Developmental Timeline
Motor Skills
- Middle aged adults experience a decline in physical skills without practice
- rely less on learned sequences
- rely more on making associations
- Depressive symptoms compromise mobility/ADLs
- Regardless of health, fine motor skills decrease with age
References for Images
Image 1: http://www.clipartbest.com/cartoon-bone
Image 2: http://cliparts.co/cartoon-brown-eyes
Image 3: http://www.clker.com/clipart-134426.html
Image 4: http://www.clipartbest.com/clipart-7cao5zbki
Image 5: http://cliparts.co/clipart/2302518
Image 6: http://moziru.com/images/men-clipart-walking-dog-8.png
Image 7: http://www.clipartbest.com/search?q=cartoon+sleep
Covinsky et al., 2010; Verwey, Abrahamase, Ruitenberg, Jiménez, & Kleine, 2011; Vieluf, Mahmoodi, Godde, Reuter, & Voelcker-Rehage, 2012
References Cont'd
References
Pearson, Q. M. (2017). Sleep and aging: Challenges and recommendations for middle
aged and older adults. Adultspan Journal, 16(1), 31-46. doi:10.1002/adsp.12032
Riediger, M., Voelkle, M. C., Schaefer, S., & Lindenberger, U. (2014). Charting the life
course: Age differences and validity of beliefs about lifespan development.
Psychology And Aging, 29(3), 03-520. doi:10.1037/a0036228
Reis, J. P., Loria, C. M., Launer, L. J., Sidney, S., Liu, K., Jacobs, D. R., … Yaffe, K. (2013).
Cardiovascular health through young adulthood and cognitive functioning in midlife.
Annals of Neurology, 73(2), 170–179. doi: 10.1002/ana.23836
Riediger, M., Voelkle, M. C., Schaefer, S., & Lindenberger, U. (2014). Charting the life
course: Age differences and validity of beliefs about lifespan development.
Psychology And Aging, 29(3), 503-520. doi:10.1037/a0036228
Verwey, W.B., Abrahamse, E.L., Ruitenberg, M., Jiménez L, Kleine, E. (2011). Motor skill
learning in middle-aged: Limited development of motor chunks and explicit
sequence knowledge. Psychological Research, 75, 406-422.
doi: 10.1007/s00426-011-0320-0
Vieluf, S., Mahmoodi, J., Godde, B., Reuter, E., & Voelcker-Rehage, C. (2012). The influence
of age and work-related expertise on fine motor control. GeroPsych, 25(4), 199-206.
doi: 10.1024/1662-9647/a000071
Zimmermann, P., & Iwanski, A. (2014). Emotion regulation from early adolescence to
emerging adulthood and middle adulthood: Age differences, gender differences, and
emotion-specific developmental variations. International Journal of Behavioral
Development, 38(2), 182-194. doi: 10.1177/0165025413515405
Fine/Gross Motor Skills
Feldman, R. S. (2014). Social and personality development in middle adulthood. In J. Mosher (Ed.).
Development Across the Life Span (Seventh ed., pp. 507-533). Boston, Massachusetts: Pearson.
Freund, A. M., Knecht, M., & Wiese,, B. S. (2016). Going beyond work and family: A
longitudinal study on the role of leisure in the work-life interplay going beyond work
and family. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 37(7), 1061-077. doi: 10.1002/
job.2098
Hicks, S., & Siedlecki, K. (2016). Leisure activity engagement and positive affect partially
mediate the relationship between positive views on aging and physical health.
Journals of Gerontology.Series B, Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 72(2),
259-267. doi:10.1093/geronb/gbw049
Hutteman, R., Hennecke, M., Orth, U., Reitz, A. K., & Specht, J. (2014). Developmental
tasks as a framework to study personality development in adulthood and old age.
European Journal of Personality, 28(3), 267-278. doi:10.1002/per.1959
Lukacs, A., & Kemeny, F. (2015). Development of different forms of skill learning
throughout the lifespan. Cognitive Science, 39, 383-404. doi: 10.1111/cogs.12143
McKay, M., Baldwin, J., Ferreira, P., Simic, M., Vanicek, N., & Burns, J. (2017). Reference
values for developing responsive functional outcome measures across the lifespan.
Neurology, 88, 1512-1519.
- Aging adults exhibit less efficient force control (demonstrated by grip force)
- practice, like work related experience, counteracts this decline
Functional Mobility
- Women: superior fine motor skills
- Men: superior gross motor skills
- Functional ability dependent on lower limb muscle strength and joint flexibility
- Bones become less dense in mid-adulthood
- Joint stiffness/difficulty moving with progressive bone loss
- Functional performance plateaus in middle adulthood
McKay et al., 2017
McKay et al., 2017; Berger, 2016, p. 430
Image 1
Cognitive Skills
Allemand, M., Schaffhuser, K., & Martin, M. (2015a). Long-term correlated change between
personality traits and perceived social support in middle adulthood. Personality And Social
Psychology Bulletin, 41(3), 420-432. doi:10.1177/0146167215569492
Allemand, M., Schaffhuser, K., & Martin, M. (2015b). Long-term correlated change between personality traits
and perceived social support in middle adulthood. Personality And Social Psychology Bulletin, 41(3),
420-432. doi:10.1177/0146167215569492
Berger, K. S. (2016). Adulthood: Body and mind. In A. M. Page (Ed.), Invitation to the life span (3rd ed., pp.
428-461). New York, NY: Worth Publishers.
Campbell, J. I. D., & Charness, N. (1990). Age-related declines in working-memory skills: Evidence from a
complex calculation task. Developmental Psychology, 26(6), 879-888.
Covinsky, K. E., Yaffe, K., Lindquist, K., Cherkasova, E., Yelin, E. and Blazer, D. G. (2010).
Depressive symptoms in middle age and the development of later-life functional limitations:
The long-term effect of depressive symptoms. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 58:
551-556. doi:10.1111/j.1532-5415.2010.02723
- Cognitive abilities gradually decline, starting around age 50
- Affected by physical health, including any vision or hearing decline
- Working memory slows
Campell & Charness, 1990; Reis et al., 2013; Riediger, Voelkle, Schaefer, & Lindenberger, 2014; Verwey, Abrahamase, Ruitenberg, Jiménez, & Kleine, 2011
Physical Health
Affects Cognition
Skill Learning & Memory
Image 2
- Vision:
- Not able to see as well at night
- Many are farsighted and have difficulty reading up-close starting at age 45
- Hearing:
- Men are more prone to hearing loss than women
- May experience declines in ability to detect the location of a sound
- Obesity, poor diet, lack of physical activity --> decline in cognitive function
- Overall, affects comprehension and problem-solving abilities
Image 3
- In middle adulthood we see a plateau in skill learning:
- Compared to young adults, middle-aged adults perform similarly in avoiding calculation errors, yet they work slower
- Crystallized knowledge (knowledge acquired through socialization) is maintained and slowly declines
- In comparison to young adults, middle-aged adults struggle more with working-memory tasks
Reis et al., 2013
Personality
Middle Adulthood
Campbell & Charness, 1990; Lukacs & Kemeny, 2015;
Riediger, Voelkle, Schaefer, & Lindenberger, 2014
Ages 40-65
Developmental Timeline:
Ages 40-65
- The "Big 5 Personality Test" tends to show stability in personality from early adulthood (age 20) through mid-adulthood (age 60)
- Introverted tend to remain introverted
- Extroverted tend to remain extroverted
- Neuroticism declines
- Agreeableness and conscientiousness increase with age
By:
Kimberly Fitzgerald,
Faith Hardison, Lara Hulcher, and Cecelia Rabil
- Those that have had a divorce show a decrease in extraversion, positive affect, dependability and orderliness, and an increase in neuroticism
Allemand., Hill, & Lehmann, 2015a; Allemand, Schaffhuser, & Martin, 2015b; Kokko, Tolvanen, & Pulkkinen, 2013
Communication
- A time of expanding responsibility and social involvement:
- Caring for aging parents
- Raising children and grandchildren
- Refining emotion regulation
Sleep
Berger, 2016; Zimmermann & Iwanski, 2014
Caring for Aging Parents
Emotion Regulation Changes
- Sleep time decreases with age
- Middle aged-adults:
- Take longer to fall asleep
- Sleep less deeply
- Wake up more frequently
- Menopause negatively impacts sleep for women
- Overall, it is unclear if they need less sleep or if they are unable to get as much sleep
Image 4
- Increased emotion regulation in response to negative emotions
- show passivity when sad
- avoid expressing anger
- Less likely to seek social support when sad, fearful, or angry
- Aging parents tend to live near middle-aged children and require more care
- Factors influencing the effect of this responsibility on well-being:
- whether they work full-time (increased stress)
- whether they have siblings to help care for aging parents
Children/Grandchildren
Zimmermann & Iwanski, 2014
Berger, 2016, p. 487-488
- Children may still be financially dependent
- Middle-aged parents helping children transition to full independence
- Having grandchildren is viewed as a positive life experience
- increased time spent in recreation with grandchildren
- may also assist in caretaking
Pearson, 2017
Berger, 2016, p. 485
Social
Leisure
Image 7
Erikson's Generativity vs. Stagnation
- Generative adults encourage and guide future generations (parenting or mentoring)
- Stagnant adults focus on their own world, feeling they have left little impact on the world around them
Image 5
- Middle Adulthood often referred to as "Rush Hour" due to the many work/life demands
- Work can influence how people spend their leisure time
- May be too tired to engage in leisure
- May use leisure to de-stress from work
- Leisure may depend on financial status
- As children leave the home, can be a renewed opportunity for leisure activities
- Older adults typically report a higher number of positive social experiences, less social conflicts, and increased levels of satisfaction with social relationships
Feldman, 2014; Riediger, Voelkle, Schaefer, & Lindenberger, 2014
Feldman, 2014; Freund, Knecht, & Wiese, 2016
Role Demands
- Work related demands:
- unemployment, underemployment, workaholism, and burnout
- Family demands:
- Sandwich generation (i.e. stuck caring for aging parents and one's own children)
- Empty Nest Syndrome
- Boomerang Children= adult children returning home to live
- Adapting to blended families:
- 1 in 4 divorces were by people over 50
Social Interactions
Types and Time for Leisure
- Leisure helps define adults outside of their careers
- Middle aged adults watch approximately 15 hours of television per week
- Leisure most often occurs on weekends
- Leisure aids in a positive view on aging, which can have positive health outcomes
- Focus is on maintenance and mastery of established roles
- Social skills gained from work: task completion and social conflict resolution
- Socioemotional Selectivity Theory suggests a decrease in friend network-size and greater emphasis on stronger relationships
Feldman, 2014
Image 6
Feldman, 2014; Hicks & Siedlecki, 2016