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Chapter 12 Psych

The document discusses cognitive, emotional, and social development across adulthood. It explains that fluid intelligence peaks early in adulthood while crystallized intelligence continues to grow into middle age, and that personality traits become more stable with age. Generativity and wisdom tend to increase in middle adulthood as priorities shift towards concerns for others, though life stresses can promote growth or preservation of happiness depending on how they are handled.

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31 views2 pages

Chapter 12 Psych

The document discusses cognitive, emotional, and social development across adulthood. It explains that fluid intelligence peaks early in adulthood while crystallized intelligence continues to grow into middle age, and that personality traits become more stable with age. Generativity and wisdom tend to increase in middle adulthood as priorities shift towards concerns for others, though life stresses can promote growth or preservation of happiness depending on how they are handled.

Uploaded by

kelemadu.15
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Cognitive Development

The Seattle Longitudinal Study - the definitive research exploring age changes in IO - showed
that we reach our intellectual peak in midlife.
However, on measures that require mastering new information quickly, declines start by the
early forties; on tests requiring stored knowledge, scores increase until the sixties. The reason is
that there are two basic cognitive skills, called fluid intelligence and crystallized intelligence.
Fluid intelligence, our capacity to master unfamiliar cognitive challenges quickly, is at its height
early in adulthood and then declines. Crystallized intelligence, our knowledge base, improves
well into middle age. In professions that heavily depend on crystallized knowledge - as opposed
to fast information processing - people do well into their sixties. Creativity reaches its peak in
midlife, although our basic talents predict our real-world performance (at any age) best. Staying
healthy, measured by having allostatic load, exercising, and searching out stimulating
interpersonal jobs can slow age-related cognitive decline. Using selective optimization with
compensation helps people successfully cope with age-related losses and have a better work-
life balance at any life stage.

Emotional Development
Personality both changes and doesn't change during adult life. Research on the Big Five traits
show personality is stable as we age, and scores on basic traits such as extraversion, openness
to experience, and the other core dimensions of personality predict a variety of life outcomes.
Conscientiousness sets us up to be healthy and successful in work and love.
Still, people grow in conscientiousness as they assume adult roles and become more resilient
and altruistic as they move into middle age. I McAdams's research exploring Erikson's
generativity shows that our priorities shift to "other centered concerns" during midlife.
Generativity, while not related to hedonic happiness, is at the core of eudaimonic happiness -
living a meaningful, fulfilling adult life.
In their autobiographies, highly generative adults produce a commitment script and describe
redemption sequences - negative events that turned out for the best. The fact that African
Americans tend to be exceptionally generative suggests that adversity- handled productively –
produces emotional growth.

Psychological research on wisdom grew out of studies exploring an adult Piagetian stage of
development called postformal thought. Wise thinkers search for the best answers in the face of
real-world complexity. The empathic and try to make the best decisions from everyone's
perspective; they are humble, realizing that they don't have all the answers in life. Wise thinking
in the real world varies, depending on how ego-involved we are in situations. Age does not
necessarily produce wisdom, but adults report growing wiser after traumatic experiences. Wise
reasoning rav allow older adults to preserve their happiness in the face of life stresses.
To foster eudaimonic happiness, young people should engage in generative activities.
Educators should teach wisdom to promote personal (and society's) well-being. Science reveals
surprising happiness facts and offers tantalizing tips for feeling happy in daily life.
Social Development

Grandmotherhood may have evolved to help our species survive. In c-society, grandparents act
as family watchdogs, stepping in when the younger family members need help. Gender,
physical proximity, the grandchildren's ages, and especially people's relationship with the
younger parent generation determine people's involvement in this joyous but constrained life
role. Because women tend to be closer to their own mothers, paternal grandmothers are at risk
of being less involved with the grandchildren than they want. At its extreme, people may be cut
off from seeing the grandchildren after a divorce or due to having alienated the parents. The
opposite extreme, being forced to be too involved, occurs with caregiving grandparents, who
must become full-time parents again.

Parent care is another family role that some middle-aged daughters may assume. A variety of
forces affect how women feel when caring for a disabled parent, and this life role can
sometimes promote emotional growth. Midlife stresses while producing a decline in happiness
are the crucible that can help make us more mature.

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