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Human Development Across the Lifespan Cover Image
Human Development Across the Lifespan, 5/e
John S. Dacey, Boston College
John F. Travers, Boston College
Middle Adulthood
Physical and Cognitive Development in Middle Adulthood

Outline

  1. Physical development
    1. Health
      1. Weight and metabolism
        1. The decline of basal metabolism rate through the life cycle
      2. Cardiovascular health
      3. Effects of alcohol
    2. Muscular ability
    3. Sensory abilities
      1. Vision
        1. Ability to adapt to sudden intense light or darkness is less effective
        2. Ability to focus on nearby objects decreases
        3. Ability to detect certain colors can be affected
      2. Hearing
        1. Susceptible to decline at about age 40
        2. Ability to detect certain tones decreases
        3. Ability to understand human speech appears to decrease
        4. The most stigmatized loss of the five senses
      3. Smell
        1. Ability to smell declines slowly around age 50 and rapidly after 70
      4. Taste
        1. Ability to taste begins to decline around age 50
        2. May experience a decline in the ability to detect weak tastes but retain ability to discriminate among foods with a strong taste
    4. The climacteric
      1. Menopause and male change of life
      2. Climacterium
      3. Women react differently to menopause
      4. Hormone replacement therapy
      5. Men experience a decrease in sexual potency
  2. Cognitive development
    1. Intelligence
      1. Horn's theory: yes and no
        1. Fluid intelligence declines, but crystallized intelligence does not
        2. Some individuals decline, whereas others do not
        3. Although declines do eventually occur, it happens only late in life
    2. New views of intelligence
      1. Different definitions of intelligence
      2. Different types of memory
      3. Dual-process model of intelligence
    3. Memory
      1. Controlled by flow of proteins
      2. Memory in middle adulthood
    4. The development of creativity
      1. Traits of the highly creative adult
      2. Psychohistorical studies of creative achievement
        1. Lehman's study of ages in creative productivity
        2. Dennis's criticism
        3. Simonton's attempt to resolve differences between the Lehman and Dennis research
    5. Learning ability
      1. Speed of response
      2. Motivation to learn
      3. Omission error
      4. Meaningfulness of the task
      5. Motivation and new learning experiences
  3. Patterns of work
    1. Concerns of middle-aged employees
      1. Awareness of advancing age
      2. Awareness of body changes
      3. Attainment of career goals
      4. Search for new life goals
      5. Change in family relationships
      6. Change in work relationships
      7. Outdated skills and abilities
      8. Decreased job mobility
    2. Special problems of the working woman
      1. Sexual harassment on the job
      2. Equal pay and promotion criteria
      3. Career and/or family
      4. Travel safety
    3. The midcareer crisis
      1. Coming to terms with attainable career goals
      2. The change in work relationships
      3. A growing sense of outdatedness
      4. Inability to change jobs
      5. The generativity crisis
    4. Some suggestions for dealing with the midcareer crisis
      1. Middle-aged worker can help younger employees make significant contributions
      2. Companies can foster continuing education of their employees
      3. Develop more equitable patterns of responsibilities in the home among dual-career middle-aged couples
      4. Continue the type of job transfer programs for middle-aged people that we now have for newer employees
      5. Federal government should consider starting midcareer clinics








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