1. AP PSYCHOLOGY: UNIT III Introductory Psychology: Developmental Psychology Topic: Adulthood Q: How old does a person have to be before you think of him or her as old? A: The average 18-29 year old says 67. The average person 60+ says 76.

2. PART ONE Adulthood: Physical Development

3. Young Adulthood (20s-30s)  Physical abilities (strength, reaction time, cardiac output, etc.) peak by the mid-twenties  All down hill after that…  Just kidding..!

4. Adulthood: Physical Development Middle Adulthood (40s-60s)  Physical decline accelerates  Attributable to age or activity level?  DECLINE IN FERTILITY  Perimenopause (average age: 40s) Estrogen levels decreases; uterus gets smaller; hot flashes  Menopause (average age: 51) Cessation of menstrual cycle; no more babies…  Andropause (in men…) Gradual decline of testosterone, sperm count, sexual functioning, etc. (Men rarely lose all reproductive ability…)

5. Adulthood: Physical Development Late Adulthood (60s+)  Life expectancy…on the rise?  Stopping point?  Sensory abilities  Vision, smell & hearing tend to decline after age 70  Health  More susceptible to life-threatening ailments  Less susceptible to short-term ailments  Brain  Neural processing slows; loss of brain cells; atrophy of frontal lobe and areas important to memory

7. Sensory Abilities

8. Neural processing slows; reaction time decreases

9. PART TWO Adulthood: Cognitive Development

10. Memory  Recall v. recognition  Recall declines with age; recognition remains stable  Also dependent on the type of information

11. Adulthood: Cognitive Development Intelligence  Fluid intelligence  Basic reasoning, memory capacity & the speed of information processing  Decreases (slowly; age 75; age 85)  Crystallized intelligence  Accumulated knowledge (vocabulary & analogy tests)  Increases (up to old age)

13. What does this mean?

14. PART THREE Adulthood: Psychosocial Development Are the elderly more negative than the youthful?

15. Adulthood: Psychosocial Development Social Clock  The culturally preferred timing of social events such as marriage, parenthood, retirement, etc.  Marks life transitions Does the midlife crisis really exist??

16. Adulthood: Psychosocial Development Erikson’s “Adult” Stages (Stages 6-8)  Young Adulthood: Intimacy versus Isolation  Middle Adulthood: Generativity versus Stagnation  Late Adulthood: Integrity versus Despair

17. Adulthood: Psychosocial Development According to Erikson, our adult lives are dominated by two major factors… (Crises of Stages 6 & 7)  Intimacy  Marriage trends? Under what circumstances do marriages stand the best chance? Age, education, cohabitation… Children & marriage  Generativity  Important to find a career that provides you with a sense of competence and accomplishment

19. Adulthood: Psychosocial Development Elizabeth Kubler-Ross  Death and Dying  Denial  Anger  Bargaining  Depression  Acceptance  **Research on grief and bereavement DOES NOT support such predictable stages  Guidelines?