Chapter TwentyOne

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Chapter Twenty-One

• Middle Adulthood
• Cognitive Development

PowerPoints prepared by Cathie Robertson,
Grossmont College Revised by Jenni Fauchier
Metropolitan Community College
2
What is Intelligence?

• For most of twentieth century, scientists and
  public assumed there was such a thing as
  intelligence, with general intelligence thought
  to be a single entity
• Now scientists believe it is more useful to look
  at adult intelligence as several distinct
  intellectual capacities

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Studying Intelligence During the Twentieth Century

• Psychometricians disagreed about whether general
  intelligence rises or falls after age 20 or so

4
Cross-Sectional Research

• For first half of the twentieth century,
  psychologists were convinced, based on solid
  evidence, that intelligence declined over time
• a classic cross-sectional study found that the
  average male
• reached his intellectual peak at about age 18
• intellectual decline began in mid-20s
• hundreds of other cross-sectional studies in many
  nations also found younger adults outscored older
  adults on measures of intelligence

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Longitudinal Research

• In 1955, Nancy Bayley and Melita Oden analyzed
  adult intelligence of child geniuses who had
  grown up
• Found that most of the 36-year-olds were still
  improving in vocabulary, comprehension, and
  information
• Bayley wondered whether this groups high
  intelligence during childhood had protected them
  from age-related decline

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Longitudinal Research, cont.

• After further research, Bayley concluded
• intellectual learning is unimpaired through age
  36 and beyond
• Longitudinal research showed that, over time,
  intellectual growth resulted from
• improvements in quality and extent of public
  education
• variety of cultural opportunities
• expanded media information

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Longitudinal Research, cont.

• Bayleys research also showed
• older adults previously tested often did not go
  beyond 8th grade and so did not fully develop
  their intelligence
• each generation scores higher on IQ tests because
  each is better educated

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The Flynn Effect

• Evidence for the Flynn effecta trend toward
  increasing average IQ over generationscomes from
  research comparing test scores over time
• in every country, younger cohorts outscored older
  ones
• because of Flynn effect, widely-used IQ tests
  are renormed about every 15 years

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The Flynn Effect, cont.

• Reasons for overall IQ rise
• wider education and experience
• better nutrition
• fewer toxins
• smaller family size

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Cross-Sequential Research

• Longitudinal research better than
  cross-sectional, but still not perfect
• Schaie combined the two, his new design is called
  cross-sequential research
• he tested cross-section of 500 adults of
  different age groups on 5 standard primary mental
  abilities foundations of intelligence
• verbal meaning, spatial orientation, inductive
  reasoning, number ability, and word fluency

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Cross-Sequential Research, cont.

• Schaie concluded people improve in most mental
  abilities until their 80s, at which point they
  fall below the mid-range performance of young
  adults
• Research in many nations confirmed Schaies
  general conclusion for example, that of Baltes

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Components of Intelligence Many and Varied

• Developmentalists are now looking at patterns of
  gains and losses in intellect over the adult
  years
• How many abilities are there? We will look at 4
  different proposals

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Two Clusters Fluid and Crystallized Intelligence

• Fluid Intelligence
• flexible reasoning used to draw inferences,
  understand relations between concepts, and
  speedily process new ideas
• person with this intelligence would be quick and
  creative with words and numbers, as well as enjoy
  intellectual puzzles
• a test item for it might ask what comes next in
  each series? BDACZBYA 456345623456

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Two Clusters Fluid and Crystallized
Intelligence, cont.

• Crystallized Intelligence
• accumulation of facts, information, and knowledge
  that comes with education and experiences within
  a particular culture
• a sample item to test for this might be what
  would you do with a mango?

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Three Forms of Intelligence Sternberg

• Analytic
• mental processes that foster academic proficiency
  by making possible efficient learning,
  remembering, and thinking
• involves abstract planning, strategy selection,
  focused attention, and information processing

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Three Forms of Intelligence Sternberg, cont.

• Creative Intelligence
• involves capacity to be intellectually flexible
  and innovative in new situations
• divergent diverse, innovative, and unusual
  solutions

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Three Forms of Intelligence Sternberg, cont.

• Practical Intelligence
• involves capacity to adapt ones behavior to the
  contextual demands of a given situation
• includes accurate grasp of expectations and needs
  of people involved and an awareness of skills
  needed

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Five Primary Abilities

• Schaie found 5 primary abilities
• verbal meaning
• spatial orientation
• inductive reasoning
• word fluency
• number ability this, unlike other 4 that
  increases from age 20 to the late 50s, shifts
  downward by age 40
• After age 60, decreases small but statistically
  significant
• cohort effect was found

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Eight Intelligences Gardner

• Intelligences for
• linguistic
• logical-mathematical
• musical
• spatial
• body-kinesthetic
• naturalistic
• social understanding (interpersonal)
• self-understanding (intrapersonal)

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Gardners Eight Intelligences, cont.

• Gardner believes most people have capacity to
  achieve minimal proficiency in each, but that
  every person is more gifted in some abilities
  than in others

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Gardners Eight Intelligences, cont.

• Measuring intelligence reflects assumptions about
  what is measured also cultures and families
  value different intelligences
• psychometricians fears that most intelligence
  tests are valid measures of verbal and logical
  skills of North Americans, but not necessarily of
  people in other cultures

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Culture and Abilities

• Cultural assumptions about aging affect concepts
  of intelligence and development of intelligence
  test
• U.S. culture values youth and devalues age
• abilities of youth (quick reaction time, etc.)
  are central to psychometric intelligence tests
• strengths of older adults (recognizing and
  upholding traditions, etc.) not as valued

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Culture and Abilities, cont.

• Psychometric evaluation of adult intelligence
  must consider cultural background of person and
  assumptions of test authors
• culture becomes increasingly important when
  evaluating abilities of people as they age
• Education is a cultural manifestation

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Selective Gains and Losses

• Many researchers believe that adults make
  deliberate choices about their intellectual
  development, separate from their culture or
  education

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Optimization with Compensation

• Paul and Margaret Baltes developed theory called
  selective optimization with compensation
• people try to maintain a balance in their lives
  by looking for the best way to compensate for
  physical and cognitive losses
• try to become more proficient at activities they
  do well

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Optimization with Compensation, cont.

• When selective optimization with compensation is
  applied to cognition
• cognitive skills and achievements can be broken
  down into discrete components to maximize gains
  and minimize losses
• Cognition as Expertise

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What Is Expert Cognition?

• Expertsomeone notably more skilled and
  knowledgeable than average person is about a
  specific intellectual topic or practical ability
• Expert Thought
• intuitive
• automatic
• strategic
• flexible

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Intuitive

• Compared to novices, actions of experts are
  intuitive and less stereotypic
• experts rely on accumulated experiences and
  immediate context

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Automatic

• Many aspects of expert performance are automatic
• incoming information is processed more quickly
  and analyzed more efficiently
• experts then act in well-rehearsed ways that make
  their efforts seem nonconscious

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Strategic

• Experts distinguished by use of strategies
• have better strategies and more of them
• superior strategies allow for more selective
  optimization with compensation

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Flexible

• Experts are more flexible
• derives from their actions being intuitive,
  automatic, and strategic
• also comes from their being creative and curious,
  deliberately experimenting and enjoying the
  challenge when things dont go as planned

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Expertise and Age

• Practice is crucial
• Motivation is crucial
• Expertise can sometimes overcome effects of age,
  but response time slower

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Expertise on the Job

• Research on cognitive plasticity often shows the
  use of selective optimization with compensation
• especially apparent in the everyday workplace
• Complicated work requires more cognitive practice
  and expertise than does routine work

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Waiting on Tables

• Waiting on tables in a restaurant demands a wide
  range of cognitive skills
• memory for orders
• knowledge of menu items
• delivery procedures
• simultaneous management of several tables, each
  at a different stage of meal
• ability to organize and prioritize tasks

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Waiting on Tables, cont.

• Cognitive skills involved in waiting on tables,
  cont.
• ability to monitor of social relations of
  customers and coworkers
• physical stamina
• Perlmutter studied restaurant workers and found
• older employees outperformed younger ones had
  developed strategies to compensate for declining
  job-related abilities

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Working in an Office

• Similar results for office workers were found by
  Salthouse
• Strategies are found by older workers to perform
  work that can accommodate cognitive changes

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Expertise in Daily Life

• Developing expertise to cope with stress

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The Stresses of Life

• Middle-aged adults in the thick of things
• parents to teens, children of aging parents, and
  responsible at work
• role overload needs strategies to deal with the
  stress that is everywhere
• Stressorscircumstances or events that damage a
  persons physical or psychological well-being

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Ways of Coping with Stress

• A stress may be ignored or considered important
  enough to be viewed as a challenge, not a threat
• no damage to body from response to stress
• Psychologists have differentiated 2 major ways of
  coping with stress
• problem-focused copingattacking problem
• emotion-focused copingchanging feelings about
  the stress