Title 09 DevPsy - Development in Middle Adulthood.pdf ✅

● Women who have a BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation have as much as a 70 percent chance of developing breast cancer ○ PALB2, can also predispose women to a higher risk of breast cancer ○ Vast majority of breast cancer cases are environmentally influenced ○ Treated by removal of part or all breast and chemotherapy ○ Mammography: diagnostic x-ray of the breasts ● The most troublesome physical effects of menopause are linked to reduced levels of estrogen Stress in Middle Age – damage that occurs when perceived environmental demands or stressors exceed a person’s capacity to cope with them ● Systems involved in adapting to stress ○ Brain → perceives danger ○ Adrenal Glands → mobilize the body to fight danger ○ Immune system → provides the defenses ● Stress in midlife may come from role changes, career transitions, grown children leaving home, and the renegotiation of family relationships ● Women experience more stress than men and to be more concerned about stress ● The Fight or flight response may be more characteristic of men, activated in part by testosterone Emotions and Health ● Negative emotions, such as anxiety and despair, are often associated with poor physical and mental health ○ Negative emotions serve important adaptive functions ○ When negative moods are excessive, they can have damaging effects on the body, suppress immune functioning, increasing susceptibility to disease ○ Negative emotions, such as anxiety and despair, are often associated with poor physical and mental health ● Positive emotions, such as hope, is associated with good health and longer life COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT MEASURING COGNITIVE ABILITIES IN MIDDLE AGE Schaie’s Seattle Longitudinal Study of Adult Intelligence ● Conducted in 1956 with 500 randomly chosen men and women ages 22 -67 ● The participants were followed longitudinally, and assessed every 7 years on timed tests of six primary mental abilities ● Cognitively speaking, in many respects middle-aged people are in their prime ● Individuals who score the highest in the study of Schaie tend to have positive environmental influences ● Most participants also showed remarkable stability over time, and no significant reductions in most abilities until after age 60 ● Results revealed that midlife decline in memory recall and verbal fluency can predict cognitive impairment in old age Fluid and Crystallized Intelligence ● Fluid Intelligence: ability to solve novel problems, such as problems that require little or no previous knowledge ○ Peak in young adulthood ○ Many older adults perform in the real world at high levels despite declines in fluid intelligence ● Crystallized Intelligence: ability to remember and use information acquired over a lifetime, such as academics ○ Increase through middle age and often until the end of life THE DISTINCTIVENESS OF ADULT COGNITION The Role of Expertise ● Expertise: a form of crystallized intelligence that is related to the process of encapsulation ○ Aka specialized knowledge ○ Advances in expertise continue at least through middle adulthood ● Encapsulation: process that allows expertise to compensate for declines in information-processing ability by bundling relevant knowledge together ○ Makes knowledge easier to access, to add to, and to use ○ It takes longer for adults to process new information ○ It takes shorter for adults to effectively solve problems within their field of expertise ● Experts show brain activation in areas associated with long-term memory ○ This allows them to integrate information in long-term memory with working memory in “chunks” 3 | @studywithky