Professional Documents
Culture Documents
LATE
ADULTHOOD
OLD AGE TODAY
AGEISM – prejudice or discrimination
against a person (most commonly an
older person) based on age.
o Efforts to combat ageism are making
headway, thanks to the visibility of a
growing number of active, healthy older
adults.
o Today, many older people are healthy,
vigorous, and active. Although effects
of primary aging may be beyond
people’s control, they often can avoid
“YOUNG OLD” “ OLD OLD”
“OLDEST OLD”
o Primary Aging – Gradual, inevitable, process of bodily
deterioration throughout the life span.
o Secondary Aging – Aging processes that result from
disease and bodily abuse and disuse and are after
preventable.
o Functional Age – Measure of a person’s ability to
function effectively in his or her physical and social
environment in comparison with others of the same
chronological age.
Wear-and-Tear Theory. Cells and tissues have vital parts that wear
out.
Free-Radical Theory. Accumulated damage from oxygen radicals
causes cells and eventually organs to stop functioning.
Rate-of-Living Theory. The greater an organisms rate of metabolism,
the shorter its life span.
Autoimmune Theory. Immune system becomes confused and attacks
HOW FAR CAN THE LIFE
SPAN BE EXTENDED?
SURVIVAL CURVES – curves, plotted on a graph, showing
percentages of a population that survive at each age level.
Jeanne Louise
Calment
Born: 21 February
1875
Died: 4 August 1997
HEARING IMPAIRMENTS
Conduction Deafness – a defect caused by inability of the bones
and membranes to function out of old age
MENTAL
DISORDER
MENTAL AND BEHAVIORAL PROBLEMS
•In Baltes' dual-process model, the mechanics of intelligence often decline, but
the pragmatics of intelligence may continue to grow.
•A general slowdown in central nervous system functioning may affect the speed
of information processing. However, this slowdown may be limited to certain
processing tasks and may vary among individuals.
Measuring Older Adult’s Intelligence
Measuring older adult’s intelligence is complicated. A number of
physical and psychosocial factors may lower their test scores and lead to
underestimation of their intelligence.
Ex. Title of the first movie that you and your best friend watched
in the cinema.
PSYCHOSOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
IN LATE ADULTHOOD
THEORY AND RESEARCH ON
PSYCHOSOCIAL
STABILITY OF PERSONAL
TRAITS
What happens to personality in old age?
Negative Emotions:
Restlessness, boredom,
loneliness, unhappiness, and
depression.
SINGLE LIFE
FRIENDSHIPS
Friendships in old age focus on companionship and
support, not on work and parenting. Older adults have close
friends and those who do are healthier and happier.
This is a mutual relationship including give and take –
changes over the life span, but its context and content
change.
People who can confide their feelings and thoughts and
NONMARITAL KINSHIP
RELATIONSHIP WITH ADULT CHILDREN – OR
THEIR ABSENCE
As Socioemotional Selectivity Theory predicts
aging adults seek to spend more of their time with such no
as their children.
PSY 1Y2-1