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When I'm 64 (2006) / Chapter Skim
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2 The Social Side of Human Aging
Pages 19-33

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From page 19...
... This chapter presents a brief overview of research from social, personality, and developmental psychology that provided the foundation for the committee's deliberations and illuminated some of the key challenges that are likely to be encountered in carrying out the proposed recommendations. This necessarily brief summary covers the life-span approach; personality and self concept; social relations; emotional well-being; social cognition; and gender, race, and socioeconomic status.
From page 20...
... Choices made throughout life to pursue intimate relationships, professions, families, and avocations make people focus increasingly on specific individuals and narrower life domains. Throughout adulthood, people actively construct skills and hone environments to meet selected goals.
From page 21...
... The literature in psychological science tends to consider individuals as causal agents. Yet, the physical and social contexts in which people age likely affect myriad aspects of life -- including diets, exercise, beliefs, and social concepts -- in profound ways that remain relatively unexplored.
From page 22...
... They do. Adults are inevitably changed in idiosyncratic ways by the life experiences they encounter, including such major life events as becoming a parent, or less dramatic but persistent experiences associated with, for example, the pursuit of a particular career and the consequent development of a particular type of expertise.
From page 23...
... , but the possibility that traits that are highly adaptive in one group may be less so in another, as a function of racial, ethnic, or cultural membership, is relatively novel and could contribute substantially to the understanding of aging processes. It is also possible that personality measures designed for majority populations do not accurately measure these constructs in members of minority racial, cultural, or ethnic groups and that different constructs may better characterize other groups (Jackson, Antonucci, and Gibson, 1990)
From page 24...
... . Because they are rooted in adaptation, life-span developmental approaches naturally lead to consideration of the ways that goals and goal attainment change throughout life (Baltes and Baltes, 1990; Brandtstädter, Wentura, and Rothermund, 1999; Carstensen, Isaacowitz, and Charles, 1999)
From page 25...
... . By old age, social networks comprise a relatively larger proportion of emotionally close social partners, a change that appears to have positive consequences for well-being in older people (Lang and Carstensen, 1994; Lansford, Sherman, and Antonucci, 1998)
From page 26...
... . Among African Americans, beliefs in cultural norms about family care appear to reduce negative physical effects on the caregivers (DilworthAnderson, Goodwin, and Wallace, 2004)
From page 27...
... If factors like racism increase stress and affect health, one might expect that social constructs such as identity and family cohesion, at least in healthy families, may be protective against health insults in late life. Similarly, positive aspects of identity and self that are related to racial identity may help to buffer against perceived and actual racism and ageism.
From page 28...
... By and large, older people report that they experience relatively fewer negative emotions than younger people (Mroczek, 2001) , an observation supported by crosssectional studies of men and women ages 18 to 95 (Carstensen, Pasupathi, Mayr, and Nesselroade, 2000; Gross et al., 1997; Lawton, Kleban, and Dean, 1993)
From page 29...
... SOCIAL COGNITION Social cognition refers to processing information about social matters and the influence of social context on cognitive processing. Research on cognitive aging documents deterioration in a broad array of basic cognitive processes, including speed of processing, working memory, executive functions, attention, and inhibition.
From page 30...
... Younger people outperformed older people on a memory task, but the age difference was significantly reduced in the older participants who were primed by a positive account of memory among older people. Apparently, this priming enabled those who read the positive account to use an effective memory strategy, while those who read an account of memory deficits in old age were not as likely to do so.
From page 31...
... . Socioeconomic status predicts longevity (National Research Council, 2004, p.
From page 32...
... Investigation of these factors might also help explain some of the persistent health disparities observed among these groups as well as ways in which individual differences at the psychological level exacerbate or diminish group differences. For example, racial and ethnic differences in appearance and attitudes toward body image could be significant factors that affect the effectiveness of programs to reduce obesity.
From page 33...
... THE SOCIAL SIDE OF HUMAN AGING 33 The psychological mechanisms that lead to the observed social, behavioral, and physiological differences are not well understood, and there are many important domains in which research offers high yield at both practical and theoretical levels. The study of the slow and steady accumulation of life experiences that characterize development, however, may answer some of the most interesting and important questions we ask about ourselves.


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