LIFESPAN DEVELOPMENT 2026 STUDY GUIDE QUESTIONS
AND ANSWERS GRADED A+
✔✔Disability - ✔✔The usual result of morbidity. The inability to do something that
people can usually do. (vision loss)
✔✔Vitality - ✔✔The most important way to measure health, but also the most difficult.
Some people with morbid conditions that increase disability & the risk of mortality are
nonetheless happy & active.
✔✔Problem-focused Coping - ✔✔A strategy to deal with stress by tackling a stressful
situation directly.
✔✔Emotion-focused Coping - ✔✔A strategy to deal with stress by changing feelings
about the stressor rather than changing the stressor itself.
✔✔General Intelligence - ✔✔The idea that assumes that intelligence is one basic trait,
underlying all cognitive abilities. According to this concept, people have varying levels of
this general ability.
✔✔Flynn Effect - ✔✔The rise in average IQ scores that has occurred over the decades
in many nations.
✔✔Seattle Longitudinal Study - ✔✔The first cross-sequential study of adult intelligence.
This study began in 1965; the most recent testing was conducted in 2005.
✔✔Fluid Intelligence - ✔✔Those types of basic intelligence that make learning of all
sorts quick & thorough. Abilities such as short-term memory, abstract thought, learning
new things efficiently, & speed of processing info are all usually considered part of it.
✔✔Crystallized Intelligence - ✔✔Those types of intellectual ability that reflect
accumulated learning. Vocab, facts, & general information are examples. Some
developmental psychologists think it increases with age, while fluid intelligence declines.
✔✔Selective Optimization with Compensation - ✔✔The theory, developed by Paul &
Margart Baltes, that people try to maintain a balance in their lives by looking for the best
way to compensate for physical & cognitive losses & to become more proficient in
activities they can already do well.
✔✔Automatic Processing - ✔✔Thinking that occurs without deliberate, conscious
thought. Experts process most tasks automatically, saving conscious thought for
unfamiliar challenges.
, ✔✔Analytic Intelligence - ✔✔A form of intelligence that involves such mental processes
as abstract planning, strategy selection, focused attention, & information processing, as
well as verbal & logical skills.
✔✔Creative Intelligence - ✔✔A form of intelligence that involves the capacity to be
intellectually flexible & innovative.
✔✔Practical Intelligence - ✔✔The intellectual skills used in everyday problem solving.
✔✔Midlife Crisis - ✔✔A supposed period of unusual anxiety, radical self-reexamination,
& sudden transformation that was once widely associated with middle age but that
actually had more to do with developmental history than with chronological age.
✔✔Big Five - ✔✔The 5 basic clusters of personality traits that remain quite stable
throughout adulthood:
-openness
-conscientiousness
-extroversion
-agreeableness
-neuroticism
✔✔Ecological Niche - ✔✔The particular lifestyle & social context that adults settle into
because it is compatible with their individual personality needs and interests.
✔✔Social Convoy - ✔✔Collectively, the family members, friends, acquaintances, &
even strangers who move through life with an individual.
✔✔Fictive Kin - ✔✔Someone who becomes accepted as part of a family to which he or
she has no blood relation.
✔✔Empty Nest - ✔✔The time in the lives of parents when their kids have left the family
home to pursue their own lives.
✔✔Generativity vs. Stagnation - ✔✔The seventh edition of Erikson's eight stages of
development. Adults seek to be productive in a caring way, perhaps through art,
caregiving, and employment.
✔✔Kinkeeper - ✔✔A caregiver who takes responsibility for maintaining communication
among family members.
✔✔Extrinsic rewards of work - ✔✔The tangible benefits, usually in the form of
compensation (e.g., salary, health insurance, pension) that one receives for doing a job.
AND ANSWERS GRADED A+
✔✔Disability - ✔✔The usual result of morbidity. The inability to do something that
people can usually do. (vision loss)
✔✔Vitality - ✔✔The most important way to measure health, but also the most difficult.
Some people with morbid conditions that increase disability & the risk of mortality are
nonetheless happy & active.
✔✔Problem-focused Coping - ✔✔A strategy to deal with stress by tackling a stressful
situation directly.
✔✔Emotion-focused Coping - ✔✔A strategy to deal with stress by changing feelings
about the stressor rather than changing the stressor itself.
✔✔General Intelligence - ✔✔The idea that assumes that intelligence is one basic trait,
underlying all cognitive abilities. According to this concept, people have varying levels of
this general ability.
✔✔Flynn Effect - ✔✔The rise in average IQ scores that has occurred over the decades
in many nations.
✔✔Seattle Longitudinal Study - ✔✔The first cross-sequential study of adult intelligence.
This study began in 1965; the most recent testing was conducted in 2005.
✔✔Fluid Intelligence - ✔✔Those types of basic intelligence that make learning of all
sorts quick & thorough. Abilities such as short-term memory, abstract thought, learning
new things efficiently, & speed of processing info are all usually considered part of it.
✔✔Crystallized Intelligence - ✔✔Those types of intellectual ability that reflect
accumulated learning. Vocab, facts, & general information are examples. Some
developmental psychologists think it increases with age, while fluid intelligence declines.
✔✔Selective Optimization with Compensation - ✔✔The theory, developed by Paul &
Margart Baltes, that people try to maintain a balance in their lives by looking for the best
way to compensate for physical & cognitive losses & to become more proficient in
activities they can already do well.
✔✔Automatic Processing - ✔✔Thinking that occurs without deliberate, conscious
thought. Experts process most tasks automatically, saving conscious thought for
unfamiliar challenges.
, ✔✔Analytic Intelligence - ✔✔A form of intelligence that involves such mental processes
as abstract planning, strategy selection, focused attention, & information processing, as
well as verbal & logical skills.
✔✔Creative Intelligence - ✔✔A form of intelligence that involves the capacity to be
intellectually flexible & innovative.
✔✔Practical Intelligence - ✔✔The intellectual skills used in everyday problem solving.
✔✔Midlife Crisis - ✔✔A supposed period of unusual anxiety, radical self-reexamination,
& sudden transformation that was once widely associated with middle age but that
actually had more to do with developmental history than with chronological age.
✔✔Big Five - ✔✔The 5 basic clusters of personality traits that remain quite stable
throughout adulthood:
-openness
-conscientiousness
-extroversion
-agreeableness
-neuroticism
✔✔Ecological Niche - ✔✔The particular lifestyle & social context that adults settle into
because it is compatible with their individual personality needs and interests.
✔✔Social Convoy - ✔✔Collectively, the family members, friends, acquaintances, &
even strangers who move through life with an individual.
✔✔Fictive Kin - ✔✔Someone who becomes accepted as part of a family to which he or
she has no blood relation.
✔✔Empty Nest - ✔✔The time in the lives of parents when their kids have left the family
home to pursue their own lives.
✔✔Generativity vs. Stagnation - ✔✔The seventh edition of Erikson's eight stages of
development. Adults seek to be productive in a caring way, perhaps through art,
caregiving, and employment.
✔✔Kinkeeper - ✔✔A caregiver who takes responsibility for maintaining communication
among family members.
✔✔Extrinsic rewards of work - ✔✔The tangible benefits, usually in the form of
compensation (e.g., salary, health insurance, pension) that one receives for doing a job.
