Lifespan Psychology: Adolescence to old age

1. Lifespan Psychology: Adolescence to old age Dr Hester Duffy

2. Transitions of adolescence • Physical/biological transitions • Puberty • Neurological transitions • Synaptic pruning • Cognitive transitions • Concrete → formal operations • Moral transitions • Conventional → Post-conventional level

3. Transitions of adolescence • Social transitions • Parents → peers? • Educational transitions • Primary → secondary school • Legal transitions • Legal responsibility, alcohol, sex/marriage, military, driving

4. Biological transitions • The adolescent brain • Myelination; sheathing of nerve cells in fatty tissue → increase in “white matter” • New neural connections followed by synaptic pruning; elimination of excess neural connection → decrease in grey matter • Do hormones affect brain structure? • Hormones → physiological changes → changes in behaviour → modified brain structures • Brain structure influenced by behaviour and experience

5. Changes in cognitive abilities • New forms of thinking available • Piaget (1972) – concrete operations to ‘formal operational thinking’ • Abstract concepts, hypothetical and deductive thought • Can solve more complex problems since take into account more than one variable

6. Criticisms of formal operations theory • Findings not always replicated, and not seen universally • Adolescence not final stage • Development of hypothetical reasoning continues into adolescence and adulthood • Role of experience and training • Reasoning is domain-specific rather than domain-general • Cross-generational gains – Flieller (1999) • In 1967 35% of 13-15 year olds reached formal operational stage vs. 55% in 1996 • Environmental effects

7. Other approaches • Information Processing • Brain as a computer • Processing capacity improves with age • Executive Control • “Office manager” of the brain • Includes memory, attention, planning • Adolescents manage their own cognitive processes better

8. Social transitions • Shift in social relationships • First relationships typically with family • Increasing importance of friends • Some cultural variation

10. Selman’s stages of friendship Ability to take other’s perspective Concept of friendship Level 0: Egocentric or undifferentiated perspectives (about 3-5 years) Stage 0: Momentary physical playmates Level 1: Subjective or differentiated perspectives (roughly 6-8 years) Stage 1: One-way assistance Level 2: Self-reflective or reciprocal perspectives (roughly 9-12 years) Stage 2: Fair-weather cooperation Level 3: Third person or mutual perspectives (roughly 11-15 years) Stage 3: Intimate and mutually exclusive relationships Level 4: Societal or in-depth perspectives (age 12 onwards) Stage 4: Autonomous interdependent friendships

11. Changing concepts of friendship • Early Childhood – “We play together because he likes football” • Mid-late childhood – “I like her because she’s nice to me” • Early adolescence – “We can tell each other secrets and trust each other” • Later adolescence and adulthood – “We may not see each other that often, but I know she’s there for me”

12. Other features of adolescent friendship • Similarity of friends • Particularly similarity in behaviours, e.g. smoking or other substance use • Adolescents do not seek friends to be identical to them • Stability/differentiation of friendships • Berndt & Hoyle (1985) • Friendships increased in stability from childhood to early adolescence • Also increased reluctance to make new friends

13. Gender differences • Are teenage girls’ friendships more intimate? • Rice & Mulkeen (1995) – girls rated selves as more intimate with best friends than boys • Girls spend more time with friends • Reflects differing socialisation of genders or differing abilities to articulate? • Youniss & Smollar (1985) – about 45% of boys same as most girls on intimacy and understanding, 30% of boys non-intimate friendships

14. Romantic relationships • Shift towards affiliation with other-sex peers during adolescence • Brown’s model of development of romantic relationships (based in US) • 1. Initiation phase: onset of interest in opposite sex • 2. Status phase: romance as status-enhancer • 3. Affection phase: shift focus onto relationship itself • 4. Bonding phase: concerns about commitment

15. Conflict with parents in adolescence • Conflict does increase in early adolescence compared with childhood • Shanahan et al., (2007): conflicts peak at age of ~13 years • Different pattern for first and second-born children? • Most frequent in early adolescence, most intense in mid-adolescence • Is conflict with parents a bad thing? • Maybe not!

16. Need for autonomy • Not separation but individuation • Steinberg & Silverberg (1986) • from 10-14 years, increase in sense of self-control, and self-awareness • De-idealisation of parents • Decreased dependency on parents • Associated with other relationships • E.g. high autonomy ↔ high celebrity interest • Can still have close-parent child relationships

17. Parenting styles and influences on autonomy • Baumrind’s framework Responsiveness High Demandingness Low

18. Effects of parenting style • Optimal style is authoritative • Warmth, structure and autonomy support • Associated with healthy adolescent development in terms of psychosocial competence, and educational achievement (Lamborn et al., 1991) • Balances autonomy and restrictiveness • Facilitates intellectual development through reasoning and negotiation • Adolescents identify more with parents • Directionality?

19. Identity status (Marcia, 1980) • Formal measurement of identity status • Identity diffusion = avoidance of commitment • Identity foreclosure = committed to beliefs but not self-determined • Moratorium = state of crisis, exploring possibilities • Identity achievement = crisis experienced, resolved, committed

20. Marcia’s identity statuses Exploration Yes Commitment No

21. Do adolescents undergo identity crisis? • Attempt to define self but not necessarily “crisis” • Is the notion of identity crisis culturally biased? • Foreclosure may be more optimal than achievement in some societies • Prolong adolescence due to education? • Statuses do not always represent developmental sequence • Not a single event or a short-term process • Changes can be gradual rather than discontinuous

22. Identity development continues into adulthood Cross-sectional study on 12-24 year old males From Meilman (1979), Developmental Psychology

23. Summary • Time spent with friends increases in adolescence; time spent with family decreases • Friendships become more intimate and reciprocal, and interest in romantic relationships emerges • Need for autonomy leads to changes in the parent-adolescent relationship which may result in conflict • Establishing a sense of identity is one of the primary psychological tasks of adolescence, but can be achieved without crisis • Successful adolescence results in independent adult individual

24. Into Old Age • Changes continue throughout life • But less research on old age!

25. Changing Demographics UK residents aged 90 and over per 100,00 UK residents

27. Life Expectancy Life expectancy = average number of years remaining, where average is median Dramatic rise in life expectancy over last century Currently rising 2 years/decade Higher for women than for men

28. Life Expectancy for Males and Females UK

29. Sensory Changes Baltes & Lindenberger (1997) Psych Aging, 12, 12-21

30. Brain Changes • Normal ageing is associated with gradual degeneration within the nervous system: • loss of neurons (throughout adulthood) • diminished functioning of remaining neurons • more neurofibrillary tangles and amyloid plaques • reduced blood flow to the brain • declining levels of neurotransmitters • Older brains typically process information more slowly

31. Cognitive changes Decline in some abilities Pattern comparison Raven’s test (visual reasoning) Recall memory “Information Processing” Other abilities are spared Vocabulary “Knowledge”

32. Synonym (Vocabulary) ANONYMOUS applicable magnificent insulting fictitious nameless untrue

33. Pattern Comparison (Speed) SAME or DIFFERENT?

34. Raven’s (Reasoning)

35. Salthouse (2004) CurrDir Psych Sci, 13, 140-144

36. Memory Changes Short-term memory Items retained for a few seconds Capacity limited to 7±2 items Tested by digit span: 638 9724 74928 835162 7492531 85962143 183726459 Working memory Requires simultaneous storage and processing Involved in reading, following conversations, mental arithmetic Tested by working memory span: 4+2=? 6-3=? 1+7=? Recall 638

37. Data collected via the Internet by Maylor & Logie

38. Long-Term Memory Changes • Procedural memory – well practiced skills like riding a bike and playing an instrument • not generally affected by ageing • Semantic memory – general factual knowledge (cf encyclopaedia) • well retained in old age • Episodic memory – memory for episodes or events (cf diary) • impaired by ageing

39. Influences on Rates of Ageing • Gender • males decline more than females • IQ • initial level of ability has little influence

40. Influences on Rates of Ageing Social activity? Mental activity? Physical activity?

41. Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: Meta-Analysis Holt-Lunstad et al (2010) PLOS Med, 7(7): e1000316

42. Fitness Effects on the Cognitive Function of Older Adults: Meta-Analysis Colcombe & Kramer (2003) Psych Sci, 14, 125-130

43. Mental Activity (Brain Training) Many intervention studies show benefits at all ages But these are only seen in highly similar tasks to those used in training (ie near-transfer) Few have shown any generalisation (ie far-transfer)

44. Summary Psychology of ageing is relatively ignored in undergraduate textbooks Ageing is a recent phenomenon of industrialised nations Main designs to investigate ageing all have advantages and disadvantages – sequential is best Sensory systems and the brain deteriorate with age Differential patterns of cognitive ageing (fluid vs. crystallised abilities; procedural vs. semantic vs. episodic memory) Social, physical, and mental activities can influence rates of mortality/morbidity