Chapter 14:Later Adulthood(60 – 75 Years)

Later Adulthood (60 – 75 Years)

• Chapter Objectives– To explore the construct of life satisfaction in

later adulthood and factors associated with subjective well‑being

– To describe factors that promote intellectual vigor with a focus on the memory, postformal operational thought, crystallized and fluid intelligence; and to consider the interaction of heredity and environment on intelligence in later life

Later Adulthood (60 – 75 Years)

• Chapter Objectives (cont.)– To examine the process of redirecting energy

to new roles and activities with special focus on role gain, such as grandparenthood; role loss, such as widowhood; and new opportunities for leisure

– To describe the development of a point of view about death

Later Adulthood (60 – 75 Years)

• Chapter Objectives (cont.)– To explain the psychosocial crisis of integrity

versus despair, the central process of introspection, the prime adaptive ego quality of wisdom, and the core pathology of disdain

– To apply theory and research to understanding the process of adjustment to retirement in later adulthood

Later Adulthood (60 – 75 Years)

Later Adulthood (60 – 75 Years)

• Case Study: Goal Adjustment in Later Adulthood– Thought Questions

• How does this case reflect Brandstadter’s ideas about assimilation and accommodation of goals in later adulthood?

• In this case, Brim’s father drew on early life experiences growing up on a farm some other examples of how earlier life roles might be integrated into a satisfying lifestyle in later adulthood?

• What are some of the resources Brim’s father had that allowed him to achieve new goals for mastery?

Later Adulthood (60 – 75 Years)

• Case Study: Goal Adjustment in Later Adulthood (cont.)– Thought Questions (cont.)

• Based on Peck’s views about the challenges for ego development in later adulthood, what might be missing in Brim’s father’s approach to adaptation?

Later Adulthood (60 – 75 Years)

• Accepting One’s Life: Personality and Well-Being– Five personality characteristics have been

linked with life satisfaction in later life• Extroversion – sociability, vigor, sensation seeking,

and positive emotions• Lack of neuroticism – anxiety, hostility, and

impulsiveness• Usefulness/competence – well-being and high self-

esteem• Optimism – belief that one’s decisions will lead to

positive consequences and that uncertain situations will turn out well

• Sense of control

Later Adulthood (60 – 75 Years)

• Accepting One’s Life: Illness and Health– Ability to experience a sense of well-being

and acceptance of one’s life is associated with physical health

– Relationship of health to life satisfaction is likely to be mediated by personality, resources, and personal goals

Later Adulthood (60 – 75 Years)

• Accepting One’s Life: The SOC Model– Over the lifespan people confront the

challenges of balancing and matching a variety of opportunities with fluctuations in resources

– Life satisfaction and a sense of well-being are linked to selecting specific goals as important areas of functioning and then effectively directing both internal and external resources in order to maximize their level of functioning

Later Adulthood (60 – 75 Years)

• Accepting One’s Life: The SOC Model (cont.)– Adaptation requires the integration of three

processes• Selection – Identifying opportunities or domains of

activity that are of greatest value or importance• Optimization – allocation and refining resources in

order to achieve higher levels of functioning in the selected domains

• Compensation – under conditions of reduced resources, identifying strategies to counteract loss and minimize the negative impact on functioning in the selected domains

Later Adulthood (60 – 75 Years)

• Promoting Intellectual Vigor: Problems in Defining and Studying Intelligence in Later Adulthood– Memory, reasoning, information processing,

problem-solving abilities, and mental rigidity or fluidity all influence an adults’ capacity to introspect, select meaningful goals, manage changing resources, and plan for the future

Later Adulthood (60 – 75 Years)

• Promoting Intellectual Vigor: Problems in Defining and Studying Intelligence in Later Adulthood (cont.)– Four problems are raised in evaluating the

research on intelligence in later life• One must differentiate between age differences

and age changes• Definition of abilities• Level of abstraction and the relevance of the tasks

used to measure adult cognitive functioning• Factors associated with health are intertwined with

the functioning of older adults, although they are often not directly measured

Later Adulthood (60 – 75 Years)

• Promoting Intellectual Vigor: Memory– Several aspects of cognitive functioning

including reaction time, visual-motor flexibility, and memory show evidence of decline with age

Later Adulthood (60 – 75 Years)

• Promoting Intellectual Vigor: Memory (cont.)– A common model of memory functions breaks

memory into three forms• Sensory register – the neurological processing

activity that is required to take in visual, auditory, tactile, and olfactory information

• Short-term memory – working capacity to encode and retrieve five to nine bits of information in the span of a minute or two

• Long-term memory – complex network of information, concepts, and schemes related by associations, knowledge, and use

Later Adulthood (60 – 75 Years)

• Promoting Intellectual Vigor: Post Formal Operational Thinking– Another direction of research on intellectual

functioning in later life has focused on the ability of older adults to perform various Piagetian tasks, such as classification, conservation, and formal operational problem solving

– Older adults perform classification and problem-solving tasks in a more egocentric, idiosyncratic way than younger adults

Later Adulthood (60 – 75 Years)

• Promoting Intellectual Vigor: Post Formal Operational Thinking (cont.)– Research based on the standard Piagetian

tasks has been criticized for its lack of relevance and familiarity to older subjects

– Postformal thought – a qualitatively new form of thinking that emerges after formal operational thought, and which involves a higher use of reflection and the integration of contextual, relativistic, and subjective knowledge

Later Adulthood (60 – 75 Years)

• Promoting Intellectual Vigor: The Interaction of Heredity and Environment on Mental Functioning– Seven factors that are associated with

retaining a high level of cognitive functioning in later adulthood

• Absence of cardiovascular and other chronic diseases

• Favorable environment linked to high socioeconomic status

• Involvement in a complex and intellectually stimulations environment

• Flexible personality style at midlife

Later Adulthood (60 – 75 Years)

• Promoting Intellectual Vigor: The Interaction of Heredity and Environment on Mental Functioning (cont.)– Seven factors that are associated with

retaining a high level of cognitive functioning in later adulthood (cont.)

• High cognitive functioning of spouse• Maintenance of a high level of perceptual

processing speed• Rating one self as being satisfied with life

accomplishments in midlife

Later Adulthood (60 – 75 Years)

• Redirecting Energy to New Roles and Activities: Grandparenthood– Grandparenting Styles

• Formal, funseeker, surrogate parent, reservoir of family wisdom, & distant figure

• Intergenerational Solidarity – closeness and commitment within the parent-child and grandparent-grandchild relationships

Later Adulthood (60 – 75 Years)

• Redirecting Energy to New Roles and Activities: Grandparenthood (cont.)– The Meaning of the Grandparent Role

• Grandchildren offer concrete evidence that some thread of their lives will persist into the future, giving a dimension of immortality to themselves and to family ancestry

• Grandchildren stimulate older adults’ thoughts about time, the changing of cultural norms across generations, and the patterning of history

Later Adulthood (60 – 75 Years)

• Redirecting Energy to New Roles and Activities: Grandparenthood (cont.)– Grandparent Caregivers – 5.6 million children

live with grandparent and in about 1/3 those households the grandparent is the sole caregiver to child

– Loss of Grandparent-Grandchild Contact – increased divorce rates have led grandparents to legal action for continued visitation

Later Adulthood (60 – 75 Years)

• Redirecting Energy to New Roles and Activities: Widowhood– Among those 65 years old and over, 14% of

men and 45% of women describe their marital status as widowed

– The psychosocial consequences of widowhood include intense emotional grief, loss of social and emotional support, and loss of material and instrumental support

– Widows must learn to function socially and in their own households without the presence of a marriage partner

Later Adulthood (60 – 75 Years)

• Redirecting Energy to New Roles and Activities: Widowhood (cont.)– Widowers suffer greater increases in

depression following the loss of their spouses than do widows

Later Adulthood (60 – 75 Years)

• Redirecting Energy to New Roles and Activities: Patterns of Adaptation During Widowhood– Common grief– Chronic grief– Chronic depression– Depression followed by improvement– Resilience

Later Adulthood (60 – 75 Years)

Later Adulthood (60 – 75 Years)

Figure 14.2 Percentage of U.S. Households with E-Mail by Age in 1994 and 1998

Later Adulthood (60 – 75 Years)

• Developing a Point of View about Death: Changing Perspectives about Death– The development of a perspective on death is

a continuous process that begins in childhood and is not fully resolved until later adulthood

– The notion that one’s understanding of the concept of death changes with development is complemented by the idea that people go through a process in coming to terms with their own death

Later Adulthood (60 – 75 Years)

• Developing a Point of View about Death: Changing Perspectives about Death (cont.)– Kubler-Ross’s stages of death and dying age

not a fixed sequence but a useful model for considering the dynamic ego processes that are engaged as one faces death

Later Adulthood (60 – 75 Years)

• Case Study: Morrie Schwartz Reflects on His Views About Death– Thought Questions

• What is the point of view about life and death that Morrie is developing?

• Why is it difficult for most people to listen to a dying person express his or her thoughts about death?

• What does this conversation suggest about Morrie’s psychosocial development? To what extent are issues of intimacy, generativity, and integrity reflected in this dialogue?

Later Adulthood (60 – 75 Years)

• Case Study: Morrie Schwartz Reflects on His Views About Death (cont.)– Thought Questions (cont.)

• How might the conditions of Morrie’s illness influence his outlook on death?

• What issues would you want to discuss if you had a mentor like Morrie who was willing to help you learn about living and dying?

Later Adulthood (60 – 75 Years)

Later Adulthood (60 – 75 Years)

• The Psychosocial Crisis: Integrity Versus Despair– Integrity is the ability to accept the facts of

one’s life and to face death without great fear. The sense of integrity is usually acquired toward the end of later development

– Despair is feeling a loss of all hope and confidence

– Depression is a state of feeling sad, often accompanied by feelings of low personal worth and withdrawal from relations with others

Later Adulthood (60 – 75 Years)

• The Central Process: Introspection– Deliberate self-evaluation and examination of

private thoughts and feelings• Reminiscence is the process of thinking or telling

about past experiences• Integrative reminiscence involves reviewing one’s

past in order to find meaning or to reconcile one’s current and prior feelings about certain life events

• Instrumental reminiscence emphasizes past accomplishments, past efforts to overcome difficulties, and the use of past experiences to approach current difficulties

Later Adulthood (60 – 75 Years)

• The Central Process: Introspection (cont.)– Deliberate self-evaluation and examination of

private thoughts and feelings (cont.)• Obsessive reminiscence suggests an inability to

resolve or accept certain past events and a persistent guilt or despair over these events

Later Adulthood (60 – 75 Years)

• The Prime Adaptive Ego Quality and the Core Pathology– Wisdom is the detached yet active concern

with life in the face of death– Five basic features of wisdom

• Factual knowledge• Procedural knowledge• Life-span contextualism• Relativism of values and life goals• Recognition and management of uncertainty

– Disdain is a feeling of weakness and frailty of oneself and others

Later Adulthood (60 – 75 Years)

• Applied Topic: Retirement– Adjustment to Retirement - most cope

effectively with the changes associated with retirement, viewing it as a desired transition

– Difficulties with Retirement - perceptions of retirement involve a person’s enthusiasm, positive anticipation, or resentment about it

– Income Loss - adjustment to retirement is especially difficult when it is associated with a dramatic reduction in income

Later Adulthood (60 – 75 Years)

• Applied Topic: Retirement (cont.)– A Look Toward the Future of Retirement -

ongoing dialogue among older workers, retirees, and organizations is likely to result in the formulation of more varied, flexible alternative of full retirement

Later Adulthood (60 – 75 Years)

Later Adulthood (60 – 75 Years)

• Case Study: Retirement As a Release From Tedious Work– Thought Questions

• How are the developmental tasks of later adulthood reflected in this case?

• Erikson mentioned the theme of initiative as reemerging for this man in later adulthood. What other psychosocial themes do you detect in this case?

• How are the themes of person-environment fit and creativity, the central processes of middle adulthood, related to his case?

Later Adulthood (60 – 75 Years)

• Case Study: Retirement As a Release From Tedious Work (cont.)– Thought Questions (cont.)

• What challenges do older adults face in trying to make a successful adjustment to retirement? How might communities help to support adults in this transition?

• What stereotypes about retirement and later adulthood are challenged in this case?