Psych 361 Week 11

-        Extensions of our notions of intelligence

o   Classic and still prevailing notion of intelligence is heavily intellectual, “book larnin”, viz.,”…”cognitive behaviors which reflect an individual’s capacity to solve problems…adapt…to new situations, to think abstractly, and to profit from…experience

o   But also non-intellectual factors: “…once an individual gains entry [into high-status jobs largely through intellectual strengths], the degree of subsequent success may be more a function of nonintellectual factors such as ability to communicate clearly, build rapport and trust with others, and increase the perception that you have credibility and expertise

o   Of course social factors are very important as well, e.g., societal prejudices like racism, economic advantages and disadvantages, etc.

o   Also interpersonal intelligence, understanding motivations, feelings of others and oneself. Colloquially “street smarts”, formally referred to as emotional intelligence

-        Emotional intelligence

o   Regarded by many as an aspect of human functioning that may be as important to future successes as the strictly intellectual achievements measured by traditional IQ tests

o   the concept arose from critiques of IQ tests that they do not consider the social environments in which most people live and what it takes to succeed in complex social settings

o   usually defined as the ability to monitor one’s own and other people’s emotions, to discriminate among one’s different emotions, and to use such emotional information to guide one’s thinking, decision-making, and behavior

o   best-researched model of EI was developed at Yale by Peter Salovey and John Mayer

§  focuses on the individual’s ability to process emotional information and use it to navigate the social environment, that is to enable the person to make decisions that will pay off in interactions with others

§  Salovey and Mayer view emotions as useful sources of information that help people make sense of and navigate the social environment

§  EI is hypothesized to improve our interactions with others by increasing our understanding of the wants and fears of others as well as ourselves

§  Some research indicates that emotion-based abilities are very important in whether and how much people succeed in the complex world of human relationships

o   Specifics of EI:

§  Accurately judging how another person is feeling by looking at their facial expressions and body language

§  Recognizing how our moods can affect our judgments of others

§  Controlling our own emotions (like not showing fear or disgust when doing so might mess up a sensitive interpersonal interaction)

o   Some psychological researchers have recently proposed that college and graduate admissions procedures include more attention to EI factors

§  This would seem to be of special importance for education and training in fields that involve dealing with others

-        Malovey-Salovey-Caruso-Emotional Intelligence test (MSCEIT)

o   Ability

§  Accurately identify emotions of people and symbolized by objects in pictures

·        Question type

o   Identify and read emotions in people, landscape and designs

·        How the ability may be used

o   “read” people’s mood for feedback

·        Test section

o   Faces, pictures

§  Using emotions and solve problems with the emotion

·        Question types

o   Compare and match emotions to sensations such as color, light, and temperature

·        How the ability may be used

o   Create the right feeling to assist in problem solving, communicate a vision, lead people

·        Test section

o   Facilitation, sensations

§  Understand the causes of emotion

·        Question types

o   Multiple choice emotion vocabulary (scenario presented) questions

·        How the ability may be used

o   Be able to predict how people will emotionally react

·        Test section

o   Changes, blends

§  Being open to emotions and fuse emotions with thinking

·        Question types

o   Answer which emotional strategy would be best in social relationships as well as managing one’s self

·        How the ability may be used

o   Integrate emotion and thought to make effective decisions

·        Test section

o   Emotional management, emotional

-        Basic considerations of clinical geropsychology

o   Clinical geropsychology – psych problems in older adults

o   Older adults can change – new in 1970s

o   Some problems continuation of earlier ones – “lifespan developmental psychology”

o   The growing number of older adults in the U.S. – 12% over age 65 in 2000 to 20% in 2030 (the “greying of America”)

o   Average U.S. life expectancy about 55 in 1920, just below 70 in 1960, and nearly 80 in 2021. Similar in most other countries

-        Ageism

o   Negative views in the West in contrast to many Asian and middle Eastern cultures

o   Billion-dollar industries – never look old!

o   Ageism - negative but also positive views of older adults

o   Older adults – increasing heterogeneity rather than overgeneralized stereotypes

-        Age effects and cohort effects

o   Age effects

§  The consequences of being a particular chronological age, e.g., age when one can begin getting social security benefits, though this is a subject of ongoing debate

o   Cohort effects

§  The consequences of having been born in a particular year and having grown up in a particular time period with its own set of pressures, problems, and opportunities

§  Extremely important, especially for clinicians – but how well does contemporary society understand and act on it

-        History and nature of clinical geropsychology

o   Freud

§  Psychological health not important in older adults

§  Also, long history meant that psychoanalysis would take too long

o   Others disagreed

§  First center created in early 20^th century in San Francisco, SF Old Age Counseling Center

§  Didn’t catch on because of ageist beliefs

o   In 1950’s, loss deficit model

§  Being depressed was to be expected given all the losses, so acceptance of inevitable losses was the prevailing view

§  And they’re going to die soon anyway so why expend the effort and spend societal resources

o   Positive developments

§  Several position papers given, especially Powell Lawton’s at 1978 APA convention on need to bring gerontology into clinical psychology

§  USC – 1975, first clinical geropsychology program (a track within USC’s clinical psychology program, “clinical aging”, led by Margaret Gatz)

§  1981 – “Older Boulder” conference on education and training clinical psychologists in clinical geropsychology

§  1992 – “Older Boulder II” concentrated more heavily on clinical skills (hands-on stuff)

§  More formally recognized by APA, first as a section of division 12, then as a division in its own right

§  Other forms of organizational recognition and journals

§  More study of the aging process – declines but also positive gains like wisdom and emotional regulation

-        Commonly treated psychological disorders, specific challenges, and interventions for older adults

o   Depression

§  Approximately 1 to 5% of older adults living in the community are diagnosable at any given time with depressive disorder

§  Rates increase when older adults in assisted living homes or in medical settings are included

§  Older adults have also been reported to experience higher rates of subsyndromal depression, that is, depressive symptoms that may not meet DSM-5 criteria but are clinically relevant and treatable

§  Although sadness is one of the most prominent emotions in major depression disorder (MDD), older adults tend to be less likely than younger adults to report sadness as their primary symptom and are also less likely to endorse symptoms of guilt and worthlessness

§  Older adults are sometimes reported to have “depression without sadness”, a geriatric-specific variant of depression that highlights the differences in presentation among different age groups

§  Instead, symptoms such as sleep difficulty, apathy, and hopelessness, as well as somatic complaints such as fatigue and memory difficulties tend to be more commonly reported in older adults

§  All of this contributes to the complicated nature of distinguishing depression in later life from other problems such as dementia or physical health problems