PSYC 335: Developmental

Psychology 2

EARLY ADULTHOOD TO LATE ADULTHOOD

Dr. Johnny Andoh-Arthur

Email: Jandoh-arthur@ug.edu.gh

College of Education
School of Continuing and Distance Education
2014/2015 – 2016/2017
 Name: Dr. Johnny Andoh-
Arthur
Office: Room 3, Psychology
Department (Main Building)
Email:
jandoh-arthur@ug.edu.gh
Telephone: 0545903898
Facebook: Andoh-arthur
Johnny
Office Hours:
Wednesday 1pm -3pm
PSYC 336: Early adulthood to late
adulthood

Week 1:
Introduction &
definition of
concepts
 Information

Upload of syllabus on Sakai

Teaching Assistants
Linda Agyeibea/Priscilla Ofori-Atta/Anna Ayiku
Nadu
• IA
o 17 June, 2023 (In person)

o Group Project submission: July 08, 2023 via Sakai

 Outline

Concept of adulthood
Features of life-span development
Forces of development and aging
Research methods and designs for
studying aging
 Exercise

• Write down all the adjectives you

can think of that can be used to
describe aging and older adults, as
well as the “facts” about aging that
you know.
 Who is an adult?
Which of the following persons would you consider to be
adults?
 A 35-year-old male who is severely mentally retarded.
An 85-year-old victim of Alzheimer’s disease who has a
profound memory loss and requires complete nursing care.
A 40-year-old female who is socially withdrawn and has no
friends.
A 30-year-old male who is financially dependent on his
parents.
A mentally gifted 14-year-old who has just been awarded a
college degree in mathematics.
A 13-year-old female who is married and has a one-year-
old child.
 Who is an adult?
Progeria/Hutchinson-Gilford
Progeria Syndrome (HGPS).
Premature aging: a rare
genetic condition that causes
a child's body to age fast
Average life expectancy is 13
1 in every 4 million births
worldwide
It’s not inherited, or passed
down in families
Adalia Rose, with progeria
Died: January 12, 2022 @ 15 yrs
John Glenn
 The meaning of ‘age’
When you are asked the question “How old
are you?” what crosses your mind?
Is it the number of years since the day of
your birth?
Is it how old you feel at the time?
Is it defined more in terms of where you are
biologically, psychologically, or socially than
in terms of calendar time?
Age is not a simple construct
 The meaning of age
Chronological age: number of years since the day of
birth
Biological age: assessed by measuring the functioning of
the various vital, or life-limiting, organ systems
 E.g., cardiovascular system, nervous system, circulatory
system, digestive system
Psychological age: functional level of the psychological
abilities people use to adapt to changing environmental
demands
Socio-cultural age: specific set of roles individuals adopt
in relation to other members of the society and culture to
which they belong
Legal age: the age of legal majority, when a person gains
the legal status of an adult
Back to the question on adulthood
Adulthood can be viewed from a biological, legal,
psychological, economic, and social or cultural
perspective
Chronological perspective: 18-20 years of age
A, B, C, and D are adults and E, F, and G have not yet
attained that status
Biological or physical perspective considers, different
rates of physical maturation
 E.g., Early maturing boys and girls who acts as adults

Biology: physical growth varies with a particular organ

or organ system
 E.g., Small percentage of people who are afflicted

with physical disorders such as progeria

Back to the question on adulthood
Legal definition varies from place to place
Related to the notion of responsibility
Between 18 and 21 years
Individuals with mental disorders are not
considered ‘adults’
Social/cultural perspective: Economic and
social changes cause increase in age of
dependency
Increased in age at job attainment
 Stages of adulthood
Western societies:
Early adulthood: 20-40 years
Middle adulthood: 40 to 65 years
Later adulthood: 65 until death
Each stage is characterized by certain milestones in the
development of physical, cognitive and psychosocial
characteristics
Non-Western societies/cultures
Stage-grading but different methods
E.g., Arusha, East Africa, have six social strata
according to age—youth, junior warriors, senior
warriors, junior elders, senior elders, and retired elders
What are the categories in Ghana?
 Markers of adulthood in Ghana (Obidoa et
al., 2019)
Historically (Mensch et al., 1999):
 Girls: marriage after puberty
 Boys: economic independence
Colonisation, globalisation, access to education for girls,
delayed marriage/parenthood, extended period of
youthful exploration
Five criteria (215 students)
 make independent decisions,
 learn always to have good control of your emotions,
 if a man becomes capable of supporting a family financially,
 accept responsibility for the consequences of your actions,
 if a woman becomes capable of running a household
 Emerging adulthood
 Period between 18-25, after adolescence, when people
continue to learn and explore, postponing marriage,
parenthood and career
 Coined by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett (2000, 2001, 2003) after
interacting with 300 youth aged 18-29 years, for 5 years

 Findings: they felt they were not adolescents and but adults;
 Stage emerged due to demographic changes that had taken
place in the decades since Erikson's work
 Period of identity exploration of options for their lives in the
domains of love, work and worldview
 forgoing other options like marriage, parenthood
 Emerging adulthood ends gradually as individuals make
more permanent adult commitments throughout their 20s
 Emerging adulthood
Emerging adulthood is distinct from adolescence
and young adulthood.
 Unlike adolescents, emerging adults have finished
high school, are legally considered adults, have already
gone through puberty, and often don’t live with their
parents
 Unlike young adults, emerging adults have not
assumed adult roles in marriage, parenthood, or careers
 Risk-taking behavior, such as unprotected sex,
substance abuse, and drunk or reckless driving, peaks
in emerging adulthood—not adolescence, as is often
assumed
 They have more freedom than adolescents and fewer
responsibilities than young adults
 Emerging adulthood
Critics argue:
 Stage only apply to WEIRD (western, educated, industrialized,
rich democracies) cultures
 Bleidorn et al. (2013) show the stage can be found everywhere/nation
 Financial privilege: allowing young people to attend college or
delay transition of adulthood
 simply the product of contemporary socioeconomic conditions
 Awaiting opportunity: but not a period of identity exploration
 False limit on identity exploration: no limit on identity
exploration as it is a life-long pursuit
 Incongruity with Erikson’s theory: It is an extension of late
adolescence as Erikson noted cases of prolonged adolescence
Emerging adulthood is merely a useful label for
young adults in specific socioeconomic conditions but
may not be a true-life stage
 The meaning of aging
Aging: gradual and spontaneous changes that occur in
maturation from infancy to old adulthood
 changes create a normal physiological decline seen in
middle and late adulthood
 Aging is not a single process and consist of 3 processes:
Primary aging: is normal, disease-free development
during adulthood
 Inevitable part of the developmental process
 E.g., menopause, decline in reaction time
Secondary aging: developmental changes that are
related to disease, lifestyle, and other environmentally
induced changes that are avoidable
 E.g., loss of intellectual abilities in Alzheimer’s disease
 The meaning of aging
Tertiary aging: rapid losses that occur shortly before death
 E.g., terminal drop, in which intellectual abilities show a
marked decline in the last few years before death
There are individual differences in the pattern of aging
Some experience typical pattern of aging, others
experience highly successful aging with few signs of
change
 E.g. Akosua Agyapong (50+), J’Lo (50+)
 Differences result from an interaction of
 genetics
 optimal environment
 flexibility in dealing with life situations
 a strong sense of personal control
 maybe a bit of luck
 Myths about aging
Aging is all about decline. TRUE OR FALSE
 There are both growth and decline
Myths lead to negative stereotypes of older people
The stereotypes in turn lead to ageism
 Ageism : form of discrimination against older adults
based on their age
 Can you think of any examples?
E.g.,
 Believing that all old people are senile and are incapable
of making decisions about their lives
 Being impatient with older adults in a supermarket
 Dismissing an older person’s physical complaints with the
question “What do you expect for someone your age?”
 Features of life-span dev’t
Life-span perspective emphasizes that human
development takes a lifetime to complete
acknowledges stages of life
no one part of life is any more or less
important than another
 Early experiences contribute to later life
 The focus of later life is different from those of early

life
divides human development into two phases
(Baltes et al., 2006):
 an early phase (childhood and adolescence)
 a later phase (young adulthood, middle age, and old

age)
 Features of life-span dev’t
 Multidirectionality: Development late in life does not
only reflect losses but also growth
 e.g.: Decline in vision but increased wisdom/perspective on
life
 Plasticity: Capacity for change & improvement upon
training/practice
 There are limits
 E.g., Learning to play an instrument.
 Historical Context: influence of circumstances
determined by historical time
 Environmental and cultural influences, Generational effects
 Multiple Causation: dev’t is shaped by variety of forces
 Biological, psychological, socio-cultural & life-cycle
influences
 Demographics on aging
 Globally, more people are aging due to better health care
& lowering women’s mortality rate during childbirth
 Educational levels of older individuals are increasing
 Linked to well-being
 Asia & Europe is the “oldest” area in the world
 Japan (26%), Italy (22.4%), and Germany (21.1%) have the
largest percentage of older people
 Africa is considered the youngest area in the world
 due to poor access of health care and higher incidence of
AIDS
 Sub-Saharan Africa, aged population is rising (United
Nations, 2011)
 By 2050, the aged will constitute 10% of continent’s
population
 Demographics on Older adults: Ghana
Rapid increase in the population of the aged
976 thousand in 2020 (Statista)
improved by 2.22 % from 3.1 % in 2020 to 3.2
% in 2021.
Since the 1.25 % growth in 2011, population
aged 65 years and above surged by 11.71 % in
2021 (World Bank, World Data Atlas)
What are the implications of these patterns of
growth
 Forces of development and aging
Forces explain questions such as:
 Why do some people develop gray hair in young adulthood?
 Why do some adults continue to remember everything well, whereas others
do not?
 Why are some older adults very active, whereas others withdraw?
Biological forces
 include all genetic and health-related factors that affect
development
 E.g., menopause (48-55 years), facial wrinkling, and changes in the
major organ systems.
Psychological forces
 include all internal perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and
personality factors that affect development
 Collectively, psychological forces provide the characteristics we
notice about people that make them individuals
 Forces of development and aging
Socio-cultural forces
 include interpersonal, societal, cultural, and ethnic
factors that affect development
 socio-cultural forces provide the overall contexts in
which we develop
Life-cycle forces
 reflect differences in how the same event or
combination of biological, psychological, and socio-
cultural forces affects people at different points in
their lives
 life-cycle forces provide the context for the
developmental differences of interest in adult
development and aging
 Forces of development and aging
Click icon to add picture

All the forces combine to create people’s developmental experiences

 Interrelations among forces
3 sets of influences interact to produce
developmental change over the life-span (Baltes et
al., 1998)
Normative age-graded influences: Experiences
caused by biological, psychological, and socio-
cultural forces that are highly correlated with
chronological age
These events typically correspond to major time-
marker events, which are often ritualized
 Biological: puberty, menarche, and menopause
 Psychological: middle-aged person’s concern with
socializing the younger generation
 Socio-cultural: time for first marriage and retirement
 Interrelations among forces
Normative history-graded influences: Events
shared by most people in a certain culture at a
certain point in time
These events may be:
 biological (such as epidemics, pandemic-Covid-19),
 psychological (such as particular stereotypes), or
 socio-cultural (such as changing attitudes toward sexuality).

These events give a generation its unique identity

 such as the baby-boom generation: 1946-1960

These influences can have a profound effect

 Ghana: June 3rd 2015 flood/fire disaster; May 9th 2001 stadium
disaster
 E.g., the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001
changed attitudes towards safety and security
 Interrelations among forces
Non-normative influences: random or
rare events that are specific to the life of
an individual
but are not experienced by most
people.
 E.g., winning the lottery, accident or

layoff.
 Research methods in adult dev’t
Systematic observation
Naturalistic or structured (researcher creates
a setting)
Sampling behaviour with tasks
E.g., to study memory, researcher can ask
older individuals to memorise and recall
information
Self-report
Interviews
Questionnaires
 General designs
Experimental design
Correlational design: examine relations
between variables as they exist naturally in
the world
Case study: may be able to study a single
individual in great detail
Designs for studying development
Longitudinal Designs: same individuals are observed
or tested repeatedly at different points in their lives
 Disadvantages include:
 Carryover effects

 Mortality due to moving, dying, or refusal

 Changes in researchers

Cross-Sectional Designs: developmental differences

are identified by testing people of different ages at the
same time
 Disadvantages include:
 Matching difficulties

 Cohort effects: Difficult to explain whether findings are due to

aging process itself, by generational or cultural differences

(cohort differences), or by time-related changes in the attitudes
and values of society
Designs for studying development
Time-lag/Sequential designs represent
different combinations of cross-sectional or
longitudinal studies
Advantage: Correct errors from longitudinal
and cross-sectional designs
Designs for studying development
Such designs have three key variables:
 Age, cohort, and time of measurement
Age effects: differences caused by underlying
processes, such as biological, psychological, or socio-
cultural changes
Cohort effects: differences caused by experiences and
circumstances unique to the generation to which one
belongs
Time-of-measurement effects: differences stemming
from socio-cultural, environmental, historical, or other
events at the time data are obtained from the
participants.
Practice effects
Designs for studying development
Retrospective and prospective studies: are used
to study risk factors associated with diseases
 determine changes and stability in physical and
psychological characteristics over time
Prospective studies: individuals without disease
are followed over a period to
 determine what characteristics and behaviors
differentiate between people who eventually
develop the disease from people who remain free of it
Retrospective studies: the life history of
individuals who have the disease are examined
 identify correlates and causes of the disease