Advanced Developmental
Psychology
Chapters 11-15
Lifespan 3rd ed.
Broderick & Blewitt
Changing Brain in Young Adulthood
Resurgent growth of synapses occurs around puberty in some areas of
the brain, followed by a long period of pruning, which continues into the
early adult years. It may mean an expanded capacity for cognitive
advancement.
Possible accelerated maturing of electrical activity in frontal cortex could
mean early adulthood important for advanced development of frontal
lobe functions, such as the ability to organize and reorganize attention,
to plan, and to exercise control over one’s behavior and emotions.
For these reasons, typical timing of college education may be ideally
suited to possible heightened flexibility and plasticity of the frontal cortex
in young adulthood.
Schaie’s View of Adults Adjusting to
Environmental Pressures
Acquisition stage – able to learn a skill or a body of knowledge
regardless of whether it has any practical goal or social
implication
Achieving stage – must apply intellectual skills to the
achievement of long-term goals
Responsible stage – problem solving must take into account
not only one’s own personal needs and goals but also those of
others in one’s life who have become one’s responsibility
Schaie’s View of Adults Adjusting to
Environmental Pressures (cont.)
Reorganization stage – flexibility in problem solving is needed to
create a satisfying, meaningful environment for the rest of life, focus
tends to narrow again to a changed set of personal goals and needs.
Reintegrative stage – cognitive efforts are aimed more and more at
solving immediate, practical problems
Legacy-leaving stage – work on establishing a written or oral account
of their lives or of the history of their families to pass on to others –
substantial use of long-term memory and narrative skill, decision making
or use of judgment.
Perry’s Theory of Intellectual &
Ethical Development
Dualism
Position 1: Strict Dualism
Position 2: Multiplicity (Prelegitimate)
Position 3: Multiplicity (Subordinate)
Position 4: Late Multiplicity
Relativism
Position 5: Contextual Relativism
Position 6: Commitment Foreseen
Position 7, 8, 9: Commitment and Resolve
Karen Kitchener’s Model of the Development of
Reflective Judgment
Reflective judgment:
how people analyze elements of a problem
how people justify their problem solving
Seven stage developmental theory
Stages of thinking can be differentiated based on
three dimensions:
Certainty of knowledge
Processes used to acquire knowledge
Kind of evidence used to justify one’s judgments
Adult Attachment Styles
Based on Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) developed by Main and
Goldwyn
1. Autonomous (secure)
(also earned secure)
2. Dismissing (insecure)
3. Preoccupied (insecure)
4. Unresolved (insecure)
5. Cannot classify
Holland’s Theory of Personality-Environment
Types
By early adulthood each individual has a modal personal orientation –
a typical and preferred style or approach to dealing with social and
environmental tasks.
A job or career typically makes demands on an individual that are
compatible with one or more of these interactive types.
Examples of types:
Social – likely to be sociable, friendly, cooperative, kind, tactful, and
understanding
Enterprising – likely to be sociable, but more domineering, energetic,
ambitious, talkative, and attention getting
Super’s Developmental Approach
Describes the developmental processes that determine both the
emergence of one’s vocational self-concept and the multiple
factors that influence job choices over the life span.
Series of life stages in the development of vocational self-concept
and experience, beginning in childhood.
Examples:
Growth stage – children are developing many elements of
identity that will have a bearing on vocational self-concept,
including ideas about their interests, attitudes, skills, and needs.
Exploratory stage – adolescence to young adulthood, vocational
self-concept is tentatively narrowed down, but often career
choices are not finalized
The “Forgotten Half”
18- to 24-year olds who do not go to college
Slight increase in the number of students who go on to college
since the original 1988 study
Current concern- fewer than ½ of the high school graduates who
begin college complete a degree (a third are not retained to the
their sophomore year)
Critics challenge that American schools do not adequately
prepare the “forgotten half” by teaching basic academic skills
(reading, math, public speaking, self-management) or specific
job skills through general or vocational curriculum.
Elements of Life Span Development
Theory
Web of interacting organismic and environmental influences
viewed as the “architecture” of biology and culture.
Development seen as a process of adapting to the constant flux
of influences, including growth, maintenance, and regulation of
loss.
Successful development seen as the relative maximization of
gains and the minimization of losses.
The Big 5 Personality Traits
Neuroticism Tense, touchy, moody, anxious, self-
conscious
Extraversion Outgoing, active, talkative, assertive,
energetic
Agreeableness Warm, compliant, kind, generous,
sympathetic
Conscientiousness Organized, well-planned, efficient, self-
controlled, reliable
Openness to experience Creative, artistic, wide-ranging interests,
positive orientation towards learning
Sources of Change Impacting Adult
Development
Age-graded changes
Physical changes
Cognitive changes
Life-task or life-course changes
History graded changes
Cohort effects
Nonnormative changes
Unexpected events
Gottman: Four Horsemen of the
Apocalypse
Four kinds of negativity that do the most
damage to relationships and are highly
predictive of divorce
Criticism
Defensiveness
Contempt
Stonewalling
Personality and Well-Being
Personality traits like extraversion and neuroticism are strongly
correlated with subjective well-being measures, much more so than
external factors like wealth.
Extraverts, who tend to focus interest on things outside the self, are
happier than introverts, who focus more attention on their own interior
experience.
Neuroticism, including tendencies to be self-conscious, anxious, hostile
and impulsive, is negatively correlated with happiness.
Relationships and Well-Being
Evidence supports the importance of “love” for happiness.
Both extraverts and introverts report more pleasant emotions in social
situations.
Receiving support is clearly linked to better coping with life’s stresses,
but giving social support is also a key ingredient of happiness.
Married women and men report more happiness than unmarried people.
Being married is also associated with a lower risk of depression.
Fowler: Developmental Shifts in
Spirituality & Faith
Stage 1: Intuitive-Projective
Stage 2: Mythic-Literal
Stage 3: Synthetic-Conventional
Stage 4: Individuative-Reflective
Stage 5: Conjunctive
Stage 6: Universalizing
Stress
Two types:
1. Life events that are discrete, often traumatic, events that have
a clear onset
2. Daily hassles which are chronic, problematic situations
Research indicates that chronic daily stress is very important in the
development of psychological as well as physical symptoms
allostatic load
kindling-behavioral sensitization
Psychological Resilience Factors
Positive attitude
Active coping strategies
Cognitive flexibility/cognitive reappraisal
Moral compass
Physical exercise
Social support and roles models or mentors
Physical Changes
in Late Adulthood
Gradual decline from peak functioning of most physiological
systems beginning as early as 30. By late adulthood, losses
usually noticeable and require some adjustment in expectations
or lifestyle
Immune system becomes progressively less effective
Increasing sensory deficits
Onset of pain, stiffness, and swelling of joints and surrounding
tissues – arthritis
Cognitive Changes
in Late Adulthood
Gradual decline in fluid intelligence or mechanics of intellectual function,
processing speed slows and inhibitory functions decline with age, may
limit efficiency of working memory operations
Balanced by maintenance or advancement of crystallized intelligence or
pragmatics, semantic memory is enriched with age.
Dementia
Terminal Drop
Autobiographical memory
Baltes: Maintain Well-Being
Three processes are key to successful development at any age,
and especially in the later years
Selection – process of narrowing our goals and limiting the
domains in which we expend effort
Optimization – finding ways to enhance the achievement of
remaining goals or finding environments that are enhancing
Compensation – when a loss prevents the use of one means to
an end, we can compensate by finding another means
Making the Transition to Retirement
Atchley’s (1976) phases of retirement:
Stage 1- honeymoon
Stage 2- disenchantment
Stage 3- reorientation
Stage 4- stability
Stage 5- termination
The Role of Wisdom
in Aging Well
“Expertise in the fundamental pragmatics of life”
Many problems adults face do not have one right answer- they are ill-
defined or ill-structured
Wisdom involves solving problems using a more relativist perspective and
recognizing that problems are complex with contextually embedded truth
systems
Involve “post-formal” thought (advanced logical thinking)
Involves creativity and intelligence
In leadership roles- wise people are able to balance the need for change
with the need for stability
Wisdom is related to age and training and experience in one’s occupation
Bowlby: Phases of the Grieving
Process
Shock
Protest
Despair
Reorganization
