PSY 357 Exam 3 2026/2027 | 100+ Questions & Answers | Early, Middle & Late Adulthood, Aging, Intelligence, Relationships & Grief

This comprehensive PSY 357 Exam 3 2026/2027 study resource contains 100+ questions and correct answers across 21 pages, covering human development from early adulthood through middle and late adulthood, aging, cognitive development, personality, relationships, sexuality, health, intelligence, death, dying and grief. The material begins with physical development in early adulthood, including peak physical performance between ages 19 and 26 as stated in the document, obesity, leptin, body-weight set point, exercise, dieting, substance use and health behaviors. It then progresses systematically through cognitive and psychosocial development in early adulthood before examining midlife development, biological aging, cognition in later life and end-of-life psychology. The early-adulthood physical and psychosocial development section reviews obesity and contributing hereditary, hormonal and environmental factors, including leptin and set-point concepts. The document also examines patterns of adult sexuality, sexual orientation theories, heterosexual and homosexual relationships, sexual harassment, rape and acquaintance rape. It presents comparisons of relationship conflict and communication while also reviewing misconceptions about sexual orientation, including what the source labels the “seduction” and “by-default” myths. A major cognitive-development section addresses Piaget and postformal thought. According to the material, emerging adults possess greater knowledge than adolescents even though Piaget regarded adolescent and adult thought as qualitatively similar. Postformal thinking is characterized as reflective, relativistic, contextual, provisional, realistic and influenced by emotion. The guide also includes practical approaches for enhancing creativity, such as actively pursuing interesting experiences, establishing specific goals and recording situations in which an individual surprises or is surprised by others. The document provides extensive preparation on temperament, intimacy, love, marriage and relationships. Students review continuity and change in temperament from childhood into adulthood and Erikson's concept of intimacy versus isolation. Sternberg's theory of love receives detailed treatment through intimacy, passion and commitment and combinations such as infatuation, empty love, romantic love, companionate love and fatuous love. Additional topics include cohabitation, predictors of divorce and the communication patterns described in the source as rapport talk and report talk. The middle-adulthood section examines age identity, physical changes, sarcopenia, visual accommodation, metabolic syndrome, chronic disease, cardiovascular risk, climacteric changes and sexual activity. Cognitive development is explored through crystallized versus fluid intelligence, with accumulated information and verbal skills associated with crystallized intelligence and abstract reasoning associated with fluid intelligence. The Seattle Longitudinal Study is discussed in relation to verbal comprehension, verbal memory, inductive reasoning, spatial orientation, numerical ability and perceptual speed. The document also contrasts longitudinal and cross-sectional research designs and discusses expertise during middle adulthood. Psychosocial development in midlife includes religion, spirituality, meaning in life, generativity versus stagnation and the midlife-crisis debate. The guide contrasts Levinson's account of a midlife crisis with Vaillant's position that only a minority of adults experience such a crisis. It also examines gender differences in responses to stress, the social clock, cultural differences in perceptions of midlife and the diversity of women's midlife experiences. Personality is reviewed through the Big Five/OCEAN traits: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism, alongside evidence for both personality stability and change. Family development is covered through empty-nest experiences, grandparenting and the sandwich generation. The document identifies continuity, emotional and remote grandparent roles and formal, fun-seeking and distant-figure grandparenting styles. The sandwich generation is defined as adults who simultaneously face responsibilities for raising their own children and caring for aging parents. These concepts connect family-role transitions with the broader developmental changes occurring during middle adulthood. The late-adulthood and biological-aging material distinguishes life expectancy from maximum life span and reviews evolutionary, cellular-clock, free-radical, mitochondrial and hormonal-stress theories of aging. Physical changes include reduced height and muscle mass, slower movement and mobility limitations. The guide discusses cataracts, glaucoma and macular degeneration, age-related changes in hearing, smell, taste, touch and pain sensitivity, and chronic conditions such as arthritis and osteoporosis. It also identifies substance misuse among older adults as a “silent epidemic” within the terminology of the source. Cognitive aging is examined through brain lateralization, mechanics and pragmatics, processing speed, attention, memory and language. The material describes mechanics as the neurophysiological “hardware” of cognition and pragmatics as acquired cultural, educational, professional and life knowledge. Students review age-related changes in explicit and implicit memory, mental activity as a potential protective factor, the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon and changes in speech and language. Neurological and cognitive disorders include dementia, mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease, with Parkinson's linked in the document to degeneration of dopamine-producing neurons. The psychosocial late-adulthood section addresses Erikson's integrity versus despair, life review, self-esteem, ageism, marriage, divorce, volunteering and successful aging. The document describes successful aging through factors including appropriate diet, an active lifestyle, mental stimulation, flexibility, positive coping, supportive social relationships and absence of disease. It also discusses how widowhood, institutionalization, physical impairment and declining health may relate to self-esteem in older adulthood. The final section provides focused preparation on death, dying, euthanasia and bereavement. Topics include the death system, brain death, passive and active euthanasia, advance planning and major causes of death across different stages of the lifespan. The guide presents the Kübler-Ross stages—denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance—and distinguishes general grief from prolonged grief disorder. It concludes with disenfranchised grief, defined in the source as grief surrounding a socially ambiguous loss that may not receive open recognition or support. Referenced Academic Source: The uploaded document does not provide a formal textbook citation, journal article, DOI, bibliography or university name. It explicitly discusses established developmental concepts and researchers including Jean Piaget, Robert Sternberg, Erik Erikson, Daniel Levinson, George Vaillant, John Horn, the Seattle Longitudinal Study and Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, but these are topics covered by the document rather than a formal reference list. Therefore, attributing the questions to a particular textbook, journal or university would not be supported by the uploaded source. Relevant Students: PSY 357 students, lifespan development students, developmental psychology students, human development students, psychology majors, behavioral science students, gerontology students, social science students, nursing and health-science students reviewing lifespan psychology, and students preparing for examinations covering early adulthood, middle adulthood, late adulthood, aging, relationships, cognition and grief. 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