Study Guide - Adult Development and Aging - Exam IV

You should be able to:

• Define personality and discuss the diversity of views about personality.

• Discuss how psychologists measure personality.

• Compare and contrast Freud's and Erikson's views on stages of adult personality development.

• Define the terms psychosocial development and epigenetic principle.

• List Erikson's stages of psychosocial development and describe the crisis, sphere of social interaction, self-definition and virtue of each stage.

• Describe the identity versus identity confusion stage of adolescence.

• Describe the intimacy versus isolation stage of young adulthood.

• Describe the generativity versus stagnation stage of middle adulthood.

• Discuss McAdams four dimensions of generativity: generative concern, generative strivings, generative action and generative narration.

• Describe the ego integrity versus despair stage of late adulthood.

• Describe Jung's theory of personality including the structure of the personality

• Describe the concept of collective unconscious and archetrypes

• Describe changes to personality during young, middle, and later adulthood including the individuation process

• Define Butler's concept of life review.

• Summarize Loevinger's theory of ego development.

• Describe Levinson's stages and define the term life structure.

• Define the term midlife crisis, discuss its incidence, and summarize research findings about mid-life crisis.

• Compare and contrast the stage approach and the trait approach.

• Discuss characteristics of traits.

• Summarize the Baltimore aging study and discuss Costa and McCrae's five-factor model.

• Discuss Schaie's Seattle longitudinal study.

• Describe the findings of the Berkeley older generation study.

• Analyze the findings of the Berlin Aging Study.

• Summarize research conclusions about the stability of adult personality.

• Summarize the life-events framework.

• Discuss Neugartin's social clock.

• Distinguish between individual time and historical time and discuss the impact of each on people's lives.

• Compare and contrast moral reasoning, moral behavior, and moral emotion.

• Describe Kohlberg's theory of moral reasoning and his levels of reasoning.

• Summarize age-related changes in moral reasoning and discuss the determinants of moral development.

• Evaluate alternatives and criticisms to Kohlberg's moral development theory.

• Discuss the elements of love using the ideas of Berscheid, Davis and Sternberg.

• Describe age-related differences in the nature of satisfying love relationships.

• Discuss the role of intimacy in early adulthood and how Erikson views its role.

• Describe the benefits of having close, intimate friendships, including mentors.

• Describe friendships across the adult years, and define the term social convoy.

• Distinguish between emotional isolation and social isolation and discuss the effects of loneliness on people.

• Depict the typical developmental pattern of marital relationships distinguishing aspects of courtship, early years of marriage, childbearing and childrearing years and post-childrearing years.

• Define filial maturity, empty nest syndrome and upswing hypothesis.

• Describe the aging couple and effects of widowhood on the surviving spouse.

• Discuss the three components of grandparenting and describe the three styles of grandparenting.

• Identify the forms of elderly abuse and describe its incidence (Additional information available at http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/abuse.html

• Summarize sexual attitudes and behavior at mid-life.

• Define menopause, list its primary characteristics, and discuss hysterectomy and hormone replacement therapy.

• Describe sexuality in late adulthood including sexual dysfunctions and sexuality with institutionalized elderly.

• Discuss gay and lesbian aging including the relevant research (from the article passed out in class(available through infotrac (SIECUS Report, Gay and lesbian aging. Linda M. Woolf) and the video).