AP Psychology Chapter 8

8.1 What are some of the special research designs used to study development? 

Human development is affected by the problem of age

Participants who are exposed to the independent variable and should be randomly assigned to the different experimental conditions 

The challenge in developmental research is the age of people in the study should always be independent, but can't be randomly assigned to different age groups 

Longitudinal design - one group of people is followed and assessed at different times at the group ages 

Cross-sectional design - several different age groups are studied at one time

Cross-sequential design - a combination of the longitudinal and cross-sectional designs 

The longitudinal design has advantage of looking age-related changes as those changes occur in same individuals 

Disadvantages of this method are : time, money, effort and the loss of participants : move away, lose interest, die

No longer compares to an individual to that same individual as he or she ages, but individuals of different ages are being compared to another 

Cohort effect - the particular impact on development that occurs when a group of people share a common time period or common life experience 

Developmental psychologists have outlined many theories of how these age-related changes occur

8.2 What is the relationship between heredity and environmental factors in determining development? 

Nature - refers to heredity, the influence of inherited characteristics on personality, physical growth, intellectual growth, and social interaction 

Nurture - refers to the influence of the environment on all of those same things and includes parenting styles, physical surroundings, economic factors, and anything that can have an influence on development that can have influence on development that does not come from within the person 

All that people are and all that people become is the product of an interaction for most of human development 

• All that people are an all that people become is the product of an interaction between nature and nurture

• This does not mean that nature vs nurture no longer exists … but assume a large genetic influence … culture economics, nutrition, educational outcomes 

Behavioral genetics - is a field in the investigation of the origins of behavior in which researchers try to determine how much of behavior is the result of genetic inheritance and how much is due to a person's experiences 

Behavioral genetics - behavioral geneticists use a variety of methods to determine this, including family, twin, and adoption studies 

8.3 How do chromosomes, genes, and DNA determine a person's characteristics or disorders? 

The Basic Building Blocks of Development

Chromosomes, Genes, and DNA

Genetics - the science of heredity

DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) - a very special kind of molecule (the smallest particle of a substance that still has all the properties of that substance). 

DNA consists of two very long sugar–phosphate strands, each linked together by certain chemical elements called amines or bases arranged in a particular pattern

Genes - each section of DNA containing a certain sequence (ordering) of these amines. 

Chromosomes - These genes are located on rod-shaped structures called chromosomes, which are found in the nucleus of a cell

• The 46 chromosomes can be arranged in pairs, with one member of each pair coming from the mother and the other member from the father

Dominant genes - are more active in influencing a trait. A dominant gene will always be expressed in the observable trait, in this case, hair color.

Recessive genes - genes are less active in influencing the trait and will only be expressed in the observable trait if they are paired with another less active gene

• polygenic inheritance - almost all traits are influenced by more than one pair of genes in a process

• Diseases carried by recessive genes are inherited when a child inherits two recessive genes, one from each parent. 

• the formation of these cells can end up in the wrong cell, leaving one cell with only 22 and the other with 24… the missing or extra chromosome can cause mild to severe problems in development 

Down syndrome - there is an extra chromosome in what would normally be the 21st pair. Symptoms commonly include the physical characteristics of almond-shaped, wide-set eyes, intellectual disability, and the increased risk of organ failure later in life

8.4 What happens during conception and prenatal development and what are some prenatal hazards? 

Fertilization

Fertilization: the process of when an egg and a sperm unite

Zygote: The resulting single cell will have a total of 46 chromosomes 

• The zygote will begin to divide, first into two cells, then four, then eight, and so on, with each new cell also having 46 chromosomes, because the DNA molecules produce duplicates, or copies, of themselves before each division. (This division process is called mitosis.)

• The mass of cells will then become a baby, and when this process doesn’t completely work, the twins or multiples are the result

Monozygotic Twins: two babies came from one fertilized egg/zygote

“identical” are monozygotic twins, meaning that the two babies come from one (mono) fertilized egg (zygote)

early in the division process, the mass of cells splits completely, into two separate masses, each of which will develop into a separate infant. The infants will be the same sex and have identical features because they each possess the same set of 46 chromosomes. 

The other type of twin is more an accident of timing and is more common in women who are older and who are from certain ethnic groups. A woman’s body may either release more than one egg at a time or release an egg in a later ovulation period after a woman has already conceived once. If two eggs are fertilized, the woman may give birth to fraternal or dizygotic twins (two zygotes), or possibly triplets or some other multiple number of babies. This is also more likely to happen to women who are taking fertility drugs to help them get pregnant. 

For developmental psychologists, twins provide an important way to look at the contribution of nature and nurture to human development. Researchers may seek out genetically identical twins who have been separated at birth, looking at all the ways those twins are alike in spite of being raised in different environments. Researchers may also compare children who are adopted to their adoptive parents (an environmental influence) and to their biological parents (the genetic influences)

Sometimes in the twinning process, the mass of cells does not completely split apart. When this occurs, conjoined twins will result, and they will be joined at the point where the two cell masses remain “stuck.” This joining may involve only soft tissues or may involve the sharing of certain body parts, like in the case of Abby and Brittany, who are discussed in the Psychology in the News section that follows. It is estimated that conjoined twins are born in only 1 in 100,000 births, and their survival is also rare 

The Germinal Period

Once fertilization has taken place, the zygote begins dividing and moving down to the uterus, the muscular organ that will contain and protect the developing organism. This process takes about a week, followed by about a week during which the mass of cells, now forming a hollow ball, firmly attaches itself to the wall of the uterus. 

This 2-week period is called the germinal period of pregnancy. The placenta also begins to form during this period. The placenta is a specialized organ that provides nourishment and filters away the developing baby’s waste products. The umbilical cord also begins to develop at this time, connecting the organism to the placenta.

During the germinal period, the cells begin to differentiate, or develop into specialized cells, in preparation for becoming all the various kinds of cells that make up the human body—skin cells, heart cells, and so on. 

Perhaps the most important of these cells are the stem cells, which stay in a somewhat immature state until needed to produce more cells. Researchers are looking into ways to use stem cells found in the umbilical cord to grow new organs and tissues for transplant or to repair neurological damage

The Embryonic Period

Once firmly attached to the uterus, the developing organism is called an embryo. The embryonic period will last from 2 weeks after conception to 8 weeks, and during this time the cells will continue to specialize and become the various organs and structures of a human infant. By the end of this period, the embryo is about 1-inch long and has primitive eyes, nose, lips, teeth, and little arms and legs, as well as a beating heart. Although no organ is fully developed or completely functional at this time, nearly all are “there.” 

Critical Periods 

As soon as the embryo begins to receive nourishment from the mother through the placenta, it becomes vulnerable to hazards such as diseases of the mother, drugs, and other toxins that can pass from the mother through the placenta to the developing infant. Because of this direct connection between mother and embryo and the fact that all major organs are in the process of forming, we can clearly see the effects of critical periods, times during which some environmental influences can have an impact—often devastating—on the development of the infant. The structural development of the arms and legs, for example, is only affected during the time that these limbs are developing (3 to 8 weeks), whereas the heart’s structure is most affected very early in this period (2 to 6 weeks). Other physical and structural problems can occur with the central nervous system (2 to 5 weeks), eyes (3 to 8 weeks), and the teeth and roof of the mouth (about 7 to 12 weeks). 

Prenatal Hazards: Teratogens 

Any substance such as a drug, chemical, virus, or other factor that can cause a birth defect is called a teratogen. One of the more common teratogens is alcohol. Consumption of alcohol during pregnancy, particularly during the critical embryonic period, can lead to fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS), a series of physical and mental defects including stunted growth, facial deformities, and brain damage. Exposure to alcohol in early pregnancy is the leading known cause of intellectual disability (previously called mental retardation) in the Western hemisphere. FAS is part of a larger category of permanent birth defects due to maternal alcohol use during pregnancy called fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD). So how much alcohol is safe to drink while pregnant? The answer is clearly “none!” 

The Fetal Period: Grow, Baby, Grow 

The fetal period is a period of tremendous growth lasting from about 8 weeks after conception until birth

The length of the developing organism (now referred to as a fetus) increases by about 20 times and its weight increases from about 1 ounce at 2 months to an average of a little over 7 pounds at birth

The organs, while accomplishing most of their differentiation in the embryonic period, continue to develop and become functional. 

The functioning of the central nervous system, for example, is vulnerable throughout the fetal period, as are the eyes and the external sexual organs. 

Babies born before 38 weeks are called preterm and may need life support to survive. 

The age of viability (the point at which it is possible for an infant to survive outside the womb) is between 22 and 26 weeks, with the odds of survival increasing from 10 percent at 22 weeks up to about 85 percent at 26 weeks. 

The most likely time for a miscarriage, or spontaneous abortion, is in the first 3 months, as the organs are forming and first becoming functional. 

When a miscarriage occurs, it is most likely caused by a genetic defect in the way the embryo or fetus is developing that will not allow the infant to survive, there isn’t anything that the mother did wrong or that could have been done to prevent the miscarriage. 

8.5 Physical Development

Reflexes

An innate, involuntary behavior pattern called reflexes. Until a baby is capable of learning more complex means of interaction, reflexes help infants to survive. 

Motor development: from crawling to a blur of motion

Infants manage a tremendous amount of development in motor skills from birth to about 2 years of age. 

Brain development

At birth, an infant’s brain consists of over 100 billion neurons. Rapid and extensive growth of these neurons occurs as the brain triples in weight from birth to age 3 years, with much of the increase caused by growth of new dendrites, axon terminals, and increasing numbers of synaptic connections and nerve cells are cleared away to make way for functioning connections and cells.

8.6 Cognitive Development

Piaget’s Theory: Four Stages of Cognitive Development

Piaget believed that children form mental concepts or schemas (sometimes referred to as schemes) as they experience new situations and events.

Piaget also believed that children first try to understand new things in terms of schemas they already possess, a process called assimilation

The process of altering or adjusting old schemas to fit new information and experiences is accommodation

The Sensorimotor Stage

sensorimotor stage (birth to age 2) - is the first of Piaget’s stages. In this stage, infants use their senses and motor abilities to learn about the world around them. At first, infants only have the involuntary reflexes present at birth to interact with objects and people. As their sensory and motor development progresses, they begin to interact deliberately with objects by grasping, pushing, tasting, and so on. Infants move from simple repetitive actions, such as grabbing their toes, to complex patterns, such as trying to put a shape into a sorting box.

By the end of the sensorimotor stage, infants have fully developed a sense of object permanence - the knowledge that an object exists even when it is not in sight.

symbolic thought - the ability to represent objects in one’s thoughts with symbols such as words, becomes possible by the end of this stage, with children at 2 years old capable of thinking in simple symbols and planning out actions.

The Preoperational Stage

preoperational stage (ages 2–7) - is a time of developing language and concepts. Children, who can now move freely about in their world, no longer have to rely only on senses and motor skills but now can ask questions and explore their surroundings more fully. Pretending and make-believe play become possible because children at this stage can understand, through symbolic thinking, that a line of wooden blocks can “stand in” for a train. 

Another limitation is egocentrism, the inability to see the world through anyone else’s eyes but one’s own. For the preoperational child, everyone else must see what the child sees, and what is important to the child must be important to everyone else

 Centration - focusing only on one feature of some object rather than taking all features into consideration

Conservation - the ability to understand that altering the appearance of something does not change its amount, its volume, or its mass .

 Irreversibility - Preoperational children fail at conservation not only because they centrate (focus on just one feature, such as the number of pieces of pie) but also because they are unable to “mentally reverse” actions

Concrete Operations

concrete operations stage (ages 7–12) - children finally become capable of conservation and reversible thinking. Centration no longer occurs as children become capable of considering all the relevant features of any given object. 

The major limitation of this stage is the inability to deal effectively with abstract concepts. Abstract concepts are those that do not have some physical, concrete, touchable reality. 

Concrete concepts - which are the kind of concepts understood by children of this age, are about objects, written rules, and real things. Children need to be able to see it, touch it, or at least “see” it in their heads to be able to understand it.

Formal Operations

formal operations (age 12 to adulthood) - abstract thinking becomes possible. Teenagers not only understand concepts that have no physical reality, but also they get deeply involved in hypothetical thinking, or thinking about possibilities and even impossibilities. 

Evaluating Piaget’s Theory

Piaget saw children as active explorers of their surroundings, engaged in the discovery of the properties of objects and organisms within those surroundings. Educators have put Piaget’s ideas into practice by allowing children to learn at their own pace, by “hands-on” experience with objects, and by teaching concepts that are at the appropriate cognitive level for those children

Vygotsky’s Theory: The Importance of Being There

Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky’s pioneering work in developmental psychology has had a profound influence on school education in Russia,

Whereas Piaget stressed the importance of the child’s interaction with objects as a primary factor in cognitive development, Vygotsky stressed the importance of social and cultural interactions with other people, typically more highly skilled children and adults. Vygotsky believed that children develop cognitively when someone else helps them by asking leading questions and providing examples of concepts in a process called scaffolding. In scaffolding, the more highly skilled person gives the learner more help at the beginning of the learning process and then begins to withdraw help as the learner’s skills improve

Vygotsky also proposed that each developing child has a zone of proximal development (ZPD), which is the difference between what a child can do alone versus what a child can do with the help of a teacher

8.7 Psychosocial Development

Temperament

One of the first ways in which infants demonstrate that they have different personalities (i.e., the long-lasting characteristics that make each person different from others) is in their temperament, the behavioral and emotional characteristics that are fairly well established at birth.

Easy: “Easy” babies are regular in their schedules of waking, sleeping, and eating, and are adaptable to change. Easy babies are happy babies and when distressed are easily soothed.

Difficult: “Difficult” babies are almost the opposite of easy ones. Difficult babies tend to be irregular in their schedules and are very unhappy about change of any kind. They are loud, active, and tend to be crabby rather than happy.

Slow to warm up: This kind of temperament is associated with infants who are less grumpy, quieter, and more regular than difficult children but who are slow to adapt to change. If change is introduced gradually, these babies will “warm up” to new people and new situations.

Attachment

Attachment - The emotional bond that forms between an infant and a primary caregiver 

Attachment Styles

Mary Ainsworth devised a special experimental design to measure the attachment of an infant to the caregiver; she called it the “Strange Situation” (exposing an infant to a series of leave-takings and returns of the mother and a stranger).

Secure: Infants labeled as secure were willing to get down from their mother’s lap soon after entering the room with their mothers. They explored happily, looking back at their mothers and returning to them every now and then (sort of like “touching base”). When the stranger came in, these infants were wary but calm as long as their mother was nearby. When the mother left, the infants got upset. When the mother returned, the infants approached her, were easily soothed, and were glad to have her back.

Avoidant: In contrast, avoidant babies, although somewhat willing to explore, did not “touch base.” They did not look at the stranger or the mother and reacted very little to her absence or her return, seeming to have no interest or concern.

Ambivalent: The word ambivalent means to have mixed feelings about something. Ambivalent babies in Ainsworth’s study were clinging and unwilling to explore, very upset by the stranger regardless of the mother’s presence, protested mightily when the mother left, and were hard to soothe. When the mother returned, these babies would demand to be picked up but at the same time push the mother away or kick her in a mixed reaction to her return.

Disorganized–disoriented: In subsequent studies, other researchers (Main & Hesse, 1990; Main & Solomon, 1990) found that some babies seemed unable to decide just how they should react to the mother’s return. These d

Influences on Attachment

As day care has become more widely acceptable and common, many parents have been concerned about the effect of day care on attachment. Researchers have concluded that while high-quality day care (i.e., consistent and educated caregivers, small child-to-caregiver ratio) is important, the quality of parenting received by infants and toddlers in the home has a greater impact on positive development

Who Am I?: The Development of the Self-concept

Infants begin life without understanding that they are separate from their surroundings and also from the other people in their social world. The self-concept is the image you have of yourself, and it is based on your interactions with the important people in your life. As infants experience the world around them, they slowly learn to separate “me” from both physical surroundings and the other people in their world.

Erikson’s Theory

When a baby under 6 months of age cries, it is an instinctive reaction meant to get the caregiver to tend to the baby’s needs—hunger, thirst, pain, and even loneliness. Research has shown that babies whose cries are tended to consistently (that is, the infant is fed when hungry, changed when wet, and so on) in the early months are more securely attached at age 1 than those infants whose caregivers frequently allow the infants to cry when there is a need for attention—hunger, pain, or wetness, for example. 

Erik Erikson, a psychodynamic theorist who emphasized the importance of social relationships in the development of personality, would certainly disagree with letting a baby “cry it out,” although allowing an infant who has been fed, changed, burped, and checked to cry on occasion will not damage attachment.

Theories of Gender Role Development

Social Learning Theory

social learning theory - emphasizes learning through observation and imitation of models, attributes gender-role development to those processes. 

Children observe their same-sex parents behaving in certain ways and imitate that behavior. When the children imitate the appropriate gender behavior, they are reinforced with positive attention. 

Gender Schema Theory

 gender schema theory - a theory of gender-role development combines social learning theory with cognitive development.  In this theory based on the Piagetian concept of schemas, children develop a schema, or mental pattern, for being male or female in much the same way that they develop schemas for other concepts such as “dog,” “bird,” and “big.”

androgyny - describes a gender role characteristic of people whose personalities reflect the characteristics of both males and females, regardless of physical sex

Sexual Orientation

sexual orientation - a person’s sexual attraction and affection for members of either the opposite or the same sex.

The most common sexual orientation is heterosexual, in which people are sexually attracted to members of the opposite physical sex, as in a man being attracted to a woman or vice versa. (The Greek word hetero means “other.”) Homosexual orientation is sexual attraction to members of one’s own sex. 

A person who is bisexual may be either male or female and is attracted to both sexes

8.8 Adolescence

Adolescence is the period of life from about age 13 to the early 20s, during which a young person is no longer physically a child but is not yet an independent, self-supporting adult.

Physical Development

The clearest sign of the beginning of adolescence is the onset of puberty, the physical changes in both primary sex characteristics (growth of the actual sex organs such as the penis or the uterus) and secondary sex characteristics (changes in the body such as the development of breasts and body hair) that occur in the body as sexual development reaches its peak.

Cognitive Development

Piaget’s Formal Operations Revisited

Teenagers begin to think about hypothetical situations, leading to a picture of what an “ideal” world would be like.

Although headed into an adult style of thinking, adolescents are not yet completely free of egocentric thought. 

They do a lot of introspection (turning inward) and may become convinced that their thoughts are as important to others as they are to themselves.

personal fable - adolescents have spent so much time thinking about their own thoughts and feelings that they become convinced that they are special, one of a kind, and that no one else has ever had these thoughts and feelings before them.

imaginary audience - shows up as extreme self-consciousness in adolescents. They become convinced that everyone is looking at them and that they are always the center of everyone else’s world, just as they are the center of their own

Moral Development

Kohlberg proposed three levels of moral development, or the knowledge of right and wrong behavior. 

Preconventional morality (very young children)

Morality of an action is based on the consequences; actions that get rewarded are right and those that earn punishment are wrong.

A child who takes money from a parent’s wallet and does not get caught does not see that action as wrong.

Conventional morality (older children, adolescents, and most adults)

An action is morally right if it conforms to the rules of the society and wrong if it does not.

A child scolds a parent for littering because there is a sign saying not to do so.

Postconventional morality (about one fifth of the adult population)

Morality is now determined by the experiences and judgment of the person, even if that judgment disagrees with society’s rules.

A husband helps his dying wife commit suicide to end her pain, even though society considers that action to be murder.

Psychosocial Development

The development of personality and social relationships in adolescence primarily concerns the search for a consistent sense of self or personal identity.

Erikson’s Identity Versus Role Confusion

identity versus role confusion - In this stage, the teenager must choose from among many options for values in life and beliefs concerning things such as political issues, career options, and marriage

Erikson believed that teens who have successfully resolved the conflicts of the earlier four stages are much better “equipped” to resist peer pressure to engage in unhealthy or illegal activities and find their own identity during the adolescent years.

Parent-Teen Conflict

Many researchers believe that a certain amount of “rebellion” and conflict is a necessary step in breaking away from childhood dependence on the parents and becoming a self-sufficient4 adult

8.9 Gender Differences

“Heinz dilemma” in which they answer the question of: whether it is right for a man to steal an expensive drug to save his dying wife

8.10 Adulthood

Physical Development: Use It or Lose It

Physical Aging

20s are a time of peak physical health, sharp senses, fewer insecurities, and mature cognitive abilities.

oil glands in the neck and around the eyes begin to malfunction, contributing to wrinkles in those areas near the end of the 20s and beginning of the 30s

30s may not bring noticeable changes, but vision and hearing are beginning to decline

age 40, bifocal lenses may become necessary as the lens of the eye hardens, becoming unable to change its shape to shift focus. 

Hearing loss may begin in the 40s and 50s but often does not become noticeable

60s or 70s, when hearing aids may become necessary.

Menopause

In a woman’s 40s, the levels of the female hormone estrogen decline as the body’s reproductive system prepares to cease that function

The changes that happen at this time are called the climacteric, and the period of 5 to 10 years over which these changes occur is called perimenopause. At an average age of 51, most women will cease ovulation altogether, ending their reproductive years. 

Menopause - the cessation of ovulation and the menstrual cycle 

andropause - usually begins in the 40s with a decline in several hormones, primarily testosterone (the major male hormone). Physical symptoms are also less dramatic but no less troubling: fatigue, irritability, possible problems in sexual functioning, and reduced sperm count. Males, however, rarely lose all reproductive ability

Effects of Aging on Health

Some of the common health problems that may show up in middle age are high blood pressure, skin cancer, heart problems, arthritis, and obesity.

Cognitive Development

intellectual abilities do not decline overall, although speed of processing (or reaction time) does slow down

Changes in Memory

Changes in memory ability are probably the most noticeable changes in middle-aged cognition. People find themselves having a hard time recalling a particular word or someone’s name. 

How to Keep Your Brain Young

People who exercise their mental abilities have been found to be less likely to develop memory problems and possibly affect the progression of more serious dementias, such as Alzheimer’s, in old age

Psychosocial Development

The task of choosing and entering a career is very serious and a task that many young adults have difficulty accomplishing

Erikson’s Intimacy Versus Isolation: Forming Relationships

True intimacy is an emotional and psychological closeness that is based on the ability to trust, share, and care (an ability developed during the earlier stages such as trust versus mistrust) while still maintaining one’s sense of self

Erikson’s Generativity Versus Stagnation: Parenting

Erikson saw this as parenting the next generation and helping them through their crises, a process he called generativity. Educators, supervisors, health-care professionals, doctors, and community volunteers might be examples of positions that allow a person to be generative.

Authoritarian parenting tends to be overly concerned with rules. This type of parent is stern, rigid, controlling, and uncompromising,⁵ demands perfection, and has a tendency to use physical punishment.

Permissive parenting occurs when parents put very few demands on their children for behavior. Permissive neglectful parents simply aren’t involved with their children, ignoring them and allowing them to do whatever they want, until it interferes with what the parent wants.

Permissive indulgent parents seem to be too involved with their children, allowing their “little angels” to behave in any way they wish, refusing to set limits on the child’s behavior or to require any kind of obedience.

Authoritative parenting involves combining firm limits on behavior with love, warmth, affection, respect, and a willingness to listen to the child’s point of view. Authoritative parents are more democratic, allowing the child to have some input into the formation of rules but still maintaining the role of final decision maker.

Erikson’s Ego Integrity Versus Despair: Dealing With Mortality

If people can look back and feel that their lives were relatively full and are able to come to terms with regrets and losses, then a feeling of ego integrity or wholeness results. Integrity is the final completion of the identity, or ego. If people have many regrets and lots of unfinished business, they feel despair, a sense of deep regret over things that will never be accomplished because time has run out.

8.11 Theories of Physical and Psychological Aging

Cellular-Clock Theory

One of the biologically based theories is the cellular-clock theory (Hayflick, 1977). In this theory, cells are limited in the number of times they can reproduce to repair damage

Telomeres - structures on the ends of chromosomes that shorten each time a cell reproduces (Martin & Buckwalter, 2001). When telomeres are too short, cells cannot reproduce and damage accumulates, resulting in the effects of aging.

Wear-and-Tear Theory

wear-and-tear theory of aging - the body’s organs and cell tissues simply wear out with repeated use and abuse. Damaged tissues accumulate and produce the effects of aging.

Collagen - a natural elastic tissue that allows the skin to be flexible. 

As people age, the collagen “wears out,” becoming less and less “stretchy” and allowing skin to sag and wrinkle

Free-Radical Theory

The free-radical theory is actually the latest version of the wear-and-tear theory in that it gives a biological explanation for the damage done to cells over time. Free radicals are oxygen molecules that have an unstable electron (negative particle). They bounce around the cell, stealing electrons from other molecules and increasing the damage to structures inside the cell. As people get older, more and more free radicals do more and more damage, producing the effects of aging

Activity Theory

Activity theory - proposes that an elderly person adjusts more positively to aging when remaining active in some way

Stages of Death and Dying

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross theorized that people go through five stages of reaction when faced with death

These stages are: 

Denial - people refuse to believe that the diagnosis of death is real 

Anger - which is really anger at death itself and the feelings of helplessness to change things Bargaining- the dying person tries to make a deal with doctors or even with God

Depression - sadness from losses already experienced (e.g., loss of a job or one’s dignity) and those yet to come (e.g., not being able to see a child grow up)

Acceptance - when the person has accepted the inevitable and quietly awaits death