Adult development and aging whitbourne lectures

Week 1 ADULT DEVELOPMENT

What is adult development?Adult: 18 yrs old or older; 20 yrs old; 21 yrs old; 25 yrs old; fully developed physically; social role; capable of making own decisions; financially independent;  no longer a dependentDevelopment: psychological and physical changes over the time; patterns of growth; patterns of sustainability; patterns of decreasing ability Why study? Development is evolved in every psych class, tell about my future & how to be better, having this knowledge could take better care of others (better nurse)

HistoryFor very long time, developmental psychology is focus only on children1920, articles on aging, but not about developmental psychology, limited to elderly 1940: gerontology established, 1959: Erikson proposed lifespan theory of personality development

Age periodsPrenatal Infancy/toddlerhood 0-3 yrsPreschool/early childhood 3-6 yrsMiddle childhood 7-12 yrs(Preadolescent: 10-13)Adolescence 12-19Young adult 20-40Middle adult 41-65Late adult/elderly 65+

Late adulthood subcategories Chronological ageYoung old: 65-74Old old: 75-84Oldest old: 85+

Functional ageYoung old: healthy and active

Old old: some difficultyOldest old: need care and frail

Biological age: function of organ system, nursing focus, bp, Psychological: functioning of psychological tests: memory, IQ, EQ, reaction time Social age: social roles, work roles, retirement status

Terminology Life expectancy: how long you are expected to live based on factors: sex, country, family history (Canada: men: 79; women: 84; men are less likely to go to hospital, men are more successful in suicide, mem are more reckless)  Life span: longest possible span that the species could have, 122 for human beingsLongevity: btw the life expectancy and life span  Primary aging: typical, normal aging that apply to everyone, not preventable, no control to it  Secondary aging: aging related to our choices, environment, and diseases, we have some control: smoking, diet, exercise, alcohol, stress, exposure to pollution, sun exposure, risky behaviors: unprotective sex, injuries Tertiary aging: specific to fatal diseases

Influences on development History: war, 911 eventAge: biological environmental development similar to particular age group Social-cultural: social class, ethnicity, Non-normative events: atypical event, personal to particular person: personal accident, injury,

Issues in developmental psych Nature vs nurture Genetic: nature Environmental: nurture Gene-environment effect: nature and nurture interact to influence development, eg: schizophrenia 

Critical vs sensitive periodCritical: specific time when particular event has to happen in order to develop normally, very restricted

Sensitive: time when particular event better happen for develop normally, but does not always cause adverse effects

Continuity: gradual development, constant and connected Discontinuity: uneven and disconnected development: growing height

Normative vs idiographic Normative: typical development, commonality in average person, universal development Idiographic: differences in development, individual factors, human diversity

What is gerontology? The scientific study of the aging process. From maturity through old age, as well as the study of o lder adults as a special group

Types of developmental research designs involving combinations of cross-sectional and longitudinal designs: Sequential Designs

Week 2: Adult development

5 key Features1) Multidirectionality2) Multidimensionality 3) Plasticity4) History and context 5) Multiple Causality

They all interact: memory, cognitive abilities, etc how they interact and influence each other is an important aspect of lifespan approach

Plasticity: ability to change, occurs in all stages of life however the amount of plasticity varies per stage

To understand someone you had to understand their historical context, the circumstances of their surroundings as their aging (family dynamic, education system, socioeconomic status)

Multiple causality: genetics, environment, interpersonal factors all contribute to the cause

When one looks at development you should look at the whole picture, and you can achieve that by looking at these 5 features

Psychological perspectives:Lifespan approach can be applied to all of these approaches

1) biological/neuroscience2) psychodynamic (unconscious process-freudian)3) cognitive approach “computer-human comparisons) of thought process4) sociocultural-cultural beliefs-cultural norms shaping our

behavior/development5) humanistic-born out of personality development (maslows hierarchy of

need) optimistic outlook believes everyone can fulfill their potential no wonder what situation one is in

6) behavioral-learned responses (classical, operant conditioning skinner/pavlov)

biological perspective: 2 broad categories

Genetically preprogrammed theories of aging -something in our DNA that makes us age-genetically preprogrammed that u can read “this amount of times” till it shuts down

Wear and Tear theories of aging-as we use our bodies, we are wearing them out e.g. car-creates byproducts that are harmful, as they accumulate it causes aging and eventually death

Erikson-builds off of freud’s psychosexual stages8 stagescovers lifespan minus prenatal

3 main outcomes of each stage: 2 bad outcomes and one good outcomeworse outcome is developing a malignant weakness: only developing the bad way of coping good way of coping: basic weakness maladaptive: not as “bad” for u but still problematic Ideally what your aiming for is developing basic strength: emotionally good way of coping but not to the extreme…aka love, caring trust, hope

^^^^ All u need to know about erikson is week 2 stuff genetic principle and how this works

Cognitive perspective: Piaget vs. Vygotsky 4 stages of cognitive development

1) Sensorimotor (0-2 years)2) Preoperational (2-7 years)3) Concrete operations (7-11 years)4) Formal Operations (11+ years)

-he is not a lifespan theorist

Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of cognitive development-Dynamic Transactions -According to his theory cognitive development occurs through social interactions, one w low cognitive dev. Interacting with a good cog dev.-the benefits of those interactions is not limited to the younger person, one whose older can benefit too..the better u are at explaining it makes it more clear in ur head adults interacting with children benefit

Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological perspective: -you start in the middle level the individual, personality interest, your age sex etc-then the next layer is the microsystem (sports team, family etc.) immediate and direct influence-meso system is the interaction between ur direct influences and ur indirect influences ex. family interacting with ur school -exosystem: external networks: educational system ur in e.g. Ryerson -macro system: larger than ur external networks e.g. culture…nationality…society -Final one: Chronosystem: changes in systems over time, changes in the interactions, e.g. kindergarten to lecture –time factor how they change or stay the same overtime -Different levels of context is very important diff lvls and how they interact

Sociocultural Perspective: Competing life course theoriesWhat we should do in late adulthood to successfully prepare ourself to not be here

Disengagement theory: disengaging socially, physically, emotionally, normal way of doing it and desirable way of doing it care less e.g. grandma who is 96 shouldn’t care what is happening in the election (sounds negative but its “not” its proper way of doing it)Activity theory: stay as engaged as long as u possibly can Continuity theory: compromise of the 2 (our individuality in aging)

Developmental researchIndependent variable: the variable u have control over, and purposefully changing somehow, manipulating Dependent variable: the outcome you observe, the outcome variable, the one your interested in: the changes to the independent variable how does that effect the dependent variable

Correlational studies: determining if there is a relationship between 2 variablesDo not prove causality, do provide important info, correlation coefficient:ranging from -1 to +1 The closer to 0 the weaker the relationship, coefficient of 0 means completely randomCloser to one the stronger the relationship

Used frequently as a first step

Natural experiments: Participants not assigned to a conditionExperimenters do not introduce changeExperimenters observe participants in a natural setting and measure effects of naturally occurring changes -no independent variable-instead the experimenter observes and u wait in whatever ur interested in to occurAdvantages: high ecological validityDIS: difficult to make any causation statements, no control over the variables or the environment, can be quite time consuming to wait for a particular change to occur naturally

Field Experiment: -Experimenters go to a real-world setting of the participants (e.g. long-term care facility)-experimenter deliberately creates a change (IV)-Measure outcome (DV) dependent variableADV:-Still have to control over the IV-Greater ecological validityDIS:-Less control over the environment -Logistically harder to organize

Laboratory experiment ( one we use the must )Because we have control over everything-Participants are invited into a laboratory setting-to determine cause and effect-Groups: 1) treatment/experimental 2) control-Variables: 1) Independent 2) Dependent -Random subject selection and assignment Main Advantage/ DIS:

-qual stud and case studies: more focused on interview based research-archiv. Research-surveys-epidemiological studies-AVOID meta-analysis for assignment

Age is treated as an independent variable, however it is not it is a quasi-variable -u can not manipulate age/no control over it -gender sex

Issues in Developmental Research:

-Cohorts & Cohort Effects*a group sharing a characteristic, generally its when they are born a cohort everyone born in 1995, or more specific every1 born in 1995 in a certain socioeconomic status or location -Attrition & selective Attrition-attrition refers to a decrease in ur participants -each time you see them theres fewer and fewer there, IT WILL HAPPEN but what u want to know is those dropping out is there a shared characteristics between them

Measuring developmental change: 3 approachesLongitudinal Studies-individuals who are 20,30 cohort ur interested in then u get them to come to ur lab AT LEAST twice, ideally more Time required: longAbility to control costs: low Ability to maintain pool of participants: very problematicContinuity of staff: medium to lowFlexibility in adapting to new tests/measures: lowLikelihood of practice effects: high (problem) Pros: Ability to assess research issues-normative of early lfie events on later behavior. Excellent -impact of early life events on later behavior: excellentstability vs instability of behavior: excellent

historical or cohort issues: POOR-only looking at one cohort

logistically it’s a nightmare, interesting but… Cross-Sectional Studies, -The opposite of Longitudinal-Only come to the Lab once-Different groups of different agesTime required: short Ability to control costs: high Ability to maintain pool of participants: excellent (they only need to come once)Continuity of staff: high Flexibility in adapting to new tests/measures: high Likelihood of practice effects: low

*Ability to assess research issues-Normative development data at diff ages: excellent-impact of early life events on later behavior: poor-stability vs instability of behavior: poor-historical or cohort: excellent

Sequential Studies-the compromise of the two-like cross-sectional there are multiple groups-creating a staggered system-compare ur 20 year olds from time 1 to time 2 (25 year olds)-not the same u know there are cohort effects if they are the same no cohort effects

Time required: moderateAbility to control costs: ModerateAbility to maintain pool of participants: moderate to goodBlahblah check slidesMiddle ground, keep it easy as cross-sectional

Developmental functions:What kind of patterns can we expect?

5 main functions of developmental researchstep function-discontinuous development-peoples height, growth spurt …

classic developmental story: increased ability-how ability got to an adult level more frequently found when looking at child development

Decreased ability: how do the abilities get worse and decrease as we ageMore the typical adult development aging function

Inverted U ability: looking at how an ability increases and increases then peaks then decreases: more common in a life span approach, across the life span quite a few abilities will have this shape

RARE: abilities decrease with age than go up/rebalance U SHAPE ability

Ethical guidelines: week 2 lecture slides

Is there a possibility of Cohort effectsWhat kind of study cross-sectional etc Paper ^Specific topic

Health: Prevention and treatment ch 5 and 11October 19th

What are the first health issues you think of when you think of middle and late adulthood?

Bone Density, Joints aches and pains-arthritis, various old injures getting worse and worse, cardiovascular heart issues, diabetes, vision, dementia, Alzheimer’s

Physical health: young adulthood

Less susceptible to colds and other minor illnesses

Leading cause of death:Accidents > illness and disease

-high accident rate switches to illness and disease until age of 35-switches over

Middle Adulthood: majority of people 40-65 age don’t have a major chronic illness, fewer accidents (bc more responsible less impulsive, more careful), fewer infections

People between 40-65 less allergies infections compared to the young adult

Physical health demographics: In middle adult 40%

Only 7% have chronic illnesses for 45-65

Shift changes in 65-79, then majority in 80 plus have chronic illness –late adulthood is when chronic illness begins to kick in

Sex Difference:

Middle adulthood: women tend to experience more non-life threatening illnesses, women less likely to drink and smoke in comparison to men

However men tend to exp more serious illnesses

Research inequality: another sex diff in research is that most researchers have focused on mens health women were not even considered

Cultural differences: aboriginal pop tends to be at higher risk for various diseases than the non aboriginal pop exp 75+ is high, only one theyre not ahead is cancer

-diff cultural risk factor

2011: leading cause of death is: cancer, second is heart disease, stroke is number 3 “big3” for Canada, UK, USA

Types of CVD: - MOST common one is hypertension “high blood pressure” pretty common

Things that make it more likely for this disease: smoking, lack of exercise, diet high in fat all 3

contribute and increase our risk of getting cardiovascular disease, other things are a family history, family genetic good indicator

-men are a higher risk for CVD, but women are still at risk

world avg is 25% of death r related to cvd, we tend to be on the same

country with the highest: Russia, eastern Europe, Bulgaria, Romania Canada is the 26th

highest w obesity: mexico and usa in EU: UK highest

CVD and Personality:

Type A vs Type B personality

Correlation between type A and CVD

Type A “impulsive go getter” and Type B “relaxed easy going people” are NOT valid personality types

A lot of people took this research as correlation is causation but the research was just done making correlation and causation statement, there is no research to support that we have this TYPE B TYPE A personality

What this research tells us is: people who are angered easily hostile they have a correlation with CVD

Cancer:

Leading cause of death in middle adulthood

Cancer is associated with genetic and environmental risks

Early treatment is related to higher survival rate

-sometimes occupational hazards

2 in 5 canadians will develop cancer in their lifetime 1 in 4 of those people will then die from cancer

Top cancer for women: breast cancer –survival rate has increased dramatically

Top cancer for men: prostate cancer

Number 2 for female and males: lung cancer

And number 3 for both sexes is: colon cancer

Early detection is the best way to survive, various treatment options:

Surgery may be used to remove the tumor, chemotherapy

Theres no overall psychological profile for cancer patient: very individual differences on how people respond

People who respond the best are people with good social support networks, friends and family you can talk to, the ones you form during other cancer patients etc-really useful, better position psychologically

Osteo-Arthritis tends to kick in at age of “40”

Some people get it more severely than others can be quite problematic for their life, hard to have a social life, painful, can be quite severe

Tends to be very common at least half of them have a form of arthritis

Diabetes

Biological: changes in glucose metabolism, obesity

Psychological: sedentary lifestyle; also associated with depression and stress

Sociocultural: habitual eating patterns lack of education low economic resources

4 different types of diabetes:

type 1 diabetes: related with an early diagnosis (children, adolescence)

type 2: diagnosed more in adulthood, tends to be more problematic tends to be diagnosed between the ages of 50s to 60s, also represents the 90% of people who have diabetes main one

type 3: Gestational diabetes women who is pregenant develops diabetes or diabetes symptoms probs w glucose levels etc –20s-30sgenerally when women have the baby their glucose levels go back to normal however they are at a higher risk for developing type 2 diabetes later in their life , additionally the child u are carrying is at a higher risk for developing type 2 diabetes both at an increased risk

type 4: Prediabetes: not really a type of diabetes its called ‘pre-diabetes’ ur levels r higher than normal but not quite at the point where theyd give u a diabetes diagnoses-can be a wake up call only 50 percent go on to get type 2 diabetes

big risk factor for diabetes: family, ethnicity (people of aboriginal descent, Hispanic, Asian south or south east Asian, and African –all of those increase your risk being overweight or obese increases your risk quite a bit, also living in low income or poverty and finally more MEN than WOMEN have diabetes

a lot of health benefits to owning a dog

diabetes increases likelihood of blindness, kidney, stroke, limp amputation-type 1 and 2 don’t have as much feeling in their legs and get infected and notice when it is too late

study tool: Canadian association factors “make up profiles” and see what it tells u

Stress and Health: what is the relationship between stress and health: increased stress increased

health problems

Various ways: decreases immune system elevates heart pressure –direct ways

Indirect ways: stress increases likelihood to do bad behaviors such as stress eating tend to eat harmful behaviors, smoke more, drink more do more of these behaviours when we are stressed decrease in nutrition sleep, increase in drugs –When your stressed out less likely to seek medical care follow medical advice, shown to make our health worse

TedTalk Videos: changed mind about stress: the study 30,000 adults in US for 8 years asked do u believe stress is harmful for ur health and how much stress have you experienced, 43% increased risk in dying if they had a lot of stress and believed it was harmful, however people who had a lot of stress yet didn’t view it as harmful did have the risk of dying

20,000 death a year “believing stress is bad for u” #15 in leading death

when u change ur mind about stress u can change ur bodies response to stress “social stress test”

participants who learned to view this stress response as healthy their physical stress response changed

chronic stress associated with CVD

but those who viewed stress as healthy their heart still pounded but it was more relaxed: looked like a heart in confidence or ready for a challenge

how u think about stress matters

“my body preparing for this challenge”

stress makes you social, oxytocin-hormone “released when u hug someone”

fine-tunes ur brains social instincts primes u to do things that strengthens social networks, enhances ur sympathy-pituitary gland pumps this out it is a stress response, motivating u to seek support, your biological stress response is nudging u to tell someone how u feel instead of bottling it up

oxytocin: heart has receptors for this hormones, strengthens ur heart

for every major life stress increased risk of dying by 30% like major financial problem or relative death

but people who helped others showed 0 response, built in resilience

perception of stress has a major effect on ones health

Neurocognitive behavior:

Dementia: In the DSM-IV 4 (diagnostic manual) switched to the DSM-V: one of the changes is dementia the name has changed to “Major or Minor Neurocognitive disorder” literal word for dementia is: absent mind, out of mind negative contation to the word, the other ADV is having the major vs minor differentiation now we have 2 levels

Difference between Dementia vs Alzheimer’s disease: dementia is a cluster of symptoms of which these various diseases have been

associated with ex. huntingston disease, brain injury, Alzheimers is most common

alzheimers has dementia as one of it symptoms

Alzheimers being the most common

Symptoms related to alz probs memory, personality issues, language issues, perception, thinking and planning first sign is usually forgetfulness

In terms of memory loss: recent memories go first, older ones start to disappear later quite problematic: forgetting they’ve been placed in a care system, what their spouse now looks like

Alzheimers is a progressive disorder, and all of these disorders some cases where dementia can be rare generally related to brain injuries, RARE- necessity of care comes into point

Auguste –first to be diagnosed with alzheimers

Alzheimer’s disease: progressive brain disorder, memory loss and confusion

Early onset Alzheimer’s disease: Onset before the age of 65, 5% of people who have had alzheimers (early onset and early stage r 2 diff things regardless of the onset)can be as early as 305% of people who have Alzheimer’s disease2 types: 1) common AD “same as typical late onset Alzheimer’s just have it as a younger age”2) Genetic AD –genetic mutation on 1 of 3 genes, APP, PSEN1, PSEN2 –actual genes related to alzheimers there r 3 “much more rare it, genetic seems to be earlier one however more rare

-genetic mutation on 1 of 3 genes, ur choice to find out if u have this mutation chances common AD, however if u do u know ur gonna be getting it if u have not had children yet yet know youd have this mutation would u still want to bc youd be increasing their odds of having it, however if u don’t have it no need-makes things complicated -perception if u have early progresses faster rate however research shows it tends to be true of THE GENETIC vs not the common type Late Onset Alzh. Disease: stats of 20115% of Canadians aged 65+ years22% of Canadians aged 85+ yearsapprox. 747000 canadians have Alzheimer’s diseasethese numbers r gonna increase in the next 20 years because of the babyboomers…fairly even for men and women @risk

****The Biology of Alzh. Disease:Senile Plaques: extracellular deposits of beta amyloid dendrites and glial cellsNeurofibrillarly tangles: intracellular accumulation of tau and ubiquitin proteinsEarly neuronal loss: especially in hippocampus

Brain is shrinking more in patients of alz than healthy ages brain

Helping someone with Alzheimer’s disease –in slides taking care of the caregiver is important bc they tend to neglect their own health problematic: 80 yr old taking care of their spouse, or spouse taking care of parents –people feel

guilty about putting the person in a facility however this is the best outcome

Mental Health: ur greatest risk is in young adult hood opposite pattern -18-25 highest percentage for serious psychological distress-2 reasons: once people start getting treatment their distress levels go down (positive) best case scenario, worse case scenario is those in this high stress scenarios don’t make it they die-suicidethis contributes to the decrease

Psychological disorders: adolescence early 20s theres a sensitive period for developing many psychological disorders such as Mood disorders- bipolar disorder, depressive disorder Personality disorder (schizophrenia)Part of it because of Diathesis-Stress model: people who are more genetically predisoposed to developing these disorders and develop a lot of stress during this time are a lot more likely to develop these disorders, thus if ur not predisposed and have a lot of stress you might not have that increased risk, or low stress low genetic you will not have that increased risk

Peers in university and college: fairly stressful to genetic predisposition increases the likelihood

Men r more likely to get diagnosed around 18 – 19 whereas women its more mid 20s

Depression in young adulthood is pretty high

Slide 33: also research that shows that people who have strong social support from home do well

Quality friendship more important than quantity