1. PSYC 2314 Lifespan Development
Chapter 21
Middle Adulthood:
Cognitive Development

2. Multidimensional Intelligence
Fluid Intelligence: flexible reasoning and is made up of the basic mental abilities such as inductive reasoning, abstract thinking, and speed of thinking required for understanding any subject.
Crystallized intelligence: the accumulation of facts, information, and knowledge that comes with education and experience within a particular culture.
Historically, psychologists have considered intelligence to be single ability, what Spearman referred to as g, or general intelligence.
Originally, psychologists believed that fluid intelligence was primarily genetic and that crystallized intelligence was primarily learned. This nature-nurture distinction is probably invalid, in part because the acquisition of crystallized intelligence is affected by the quality of fluid intelligence.
Fluid intelligence declines during adulthood, although this decline is temporarily masked by an increase in crystallized intelligence. This contrast is revealed in WAIS scores: verbal IQ remains relatively stable throughout adulthood, while performance IQ drops by an average of 25 points.

3. Multidimensional Intelligence
Robert Sternberg’s 3 Fundamental Forms of Intelligence:
Analytic
Creative
Practical
Analytic, or academic, aspect consisting of mental processes that foster efficient learning, remembering, and thinking.
Creative aspect involving the capacity to be flexible and innovative when dealing with new situations.
Practical aspect that enables the person to adapt his or her abilities to contextual demands.
Most adults value practical abilities more and more as they grow older. Research demonstrates that practical problem-solving skills improve from early adulthood to middle age, and perhaps beyond.

4. Multidimensional Intelligence
Paul Baltes’ Selective Optimization with Compensation
The ability to strategically use one’s intellectual strengths to compensate for the declining capacities associated with age.

5. Multidimensional Intelligence
Howard Gardner’s Theory of Intelligence
Linguistic
Logical-mathematical
Musical
Spatial
Body-kinesthetic
Naturalistic
Self-understanding
Social-understanding
According to Gardner, each of these intelligence has its own neurological network in a particular section of the brain. Most people have the capacity to achieve at least minimal proficiency in all eight abilities, but for genetic reasons each of us is more gifted in some abilities than in others.
Each culture values some specific intellectual abilities more than others, which leads parents to encourage, children to develop, schools to emphasize, and adults to maintain whichever abilities are culturally valued. Abilities the culture devalues remain underdeveloped; whatever talent a child might have in such abilities will fade in adulthood.
Linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligence are highly valued in mainstream North American schools and colleges.

6. Multidirectional Intelligence
Contemporary researchers also believe that since intellectual abilities are multidirectional, it is misleading to ask whether intelligence, in general, either increases or decreases.

7. Earlier Studies Cross-sectional Longitudinal
Impossible to match subjects in every aspect except age, cohort effects are inevitable.
Longitudinal
People’s performance on tests might improve with practice.
Some people leave the study; those who remain are usu. the most stable, well-functioning adults.

8. Schaie’s Cross-Sequential Study
Each time his original subjects were retested (longitudinal design), he also tested a group of adults at each age interval and then followed them longitudinally as well, thus controlling for the possible effects of retesting as well as uncovering the impact of cohort differences.

9. Schaie’s Cross-Sequential Study
Findings indicate that from age 20 until the late 50s, cognitive abilities are more likely to increase than decrease, with the exception of arithmetic skills, which begin to shift slightly downward by age 40.
Not until the 80s does performance fall below the middle range of performance for young adults.

10. Contextual Intelligence
Intellectual development is greatly influenced by interindividual variation:
Genetic uniqueness
Changes in family and career responsibilities
Cohort
Educational level
Income
Marital status
Physical and mental health
Individual profiles of intellectual change can be separated out from group trends, allowing growth, decline, and stable functioning to be examined on a case-by-case basis. These reveal that the reasons for intellectual growth or decline are complex and multifaceted, based on the unique experiences of adult life.
Changes in teaching strategies and years of schooling are two possible explanations of why more recently born cohorts outperform earlier cohorts in tests of verbal meaning and inductive reasoning.

11. Plasticity of Intelligence
Abilities can be molded in many ways. It can be enhanced or diminished, depending on how, when, and why a person uses them.
As we age, our intelligence increases in specific areas that are of importance to us; that is, each of us becomes an expert in particular area.

12. Expert vs. Novice
Experts tend to rely more on their accumulated experience than on rules to guide them and are thus more intuitive and less stereotyped in their performance.
Many elements of expert performance are automatic

13. Expert vs. Novice
The expert has more, and better, strategies for accomplishing a particular task.
Experts are more flexible in their work
The fact that intelligence rises and falls with training and experience means that age generally is not the reason older workers are less able to do a job.