Week 7

Parenthood

• Being childless is more accepted
• People having fewer children
• Decision to have children
• Women with traditional role are more likely to have children
• more thinking about financial implications of having children
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• Singlehood
• Individuals not living with intimate partner
• Men in bluecollar jobs and women in demanding careers overrepresented after age 30
• Advantages (freedom/mobility)
• Disadvantages
• Loneliness, limited sexual/social life, reduced sense of security ,exclusion from world of married couples
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• Grandparenting
• Grandmothers have more contact with gc than grandfathers
• Role and functions vary in  family ethnic group, culture
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• Divorce
• Disrupted relationships
• Other:
• Young age at marriage
• Different religious beliefs
• Previously divorced
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• Age and the brain
• smaller/lighter with age
• Space between skull and brain doubles from 20-70
• Number of neurons decline in some parts of the brain, but not as much as previously thought
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• 75 year old heart pumps less than 75% of blood during early adulthood
• Efficiency of respiratory system declines with age
• Digestive system produces less digestive juice and less efficient in pushing food through the system (more constipation)
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• Alzheimer's symptoms
• Gradual
• Forgetfulness first
• Affect recent memories first, then older memories fade
• Causes confusion, inability to speak intelligibly or recognize closest family members
• Loss of voluntary control of muscles occurs
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• Quality of life
• Activities of Daily Living (ADLs)
• Basic self-care tasks
• Bathing, dressing, eating
• Instrumental Activities of daily living (IADLs)
• Conducting business of everyday life
• Require cognitive competence
• shopping, food preparation, housekeeping
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• Psych/mental disorders
• Common
• Depression
• Drug-induced disorders
• Not just alcohol
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• Chronic illness
• Most older people have one+ chronic illness
• Arthritis
• Inflammation of one or more joins, common, 50% of older people
• Hypertension
• High blood pressure 33% of older people
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• Gender differences
• Women experiene more non-life threatening illnesses, but men face more serious illness
• Women smoke less, drink less alcohol, less dangerous jobs
• Medical research has typically studied diseases of men with all male samples; the medical community only now beginning to study women's health issues
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• Deliberate vs automatic memory
• Deliberate
• Recall more difficult
• Content helps retrieval, slower processing, smaller working memory make context harder to encode
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• Automatic
• Recognition easier than recall
• More environmental support
• Implicit memory better than deliberate memory
• without conscious awareness
• Depends on familarity

• (Freudian) Ego-integrity versus despair
• Last stage of Erikson
• Creates wisdom if successful
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• Despair
• Occurs when people feel dissatisfied with their life, and experience gloom, unhappiness, depression, anger, or the feeling that they have failed
• Can result in bitterness and unwillingness to accept aging and death
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• Integrity vs despair
• Individual experiences sense or mortality
• Manifests as a review of life and career
• In response to retirement, death of spouse or close friends, or changing social roles
• Reminiscence or introspection is most productive when experienced with significant others
• Outcome of this life-career reminiscence can be either positive or negative
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• Peck: Three tasks of Ego Integrity
• * Ego differentiation versus work-role preoccupation
• People must redefine themselves in ways that do not relate to their work-roles or occupations
• Why might it be difficult for one to find a new role in late adulthood?
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• * Body transcendence versus body preoccupation
• Individuals 
•  undergo changes in their physical identity as they age
• Peck: we must learn to cope with and move beyond these physical changes (transcendence)
• Why is this so difficult? loss of independence
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• * Ego transcendence versus ego preoccupation
• People must come to grips with their coming death
• If people in late adulthood see these contributions, they will experience ego transcendence
• If not, they may become preoccupied with the question of whether their lives had value an worth to society
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• Levinson
• People enter late adulthood by passing through transition stage
• View themselves as "old" - not getting old
• Recognize stereotypes and loss of power and respect
• Not always looked at as resources to younger individuals
• No longer center of work and family activities 
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• But...
• One can serve as resource to younger individuals
• Advice is sought and relied upon when viewed as wise older adult
• Does this always happen in US?
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• Once can focus on new freedom to do things simply for fun
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• Bernice Neugarten
• Four personality types for people in 70s
• Disintegrated and idsorganized
• - unable to accept aging, experience despair as they get older
• - Often found in nursing homes or are hospitalized
• Passive-dependent
• - Become fearful with age - fear of falling ill, fear of the future, fear of their own inability to cope
• Defended Personalities
• - Try to stop aging, may attempt to act young, exercising vigorously, and engage in youthful activities
• Integrated personalities
• - most successful cope comfortably with aging
• -they accept becoming older and maintain a sense of self dignity
• -- majority of people studies fall into this category
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• The New Old Age
• Third Age
• Age 65-79+
• Marked by personal fulfillment, self-realization
• high life satisfaction
• need more opportunities to stay active
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• Spirituality and religion in late adulthood
• - About 3/4 us elders say religion is very important
• - Half attend services weekly
• - Many become more religious/spiritual with age
• - cultural, SES, gender differences
• -Psychological, social benefits
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• Factors in psychological well-being
• Control versus dependency
• - poor healthy, depression linked
• - suicide risk
• - negative life changes
• - social support, interaction
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• Taking control
• Rats and human research has shown absence of control over stressors is a predictor of health problems
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• Marriage in late adulthood
• - Satisfaction peaks in late adulthood
• - fewer stressful responsibilities
• - fairness in household tasks
• - joint leisure
• - emotional understanding, regulation
• - if dissatisfied, harder for women
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• Long-term gay and lesbian partnerships
• - most happy, highly fulfilling
• - healthier, happier than singles
• - coping with oppression may strengthen skill at coping with physical aging
• - face legal, health-care issues
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