PSYC 4072 Study Guide Topic Introduction and Demographics Cross Cultural Perspectives terms of decline Biological age Focus on organs and tissues Norm referenced Viewed in Psychological age Focus on adaptive capacity Inferred based on Social age Focus on roles and age appropriate behaviors in relation to psychological measures 2 Social factors in adult development and aging CHAPTER 1 1 Ways of de ning age societal expectations Sex and gender Race Ethnicity Socioeconomic status Religion 3 Demographic trends and implications Increasing numbers of older adults today and in the future In 1900 s people 65 only 4 of the US pop Life expectancy was 47 Today people 65 are 12 of the US pop Life expectancy is 77 years In 2020 people 65 will be 16 of the US pop In 2050 people 65 will be 20 25 of the US pop Increasing due to better medicine lower infant mortality psychological political Implications of demographic trends 4 Who is living longer US citizens plus people in Europe Scandinavia and Japan 85 oldest old is the fastest growing segment of the pop 5 Ethnicity and aging Ethnicity Based on race religion or national identity Aging Brings cultural expectations roles practices Cross cultural de nitions of old age Chronological age as a marker Functional ability as a marker Transitional events as a marker When someone is unable to work When rst child marries then you labeled as aging 6 Double jeopardy hypothesis Old age and minority status combine to increase discrimination in attitudes and Alternate view age as the great leveler services 7 Status and treatment of old people in traditional and modern societies Traditional societies Role of the culture s economic base If there isn t enough food then the oldest do not eat Given jobs that they can do The old have been blessed by the gods in order to live so long revere the Spiritual supremacy in traditional societies old Control of material goods The old controlling ownership of land Modern societies older people Has the status of older people declined in modernized industrial societies Maybe not Look at political activism AARP look at social programs for Maybe so Look at devalued status implied in our language can t teach an Ageism as a social factor to consider old dog new tricks look at Hollywood Botox CHAPTER 2 PAGES 27 29 ONLY 1 Sociocultural models of development The ecological perspective identi es multiple levels of the environment that interact with individual processes of change The inner biological level represents the physiological changes that take place over time that affect the functioning of the body The next level of individual functioning includes cognition personality and other processes of adaptation The third level is the proximal social relational level which involves the individual s relationships with signi cant others peers and members of the nuclear family At the sociocultural level are relations with the larger social institutions of educational public policy governmental and economic systems Although interactions at both social levels occur throughout development the interactions regarded as having the greatest impact on an individual s life occur at the proximal level in the immediate environment The life course perspective emphasizes the importance of age based norms roles and attitudes as in uences that shape events throughout development Through the life course perspective sociologists and social gerontologists attempt to form links between these broad social factors and individual adjustment These social scientists distinguish the term life course from life span in emphasizing the non biological factors that in uence changes over time 2 Cross cultural issues discussed in class Role of the culture s economic base If there isn t enough food then the oldest do not eat Given jobs that they can do The old have been blessed by the gods in order to live so long revere the old The old controlling ownership of land Spiritual supremacy in traditional societies Control of material goods Topic Research Methods CHAPTER 3 1 Why research methods are important to study Evaluation of scienti c claims e g 4 out of 5 dentists Draw valid conclusions Older people differ from younger people in many ways other than e g are observed differences due to age or preexisting differences in health chronological age and education Make informed decisions e g whether to use Cognex in early AD effect Intraindividual change 2 Concepts of intraindividual change interindividual differences cohort cohort A change in traits behaviors abilities or performance levels within a speci c person at any point in time Interindividual differences Changes between people Cohort A collection of people who were all born within 10 years of each other A group of peers who have experienced the same historic events in life at e g so the cohort of people who were young adults during the depression about the same age are all elderly adults today Cohort effect Represents a past history which is unique to a particular generation of people and contributes to all measurements of that generation 3 Descriptive research designs advantages and disadvantages Process Age alone is the variable of interest Goal describe age differences in performance on some experimental task Select samples of adults to represent each age level and test them on some Mean of old sample is compared to the mean of the young sample performance measure performance Evaluate statistical signi cance of the relationship using a t or F test Draw conclusions about the relationship between chronological age and Most common cross sectional design Helps with understanding differences between age groups Studies of aging are by de nition quasi experimental and thus do not allow Advantage Disadvantage cause and effect conclusions 4 Sequential research designs Age effect The most ef cient design builds on the measurement of 3 things Variance due to maturational changes within people over time Intraindividual change is what most scientists are interested in Cohort effect Variance due to birth cohort re ects historic in uences Great Depression Vietnam War era Typically considered a source of confounding Time of measurement effect Variance due to the year subjects are tested re ects current environmental conditions with the internet Google people are more computer savvy today Typically considered a source of confounding Disadvantages Similar to longitudinal designs Time expense and in exibility Sampling issues esp