DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY PYC4805
Studying Adult Development and Aging
Perspectives on Adult Development and Aging
• Gerontology, the scientific study of aging from maturity through old age
• Aging reflects the individual differences across people as they change over time.
• Myths about old people persist. These myths of aging lead to negative stereotypes of older people
which may result in ageism, a form of discrimination against older adults based on their age.
• Ageism has its foundations in myths and beliefs people take for granted, as well as in intergenerational
relations.
• Development across adulthood brings growth and opportunities as well as loss and decline.
• The life-span perspective, which helps place adult development and aging into the context of the
whole human experience.
The Life-Span Perspective
• The life-span perspective divides human development into two phases: an early phase (childhood and
adolescence) and a later phase (young adulthood, middle age, and old age).
• The early phase is characterized by rapid age-related increases in people's size and abilities.
• The later phase, changes in size are slow, but abilities continue to develop as people continue adapting
to the environment.
• Understanding how adults change requires input from a wide variety of perspectives.
• Aging is a lifelong process, meaning that human development never stops.
• Paul Baltes identified four key features of the life-span perspective:
1. Multidirectionality: Development involves both growth and decline; as people grow in one area, they
may lose in another and at different rates. For example, people's vocabulary ability tends to increase
throughout life, but reaction time tends to slow down.
2. Plasticity: One's capacity is not predetermined or set in concrete. Many skills can be trained or
improved with practice, even in late life. There are limits to the degree of potential improvement.
3. Historical context: Each of us develops within a particular set of circumstances determined by the
historical time in which we are born and the culture in which we grow up.
,4. Multiple causation. How people develop results from a wide variety of forces, biological, psychological,
sociocultural, and life cycle forces.
• The life-span perspective emphasizes that human development takes a lifetime to complete.
• It sets the stage for understanding the many influences we experience and points out that no one part
of life is any more or less important than another.
• Baltes argues that life-span development consists of the dynamic interactions among growth,
maintenance, and loss regulation.
• In their view, three factors are critical:
1. As people age, they begin to focus on or select those abilities deemed essential for functioning.
2. People then optimize their behavior by focusing on this more limited set of abilities.
3. People learn to compensate for declines by designing workaround strategies.
• Taken together, this Selective Optimization with Compensation (SOC) approach explains how people
shift more and more resources to maintain function and deal with biologically related losses as we
grow old, leaving fewer resources to be devoted to continued growth.
• This shift in resources has profound implications for experiencing aging and for pointing out ways to
age successfully.
The Demographics of ageing
• There have never been as many older adults alive as there are now.
• The proportion of older adults in the population of developed countries has increased tremendously,
mainly due to better health care (e.g., the elimination or prevention of previously fatal acute diseases,
especially during childhood, better treatment for chronic diseases) and to lowering women's mortality
rate during childbirth.
• People who study population trends, called, demographers, use a graphic technique called a
population pyramid to illustrate these changes.
• Population pyramids for developed countries. The shape of the population pyramid in 1950, there
were fewer people over age 60, so the figure tapers towards the top. Projections for 2050, a dramatic
change will occur in the number of people over 65.
• These changes also occur in developing countries. The figures for both 1950 and 2015 look more like
pyramids when you look at both the male and female halves together because there are substantially
fewer older adults than younger people. But by 2050, the number of older adults will have increased
dramatically.
• Because the growth of the child population in the United States slowed in the 20th century and
essentially stops by the middle of this century, the average age of Americans will continue to rise.
,• By 2030, all of the baby boomers will have reached at least age 65, meaning that 1 in 5 Americans will
be 65 or older.
• The sheer number of older Americans will place enormous pressure on pension systems especially
Social Security, health care, and other human services.
• The costs will be the responsibility of smaller numbers of taxpaying workers, meaning that each
worker will have a higher tax burden in the future in order to keep benefits at their current levels.
The Diversity of Older Adults
• The number of older adults among minority groups is increasing faster than the number among
European American.
• In terms of gender older women outnumber older men.
• Older adults in the future will be better educated. Better-educated people tend to live longer mostly
because they have higher incomes, which give them better access to good health care and a chance to
follow healthier lifestyles.
• Internationally, the number of older adults is also growing rapidly due to improved health care, lower
rates of death in childbirth, and lower infant mortality.
• Nearly all countries are facing the need to adapt social policies to incorporate these changing
demographics and resulting societal needs.
• Economically powerful countries around the world are trying to cope with increased numbers of older
adults that strain the country's resources.
• Countries will need to deal with an increased demand for services to older adults and, in some cases,
competing demands with children and younger and middle-aged adults for limited resources.
Issues in Studying Adult Development and Aging
• Biological, psychological, sociocultural, and life cycle forces direct our development.
The Forces of Development
• Developmentalists typically consider four interactive forces:
1. Biological forces include all genetic and health related factors that affect development. Examples,
menopause, facial wrinkling, and changes in the major organ systems.
, 2. Psychological forces include all internal perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and personality factors that
affect development. Provide the characteristics we notice about people that make them individuals.
3. Sociocultural forces include interpersonal, societal, cultural and ethnic factors that affect
development. Provide the overall contexts in which we develop.
4. Life-cycle forces reflect differences in how the same event or combination of biological, psychological
and sociocultural forces affects people at different points in their lives. Provide the context for the
developmental differences of interest in adult development and aging.
• Biopsychosocial framework – helps to organise the biological, psychological and sociocultural forces on
human development.
• Together with life-cycle forces, the biopsychosocial framework provides a complete overview of the
shapers of human development.
• Each of us is a product of a unique combination of these forces.
Interrelations Among the Forces: Developmental Influences
• All the forces combine to create people's developmental experiences.
• One way to consider these combinations is to consider the degree to which they are common or
unique to people of specific ages.
• A cohort is a group of people born at the same point in time or within a specific time span.
• Based on this notion of cohort, Baltes identified three sets of influences that interact to produce
developmental change over the life span: normative age-graded influences, normative history-graded
influences, and nonnormative influences.
• Normative age-graded influences are experiences caused by biological, psychological, and
sociocultural forces that occur to most people o a particular age.
• Some of these, such as puberty, menarche, and menopause, are biological.
• These normative biological events usually indicate a major change in a person's life.
• Normative psychological events include focusing on certain concerns at different points in adulthood,
such as a middle-aged person's concern with socializing the younger generation.
• Normative age-graded sociocultural forces, such as the time when first marriage occurs -and the age at
which someone retires.
• Normative age-graded influences typically correspond to major time-marked events, which are often
ritualized. For example, celebrate turning 21.
• These events provide the most convenient way to judge where we are on our social clock.
Studying Adult Development and Aging
Perspectives on Adult Development and Aging
• Gerontology, the scientific study of aging from maturity through old age
• Aging reflects the individual differences across people as they change over time.
• Myths about old people persist. These myths of aging lead to negative stereotypes of older people
which may result in ageism, a form of discrimination against older adults based on their age.
• Ageism has its foundations in myths and beliefs people take for granted, as well as in intergenerational
relations.
• Development across adulthood brings growth and opportunities as well as loss and decline.
• The life-span perspective, which helps place adult development and aging into the context of the
whole human experience.
The Life-Span Perspective
• The life-span perspective divides human development into two phases: an early phase (childhood and
adolescence) and a later phase (young adulthood, middle age, and old age).
• The early phase is characterized by rapid age-related increases in people's size and abilities.
• The later phase, changes in size are slow, but abilities continue to develop as people continue adapting
to the environment.
• Understanding how adults change requires input from a wide variety of perspectives.
• Aging is a lifelong process, meaning that human development never stops.
• Paul Baltes identified four key features of the life-span perspective:
1. Multidirectionality: Development involves both growth and decline; as people grow in one area, they
may lose in another and at different rates. For example, people's vocabulary ability tends to increase
throughout life, but reaction time tends to slow down.
2. Plasticity: One's capacity is not predetermined or set in concrete. Many skills can be trained or
improved with practice, even in late life. There are limits to the degree of potential improvement.
3. Historical context: Each of us develops within a particular set of circumstances determined by the
historical time in which we are born and the culture in which we grow up.
,4. Multiple causation. How people develop results from a wide variety of forces, biological, psychological,
sociocultural, and life cycle forces.
• The life-span perspective emphasizes that human development takes a lifetime to complete.
• It sets the stage for understanding the many influences we experience and points out that no one part
of life is any more or less important than another.
• Baltes argues that life-span development consists of the dynamic interactions among growth,
maintenance, and loss regulation.
• In their view, three factors are critical:
1. As people age, they begin to focus on or select those abilities deemed essential for functioning.
2. People then optimize their behavior by focusing on this more limited set of abilities.
3. People learn to compensate for declines by designing workaround strategies.
• Taken together, this Selective Optimization with Compensation (SOC) approach explains how people
shift more and more resources to maintain function and deal with biologically related losses as we
grow old, leaving fewer resources to be devoted to continued growth.
• This shift in resources has profound implications for experiencing aging and for pointing out ways to
age successfully.
The Demographics of ageing
• There have never been as many older adults alive as there are now.
• The proportion of older adults in the population of developed countries has increased tremendously,
mainly due to better health care (e.g., the elimination or prevention of previously fatal acute diseases,
especially during childhood, better treatment for chronic diseases) and to lowering women's mortality
rate during childbirth.
• People who study population trends, called, demographers, use a graphic technique called a
population pyramid to illustrate these changes.
• Population pyramids for developed countries. The shape of the population pyramid in 1950, there
were fewer people over age 60, so the figure tapers towards the top. Projections for 2050, a dramatic
change will occur in the number of people over 65.
• These changes also occur in developing countries. The figures for both 1950 and 2015 look more like
pyramids when you look at both the male and female halves together because there are substantially
fewer older adults than younger people. But by 2050, the number of older adults will have increased
dramatically.
• Because the growth of the child population in the United States slowed in the 20th century and
essentially stops by the middle of this century, the average age of Americans will continue to rise.
,• By 2030, all of the baby boomers will have reached at least age 65, meaning that 1 in 5 Americans will
be 65 or older.
• The sheer number of older Americans will place enormous pressure on pension systems especially
Social Security, health care, and other human services.
• The costs will be the responsibility of smaller numbers of taxpaying workers, meaning that each
worker will have a higher tax burden in the future in order to keep benefits at their current levels.
The Diversity of Older Adults
• The number of older adults among minority groups is increasing faster than the number among
European American.
• In terms of gender older women outnumber older men.
• Older adults in the future will be better educated. Better-educated people tend to live longer mostly
because they have higher incomes, which give them better access to good health care and a chance to
follow healthier lifestyles.
• Internationally, the number of older adults is also growing rapidly due to improved health care, lower
rates of death in childbirth, and lower infant mortality.
• Nearly all countries are facing the need to adapt social policies to incorporate these changing
demographics and resulting societal needs.
• Economically powerful countries around the world are trying to cope with increased numbers of older
adults that strain the country's resources.
• Countries will need to deal with an increased demand for services to older adults and, in some cases,
competing demands with children and younger and middle-aged adults for limited resources.
Issues in Studying Adult Development and Aging
• Biological, psychological, sociocultural, and life cycle forces direct our development.
The Forces of Development
• Developmentalists typically consider four interactive forces:
1. Biological forces include all genetic and health related factors that affect development. Examples,
menopause, facial wrinkling, and changes in the major organ systems.
, 2. Psychological forces include all internal perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and personality factors that
affect development. Provide the characteristics we notice about people that make them individuals.
3. Sociocultural forces include interpersonal, societal, cultural and ethnic factors that affect
development. Provide the overall contexts in which we develop.
4. Life-cycle forces reflect differences in how the same event or combination of biological, psychological
and sociocultural forces affects people at different points in their lives. Provide the context for the
developmental differences of interest in adult development and aging.
• Biopsychosocial framework – helps to organise the biological, psychological and sociocultural forces on
human development.
• Together with life-cycle forces, the biopsychosocial framework provides a complete overview of the
shapers of human development.
• Each of us is a product of a unique combination of these forces.
Interrelations Among the Forces: Developmental Influences
• All the forces combine to create people's developmental experiences.
• One way to consider these combinations is to consider the degree to which they are common or
unique to people of specific ages.
• A cohort is a group of people born at the same point in time or within a specific time span.
• Based on this notion of cohort, Baltes identified three sets of influences that interact to produce
developmental change over the life span: normative age-graded influences, normative history-graded
influences, and nonnormative influences.
• Normative age-graded influences are experiences caused by biological, psychological, and
sociocultural forces that occur to most people o a particular age.
• Some of these, such as puberty, menarche, and menopause, are biological.
• These normative biological events usually indicate a major change in a person's life.
• Normative psychological events include focusing on certain concerns at different points in adulthood,
such as a middle-aged person's concern with socializing the younger generation.
• Normative age-graded sociocultural forces, such as the time when first marriage occurs -and the age at
which someone retires.
• Normative age-graded influences typically correspond to major time-marked events, which are often
ritualized. For example, celebrate turning 21.
• These events provide the most convenient way to judge where we are on our social clock.
