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Chapter 13. PHYSICAL AND COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN EARLY ADULTHOOD. PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT. Physical Development and the Senses. Physical development and maturation complete Peak of physical capabilities Brain reaches maximum in size and weight (~24)
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Chapter 13 PHYSICAL AND COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN EARLY ADULTHOOD
Physical Development and the Senses • Physical development and maturation complete • Peak of physical capabilities • Brain reaches maximum in size and weight (~24) • Grey matter continues to be pruned and myelination increases • Senses are peak • No significant deterioration in vision (until the 40's) • Hearing is at its peak unless damaged • Taste, smell, sensitivity to touch good • Most pro athletes at peak during early adulthood • Psychomotor abilities (eye-hand coordination, etc.) • But skills can increase
Physical Fitness • Superior physical capabilities require • Exercise • Proper diet (most are deficient in protein) • Less than 10% Americans exercise enough to keep themselves in good physical shape • Less than 20-25% do moderate regular exercise
Benefits of Exercise Cardiovascular fitness increase Lung capacity increases, raising endurance Supports totally aerobic functioning Stronger muscles and greater flexibility Greater range of movement More elasticity in muscles, tendons, and ligaments Reduction in osteoporosis Optimization of immune response Decreased stress level Increased sense of control over their bodies and feeling of accomplishment Increased IQ test scores
The Result of Fitness: Longevity The greater the fitness level, the lower the death rate tends to be for both men and women. (Source: Based on Blair et al., 1989.)
Health Leading causes of death among young adults (ages 25-34) are: • Accidents • AIDS • Cancer • Heart disease • Suicide • Murder • Gender and SES differences
Secondary Aging • Lifestyle decisions, including the use—or abuse—of alcohol, tobacco, or drugs or engaging in unprotected sex, can hasten secondary aging • This can also increase a young adult's risk of dying
Tracking Murder The murder rate (per 100,000 men) is far higher in the United States than in many other developed countries. What features of U.S. society contribute to this state of affairs? (Source: Based on United Nations Survey on Crime Trends, 2000.)
How Cultural Beliefs Influence Health and Health Care • Cultural health beliefs, along with demographic and psychological barriers, reduce people's use of physicians and medical care • Latinos are the least likely of any Western ethnic group to seek the help of physical • Lower socioeconomic status reduces ability to pay for traditional medical care
Eating, Nutrition, and Obesity Most young adults know which foods are healthy, but ignore good nutrition • Physical growth begins to decline • Calorie reduction necessary
Obesity on the Rise Nearly 70% !
First in Obesity Idiotic statement “weight” doesn’t not imply obesity! Obesity is particularly prevalent in the United States. The world average weight adults is 137 pounds; in the United States, the average is 180 (Walpole, 2012).
Additional Material Stress and Coping in Early Adulthood • Stress: Response to events that threaten or challenge an individual • Pleasant events and unpleasant events • Long-term, continuous exposure may result in a reduction of body's ability to deal with stress • Two kinds of stress • “Good”: controllable/chosen • “Bad”: Not controllable/imposed
Lazarus and Folkman People move through series of stages that determine whether or not they will experience stress • Primary appraisalassessment of an event to determine whether its implications are positive, negative, or neutral. • Secondary appraisalassessment of whether one's coping abilities and resources are adequate to overcome the harm, threat, or challenge posed by potential stressor.
Steps in the Perception of Stress The way we appraise a potential stressor determines whether we will experience stress. (Source: Based on Kaplan, Sallis, & Patterson, 1993.)
Additional Material Predicting Stressful Events(Shelly Taylor, 2009) • Events & circumstances producing Negative emotions are more likely to produce stress • Situations producing Uncontrollable or unpredictable situations are more likely to produce stress • Ambiguous and confusing situations produce more stress • Simultaneous tasks demands are more likely to experience stress • Thus ‘multitasking’ inherently stressful
Additional Material Consequences of Stress Stress affects people in a number of ways. • It can increase the risk of becoming ill • it may actually produce illness • it makes it more difficult to recover from illness • it may reduce one's ability to cope with future stress • May lead toPsychosomatic disorders • medical problems caused by interaction of psychological, emotional, and physical difficulties. • ‘Real’ illness requiring specialized treatment • May cause a variety of aberrant or atypical behaviors • Coping • The effort to reduce, or tolerate threats that lead to stress • Wide variation in coping abilities depends on stressor
Problem-focused coping is attempt to manage a stressful problem or situation by directly changing situation to make it less stressful. • Emotion-focused coping involves conscious regulation of emotion. • Social Support Coping uses presence, assistance and comfort supplied by others. • Defense coping involves unconscious strategies that distort or deny true nature of the situation.
Stop and Think! Take a few minutes to complete the questionnaire on page 427 to determine your level of stress. What did you learn about yourself and your stress? Now review the information on page 428 to discover how to elicit the relaxation response. Good luck!
Additional Material Coping with Stress: General Guidelines • Seek control over the situation producing the stress • Do something! • Redefine “threat” as “challenge” • Find social support – friends, family, or professional • Use relaxation techniques - meditation, Zen and yoga, progressive muscle relaxation, and even hypnosis • Try to maintain a healthy lifestyle – all things in moderation • Good stress enhances your life
Additional Material Hardy • Hardy individuals are take-charge people who revel in life's challenges. • People who are high in hardiness are more resistant to stress-related illness than those who show less hardiness. • Hardy people react to potentially threatening stressors with optimism, feeling that they can respond effectively. • By turning threatening situations into challenging ones, they are less apt to experience high levels of stress. • It is, to a large degree, a life choice
Resilient • Resilient young adults tend to be easy-going, good-natured, and have good social and communication skills. • They are independent, feeling that they can shape their own fate and are not dependent on others or luck. • They work with what they have and make the best of whatever situation in which they find themselves.
Intellectual Growth in Early Adulthood Physical development slows down during early adulthood, but does cognitive development also slow? ~ What did Piaget propose? • Piaget and others argued that by time the teen years were finished, thinking stabilized. • BUT increasing evidence suggests that this part of Piaget's theory was incorrect!
Postformal Thought GieselaLabouvie-Vief • Adult predicaments are sometimes solved by relativistic thinking rather than pure logic • Postformal thought acknowledges that world sometimes lacks purely right and wrong solutions so adults must draw upon prior experiences to solve problems • Postformal thought encompasses dialectical thinking believes This is simply a rationalization for relativism where adherents reject the physical world in favor of a fantasy realm where wishes substitute for Truth.
Additional Material Jan Stinnott Post rational thought Postformal thought • Takes into account real-world considerations when solving problems • Facilitates shifting back and forth between an abstract, ideal solution and real-world constraints that might prevent the solution from being successfully implemented No, it does not. It takes into account opinions, conjecture, and fantasy
Additional Material Papalia,D., Olds,S., & Feldman,R. 2009Slide 1 1. Shifting gears ‘this might work on paper, but not in real life.’) 2. Problem definition ‘this is an ethical problem, not a legal one, so judicial precedents don’t really help solve it’ 3. Process - product shift ‘I’ve come up against this type of problem before and this is how I solved it’ or ‘in this case, the best available solution would be...’
Additional Material Papalia,D., Olds,S., & Feldman,R. 2009Slide 2 4. Pragmatism ‘if u want the cheapest solution, do this if u want the quickest solution, do that.’ 5. Multiple solutions: ‘let’s try your way; if that doesn’t work, we can try my way.’ 6. Awareness of paradox: (‘doing this will give him what he wants, but it will only make him unhappy in the end.’) 7. Self -referential thought: awareness that he must be the judge of which logic to use; in other words, that he is using post formal thought.
Additional Material William Perry Early adulthood represents developmental growth that encompasses mastery not just of particular bodies of knowledge, but of ways of understanding the world • Harvard college students’ thinking changed from dualistic to relativistic during college years • Rather than seeing the world as having absolute standards and values, they indicated that different societies, cultures, and individuals could have different standards and values, and all of them could be equally valid Devotes of post rational thought must deny standards & values
K. Warner Schaie suggests that adults' thinking follows set pattern of stages. • The ACQUISITIVE STAGE, which encompasses all of childhood and adolescence, in which main developmental task is to acquire information. • The ACHIEVING STAGE is point reached by young adults in which intelligence is applied to specific situations involving attainment of long-term goals regarding careers, family, and societal contributions. • The RESPONSIBLE STAGE is stage where the major concerns of middle-aged adults relate to their personal situations, including protecting and nourishing their spouses, families, and careers. • The EXECUTIVE STAGE is period in middle adulthood when people take broader perspective than earlier, including concerns about world. • The REINTEGRATIVE STAGE is period of late adulthood during which the focus is on tasks that have personal meaning.
Intelligence: What Matters in Early Adulthood? Sternberg • Triarchic theory of intelligence • Intelligence is made up of three major components: • Componential aspects • Experiential components • Contextual factors
Sternberg - Definitions • Componential intelligence relates to the mental components involved in analyzing data, and in solving problems, especially problems involving rational behavior. (traditional IQ tests focus on this aspect) • Experiential intelligence refers to the relationship between intelligence, people's prior experience, and their ability to cope with new situations. • Contextual intelligence involves the degree of success people demonstrate in facing the demands of their everyday, real-world environments.
Practical and Emotional IntelligenceSternberg Traditional IQ scores • IQ score that most traditional tests produce relates quite well to academic success • IQ seems to be unrelated to other types of achievement, such as career success Success in a career necessitates a type of intelligence • Practical intelligence • Emotional intelligence
Creativity: Novel Thought in Early Adulthood • Early adulthood • Peak of creativity • Many of professional problems are novel • Willing to take risks
CREATIVITY • Combining responses or ideas in creative ways is at its peak for many individuals during early adulthood. • People in early adulthood may be at peak of their creativity because many problems they encounter on professional level are novel. • Creative people are willing to take risks. • Creative people develop and endorse ideas that are unfashionable or regarded as "wrong". • Not all people reach their creative peak in early adulthood.
Life Events and Cognitive Development Major life events may lead to cognitive growth • The ups and downs of life events may lead young adults to think about the world in novel, more complex, sophisticated, and often less rigid ways • Major life events, such as marriage, birth of child, starting first job, having child, buying house, may lead to cognitive growth. • Apply postformal thought (Labouvie-Vief) allows them to deal more effectively with complex social world.
Higher Education College is period of developmental growth that encompasses mastery not just of particular bodies of knowledge, but of ways of understanding world.
Additional Material Demographics of Higher Education Although nearly 69 percent of white high-school graduates enter college, only 61 percent of African American and 47 percent of Hispanic graduates do so • Nationwide, a minority of high school graduates enter college. • 40% of White Americans enter college. • 29% of African-Americans enter college. • 31% of Hispanic high school graduates enter college. • The percentage of students enrolling in college in the fall immediately following high school completion was 68.2 percent in 2011 (source). • Females enrolled at a higher rate (72.2 percent) than males (64.7 percent) (source). • Between 2000 and 2011, the percentage of college students who were Black rose from 11.7 to 15.1 percent, and the percentage of students who were Hispanic rose from 9.9 to 14.3 percent (source). Also, the percentage of Black 18- to 24-year-olds enrolled in college increased from 30.5 percent in 2000 to 37.1 percent in 2011 and the percentage of Hispanics enrolled increased from 21.7 to 34.8 percent (source). • Overall proportion of the minority population that does enter college has decreased over the past decade—a decline attributed to changes in the availability of financial aid • Actually minority rates increased and as did student aid and the number of students receiving aid. • Only about 40% of those who start graduate from college in 4 years ½ will eventually finish • Influenced by race and gender variables • http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372
Additional Material College Enrollment by Racial Group 72.4% pop 12.6% pop 16.4% pop 0.2% pop 0.9% pop
Consequences Proportion of students who enter college but ultimately never graduate is substantial!
Who Goes to College? • More women than men attend college • 26% of college students today are 25 to 35 years of age or older • Average age of a community college student is 31 • College degree is becoming increasingly important in obtaining and keeping job • Absolute number of minority students enrolled in college has increased BUT overall proportion of minority population has decreased over past decade
Why is there a gender gap in college attendance? Will it continue? • Men have more opportunities to earn money when they graduate • More women enrolled in college
