Psychology of Adulthood and Aging Exam I Study Guide

You should be able to:

• Define and provide examples of ageism
  including role of myths of aging

• Explain how age may have multiple meanings.
  chronological, functional, biological, psychological, social
  know the definitions of each

• Know the difference between young-old and old-old

• Describe the mechanistic perspective on adult development and aging
  model, key features, and an example of the theory that fits this perspective

• Describe the organismic perspective on adult development and aging
  model, key features, and an example of the theory that fits this perspective

• Describe the contextual perspective on adult development and aging
  model, key features, and an example of the theory that fits this perspective

• Compare and contrast the principal assumptions of the mechanistic, organismic, and contextual perspectives with the life-span developmental approach

• Define the Life-span Developmental Perspective
  Note the unique features of this perspective from both the text and class

• Define developmental psychology paying attention to both intraindividual change and interindividual change.

• Compare qualitative changes and quantitative changes.

• Contrast stage-like changes and continuous changes, and explain why many investigators doubt the stage concept.

• Discuss the roles of plasticity and reserve capacity in adult development and aging.

• Compare developmental ideas that assume a unidirectional view of development with those that assume multidirectionality.

• Define and provide examples of normative age-graded, normative history-graded, and nonnormative influences

• Describe each of the domains of development: biological and physical domain, cognitive domain, personality domain and social domain.

• Describe the major characteristics of case studies, observational/naturalistic research, experiments, and quasi-experiments. Explain the advantages and disadvantages of each.

• Describe the characteristics of cross-sectional studies. Define cohort, and explain how age and cohort effects are confounded in cross-sectional designs.

• Describe the characteristics of longitudinal studies. Explain the various problems with validity in the longitudinal design.

• Describe the characteristis of sequential designs. Explain the advantages and disadvantages to this design.

• Explain the ethical principles guiding research in adult development and aging.