FEM3102FEM3102Adult Development and AgingAdult Development and Aging

2

Lecture topics

1. Why do we study adult development and aging?

2. Developmental psychology

3. Domains of development

4. The concept of age

5. Developmental influences

6. Developmental issues

7. The scenario of aging

3

1. Why do we study adult development and aging?

• When do you consider yourself as an adult?• When do you consider yourself as an older person?

• What does it mean to be old?• How long would you like to live and why?

• Aging is lifelong• Lifespan perspective of human development

• Reasons for studying:• Scientific• Factual• Altruistic

4

Lifespan Perspective on Human Development

Development is:

1. Life-long• No age period dominates development

2. Multi-dimensional• Development consists of biological, cognitive,

socioemotional and spiritual dimensions.

3. Plastic• Depending on the individual’s life conditions,

development may take many paths.

5

Lifespan Perspective on Human Development

Development is:

4. Historically-embedded• Development is influenced by historical conditions.

5. Multidisciplinary• Psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, neuroscientists

and medical researchers all study human development and share a concern for unlocking the mysteries of development

6. Contextual• The individual continually responds to and acts on contexts,

which include a person’s biological make up, physical environment, and social, historical, and cultural contexts.

(Santrock, 1999)

6

What makes us an adult?

7

• Biological dimensionsBiological or physical maturatione.g. pregnancy for women

• Social dimensions Responsible, mature & rational person

• Emotional dimensionsHigh emotional stability including good impulse control, a high frustration tolerance and freedom from violent mood swings

• Legal dimensionsGive rights and responsibilities for certain peoplee.g. In US when you’re 18, you can voteOther e.g. “age of consent” – a person can marry without parental consent, legal age to drink alcohol or drive a car.

Defining adulthood

8

2. Developmental psychology

• Developmental psychology studies:• Age-related intraindividual change• Age-related interindividual change

• The focus is on behavior • everything that people do

• Development• changes in behavior• orderly, predictable• relatively durable• includes increases and decreases

9

10

3. Domains of development• Biological and physical

• Age-related changes inside and outside of our body

• Cognitive• Age-related changes in mental activity• Thought, memory, perception, attention

• Personality• Changes in personal characters at different ages

• Social• Interactions of a person with others in his/her environment• How these interactions changes as people grow older

• All these domains are inter-related

11

4. The concept of age

• Chronological age• Biological age• Functional age• Psychological age• Social age

12

Chronological age

• Refers to the number of years that have elapsed since a person’s birth.

• Chronological age per se is often not an accurate index of psychological development.

• Age is merely a rough marker for the processes that influence behavior over time

13

Biological age• Defined as an estimate of the

individual’s position with respect to his or her potential life span (Birren & Schroots, 2001)

• Involves measuring the capacities of individual’s vital organ system.

• Age is an index of biological health

• An individual’s biological functioning and physical appearance may differ from other persons of the same chronological age

14

Functional age• Is an index of one’s level of

competence in carrying out specific tasks.

• Competencies can range from performance on a particular job to the condition of various organ systems in the body• Examples:

• cardiovascular system – age 40s similar to 30s (= biological age)

• Worker who is 60yrs of age to perform adequately on the job as person who is 20 yrs of age

15

Psychological age

• Refers to an individual’s adaptive capacities – his/her ability to adapt to changing environmental demands.

• Individuals adapt to their environments by drawing on various psychological characteristics: learning, memory, intelligence, emotional control, motivational strengths, coping styles etc.

16

Social age

• Refers to the social roles and expectations people hold for themselves as well as those others impose on them.

• Each society has its own expectations about roles to play and goals to attain in young, middle, and older adulthood.

• Being ‘on time’ or ‘off-time’ (Neugarten, 1977).

• Age is no longer relevant in predicting needs, lifestyle and accomplishments.

17

• Havighurst (1972) divided the life span into 6 age periods, each with its own developmental tasks• Birth to 6 yrs of age : Infancy and early

childhood• 6 to 12 yrs of age: Middle childhood• 12 to 18 yrs of age : Adolescent• 18 to 30 yrs of age: Early adulthood• 30 to 60 yrs of age: Middle age• Over 60 yrs of age : Late adulthood

18

5. Developmental influences

• Why do individuals change and develop?• Three general categories of developmental

influences: a. Normative age-graded influences

b. Normative history-graded influences

c. Nonnormative life events

• All three influences are related

19

Normative age-graded influences

• Affect all or most people of similar age• Biological or environmental events related to

chronological age• e.g.: puberty and menopause occur at a certain age-

range

• Influences can also be specific to a society/culture – reflect socialization practices• e.g.: schooling age (5-18), first-time marriage (20s or

30s), retirement (60s)

20

Normative history-graded influences

• Affect all or most people who are born at a particular time (cohort)

• Developmental influences related to specific era or events in history, rather than age.

• These events effect the individuals dramatically (lifetime impact). • e.g.: war, economic depression, epidemics, computer

revolution, internet age

• Can be seen through comparing different cohorts of individuals

21

22

Different cohorts

23

Nonnormative life events

• Unique to a person• Not necessarily associated with age or historical time

• e.g.: being diagnosed with a rare illness, being involved in an accident, winning a lottery, divorce, work promotion or retrenchment.

• Nonnormative life events have different effects on development depending on the age they happen.

• Normative age-graded influences can become nonnormative life events

24

6. Developmental issues

• Nature vs. Nurture• Gains vs. Losses• Quantitative vs. Qualitative Change• Stagelike vs.Continuous Change• Plasticity vs. Nonplasticity of Change• Multidirectional vs. Unidirectional Change

25

Nature vs. Nurture• Is development a product of nature

(i.e. hereditary, genetic and biological factors) or nurture (i.e. environmental factors and experience?

• Current views emphasize the interaction between nature and nurture. e.g.:• Primary aging – nature• Secondary aging – nurture

• Twin studies

26

• Both gains and losses in behavior take place throughout life.

• Birth to 20s: Growth, Maturation• After 20s: Senescence

• All developmental periods are important.

• Throughout the life span there are increases or decreases in attitudes, motivation and capabilities.

Gains vs. Losses

27

• Qualitative changes are differences in kinds of behavior or aspect

• Drastic and stage-like• Examples: Piaget’s cognitive development, Erikson’s

psychosocial stages, personality development.

• Quantitative changes are differences in amount, degree or complexity.

• Gradual and continuous• Examples: The ability to sort objects into categories

increases with age, the ability to retrieve information from memory gradually slows down as people age.

Quantitative vs. Qualitative Change

28

29

• Some researchers identify stages in adult development and aging.

• Stage theory – assumed that we go through a series of qualitative change (sudden change in quality) that happen in specific periods of development.

• Others see development as continuous where changes can be indicated through a steady increase or decrease (measurable =quantitative) in behavior.

Stagelike (Discontinuous) vs. Continuous Change

30

Plasticity vs. Nonplasticity of Change• Can we reverse the effects of

aging?• Some deficits associated with age

can be corrected with proper intervention and health care.

• Reserve capacity decreases with age (=plasticity levels decline)

• Individuals have a limited amount of resources to deal with stress and challenges.

• Each individual has potentials and limits in what they can do.

31

• Multidirectional view of development: Intraindividual differences in aging patterns.

• A person’s behavior can change in many ways: decline, increase or become stable

• e.g: increase in creativity, decrease in some memory functions

• Unidirectional view of development• child focused view, e.g. Piaget, Freud.• all abilities increase in the same way of

maturation

Multidirectional vs. Unidirectional Change

32

7. The scenario of aging

• Aging is a worldwide phenomenon

• Population aging happened earlier in developed countries

• Developed countries got rich before they got old

• Developing countries will get old before they get rich problems

33

Older people in Malaysia

• The demographic and social trends of population aging in Malaysia is moving at a quicker pace than observed 10 years ago.

• Overall trends show an increasingly aging population (both in numbers and proportion).

• Because of this we need to plan, prepare for the well-being, as well as optimizing the potential of future senior citizens in the country.

34

Older people in Malaysia

• Older people in Malaysia is growing at a faster rate than the rest of the population.

• Their size will increase from 1.4 million persons in 2000 to 3.4 million in 2020.

• Females are the majority among the elderly, as in most countries of the world.

35

Older people in Malaysia

• Education levels of the Malaysian population are increasing. This will implicate the possible economic involvement of future elderly.

• Previously a majority of older people are involved in agriculture (traditional pattern of occupational trend).

• However, the occupation trends are changing with older people participating in more varied occupations.

36

Percentage distribution of employed senior citizens by occupation, Malaysia, 1991-2000

Occupation 1991 2000 Total population(15-59 years)2000

Legislators, Senior Officials & Managers

4.9 8.9 6.8

Professionals 1.0 1.6 5.8

Technicians & Associate Professionals

10.6 3.1 12.2

Clerical Workers 1.0 1.3 9.9

Service Workers and Shop & Market Sales Workers

5.6 11.6 13.1

Skilled Agricultural & Fishery Workers

60.0 51.0 13.5

Craft & Related Trades Worker

4.5 5.5 9.3

Plant & Machine-operators & Assemblers

3.8 5.5 16.3

Elementary Occupations 8.4 11.4 13.0

Total 100.0 100.0 100.0

37

Older people in Malaysia

• Nuclearization of households, greater participation of women in the labor force (lesser role as a caregiver) are changing social characteristics that contribute to the future scene of aging in Malaysia.

38

Population aging: More Developed vs. Less Developed Countries

• Demographic transition – reshaping the age structure of the world’s population.

• mortality and then fertility decline from higher to lower levels. Fertility decline has been the primary factor of population aging.

• increasing life expectancy (people are living longer)

• international migration is less important as a factor in the changing age distributions.

39

Population aging: Developed countries

• Fertility is well below the replacement level in more developed regions, which include almost all industrialized countries.

• By 2025, life expectancy will increase, on average, to 80 years.

• Average life expectancy at age 80 is projected to increase by 27% over the next 50 years as compared with 19% at age 60 and 9% at birth more people survive to old age and tend to live longer.

• Women outlive men by 7.4 years.

40

Population aging: Developed countries

• The proportion of older people above 80 years old now live in more developed regions (but this will soon change to less developed regions).

• The great majority of centenarians (78% in 2000) live in the more developed regions.

• Sex ratios at older ages are significantly lower.

41

More developed countries

42

Population aging: Developing countries

• Fertility rate is higher than developed countries (average total fertility rate=5.2/woman). Fertility reduction only happened later than developed countries.

• By 2025, life expectancy will increase, on average, to 71 years.

• Average life expectancy at age 80 is projected to increase by 28% over the next 50 years as compared with 22% at age 60 and 17% at birth more people have a good rate at survival at birth due to improvements in mortality levels.

• Women outlive men by 3.2 years (trend is rising).

43

Less developed countries

44

Questions