design

A research design that compares different age groups at a single point in time to examine age differences.

Longitudinal Design

A research design that repeatedly assesses the same individuals over time to directly measure within-person developmental change.

Sequential Design

A developmental research method that combines cross-sectional and longitudinal approaches across multiple cohorts to help separate age, cohort, and time-of-measurement effects.

Primary Aging

Universal, generally inevitable biological changes that occur naturally as an individual advances in age.

Secondary Aging

Age-related physical changes that result from disease, harmful environmental exposures, abuse, or disuse, which are not universal and may be preventable.

Wear-and-Tear Theory

A biological theory stating that repeated use and cumulative environmental stress over time cause gradual damage to cells and bodily tissues.

Lipofuscin

A yellow-brown to dark-brown waste pigment that accumulates in long-lived cells (such as neurons and heart muscle cells) over time, interfering with cellular signaling, transport, and metabolism.

Free Radicals

Highly reactive chemical molecules containing an unpaired electron that can cause cumulative damage to DNA, proteins, and cell membranes.

Oxidative Stress

Cellular damage that occurs when the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) exceeds the capacity of the body's antioxidant defenses.

Hayflick Limit

The built-in biological limit on the number of times normal somatic cells can divide before entering replicative senescence.

Telomeres

Protective nucleotide caps located at the ends of chromosomes that shorten with successive cell divisions until the cell can no longer divide.

Cell Senescence

A permanent cellular state in which a cell stops dividing, thereby limiting tissue repair and cell replacement.

Apoptosis

Programmed, regulated cell death that systematically eliminates damaged, mutated, or unnecessary cells.

APOE Gene

A gene producing a lipid-transport protein; variants like $\varepsilon 3/\varepsilon 4$ and $\varepsilon 4/\varepsilon 4$ are linked to elevated Alzheimer's disease risk, whereas $\varepsilon 2$ is linked to decreased risk.

Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF)

A central nervous system protein that supports the survival, growth, differentiation, and maintenance of neurons, playing a critical role in synaptic plasticity and memory.

Epigenome

The array of chemical compounds and marks that regulate whether genes are turned on or off without altering the underlying DNA sequence.

Sarcopenia

The age-related loss of skeletal muscle mass, strength, and physical functional performance.

Osteoporosis

A skeletal disorder characterized by a significant loss of bone density and strength, markedly increasing fracture vulnerability in the hip, vertebrae, and wrist.

Osteoarthritis

The most common form of arthritis, characterized by the mechanical wear-and-tear and breakdown of cartilage within joints, causing pain and restricted mobility.

Rheumatoid Arthritis

An autoimmune, inflammatory disease in which the immune system attacks joint tissues, differing from wear-and-tear cartilage loss.

Hypertension

Persistently high arterial blood pressure, which substantially increases the risk for heart failure, coronary heart disease, and stroke.

Congestive Heart Failure

A clinical condition where the heart is unable to pump sufficient blood to satisfy bodily demands, often resulting in fluid retention and tissue swelling (edema).

Cerebral Arteriosclerosis

Hardening, thickening, and narrowing of arteries in the brain due to lipid deposition and calcification, raising the likelihood of a stroke.

Ischemic Stroke

A type of stroke caused by a blockage or blood clot within a blood vessel supplying the brain, cutting off oxygen and nutrient delivery.

Hemorrhagic Stroke

A stroke caused by the rupture of a weakened blood vessel, resulting in bleeding directly into or surrounding brain tissue.

Cataracts

A visual condition caused by clouding, thickening, and darkening of the eye's crystalline lens, producing blurred vision and reduced clarity.

Macular Degeneration

A visual disorder caused by the deterioration of the macula within the retina, leading to distortion or loss of central vision.

Glaucoma

An ocular condition marked by increased fluid pressure that damages the optic nerve, typically resulting in progressive loss of peripheral vision.

Presbycusis

Age-related sensorineural hearing loss, particularly impairing high-frequency sound perception due to the degeneration of hair cells within the cochlea.

Frontal Lobe Hypothesis

The proposition that age-related cognitive deficits are largely driven by structural and functional degradation in the prefrontal cortex, which governs executive function and working memory.

Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA)

A brief screening instrument designed to detect cognitive impairment across domains such as visuospatial/executive abilities, attention, memory, naming, language, and orientation.

Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI)

A neuroimaging MRI technique that tracks the directional diffusion of water molecules along white-matter tracts to evaluate axonal pathway integrity.

Processing-Speed Theory

A cognitive aging theory stating that cognitive performance declines broadly because the central nervous system processes information at a slower rate.

Common-Cause Hypothesis

A perceptual-decline explanation stating that sensory deficits and cognitive decline stem from a single, shared underlying neurobiological aging process.

Information-Degradation Hypothesis

A perceptual-decline explanation proposing that degraded or poor sensory input immediately impedes higher-level cognitive processing.

Sensory-Deprivation Hypothesis

A perceptual-decline explanation asserting that prolonged reduction in sensory stimulation over time leads to cognitive disengagement and eventual cognitive decline.

Inhibitory Theory

The theory positing that older adults experience difficulty suppressing task-irrelevant thoughts and competing stimuli, resulting in cognitive interference.

Fluid Cognition

The ability to process new information, solve novel problems, adapt, and reason abstractly; this dimension typically shows normative age-related decline.

Crystallized Cognition

The accumulation of knowledge, vocabulary, and facts gained through experience and education, which is generally well-maintained or improves with age.

Working Memory

A limited-capacity cognitive system supported by the prefrontal cortex that temporarily holds and actively manipulates information needed for complex reasoning and learning.

Episodic Memory

Long-term memory for personally experienced events bound to a specific temporal and spatial context, heavily dependent on the hippocampus and prone to age-related decline.

Semantic Memory

Long-term memory for general factual knowledge, words, and concepts about the world, which remains relatively well-preserved across the lifespan.

Procedural Memory

Implicit, non-declarative memory for learned motor skills and habits (such as riding a bicycle), managed by the basal ganglia and largely preserved in late adulthood.

CRUNCH

Compensation-Related Utilization of Neural Circuits Hypothesis; older adults over-recruit neural resources at lower task demands to preserve performance until capacity is exhausted at high demands.

PASA

Posterior-Anterior Shift in Aging; a compensatory functional pattern characterized by reduced occipital/posterior activation and increased anterior/prefrontal activation.

HAROLD

Hemispheric Asymmetry Reduction in Older Adults; the tendency for prefrontal activity to become less lateralized and recruit both hemispheres during cognitive tasks in older individuals.

STAC-r

Scaffolding Theory of Aging and Cognition-revised; states that the aging brain adapts to neural degradation by building and deploying supplementary, scaffolded neural networks as backup pathways.

Aging Paradox

The finding that many older adults maintain or report higher subjective emotional well-being and positive affect despite progressive physical and cognitive losses.

Social Convoy

The evolving dynamic network of close friends, family members, and acquaintances that accompanies and provides emotional support to an individual throughout life.

Socioemotional Selectivity Theory (SST)

A motivational theory asserting that perceived remaining lifespan shapes priorities, prompting older individuals to prioritize emotionally meaningful social ties over information-seeking goals.

Positivity Effect

The tendency for older adults to allocate more attention to and demonstrate superior recall for emotionally positive stimuli compared to negative stimuli.

Strength and Vulnerability Integration (SAVI)

A model stating that older adults effectively use emotional strengths to maintain well-being, but these compensatory strategies break down under severe, chronic, or inescapable stress.

Social Input Model

The framework proposing that social networks treat older adults more favorably, forgiving mistakes and blaming them less, partly driven by age-related social stereotypes.

Stress-Buffering Model

Cohen and Wills' framework showing that social support acts as a protective buffer, mitigating the negative psychological and health effects of high-stress conditions.