EARLY ADULTHOOD: Physical and cognitive development

1. Chapter 13 EARLY ADULTHOOD: Physical and cognitive development

2. Developmental Perspectives

3. Developmental Perspectives • Demographic Aspects of Adulthood • Baby Boomers: 79 million Americans • Generation X or Twentysomethings • Different experiences • Conceptions of Age Periods • Thirties: Best decade • “Only as old as you feel”

4. Age Norms and the Social Clock • Aging: biological and social change across the life span. • Biological aging: the changes in the structure and functioning of the human organism over time.

5. Social aging • Changes in an individual’s assumption and relinquishment of roles over time • Transition points: relinquishing familiar roles and assuming new ones.

6. Social norms • Standards of behavior that members of a group share and to which they are expected to conform • Age norms: Social norms that define what is appropriate for people to be and to do at various ages.

7. Age grading • The arranging of people in social layers that are based on periods in the life cycle • Social Clock: Internalized concepts that regulate our progression through the adult years.

8. Age-Grade Systems • Flexible system in the U.S. • Life Events • Turning points at which individuals change direction in the course of their lives

9. Periods in Adult Development • Developmental continuity or discontinuity approaches

10. Physical Changes and Health

11. Physical Performance • Different peaks for different activities • Shifts in vision

12. Physical Health • 87% of Americans report their health as excellent. • Dieting, Exercise, and Obesity • Physical Activity and Health Across Cultures

13. HIV and AIDS • Reported Changes in Adult Sexual Behavior over the Past Decade • 30% of those surveyed reported increase in protection against AIDS. • Practicing Safe Sex • Many people still misinformed.

14. Socioeconomic Status, Ethnicity, and Gender • Higher death rate for poor • Women have longer life expectancy than men • Women more likely than men to experience depression

15. Changes in Drug and Alcohol Use Over Time • College students and singles more likely to use drugs

16. Mental Health • 52 million adults in U.S. suffer from a mental disorder. • 18 million suffer from depression. • Alcoholism • Stress: 6 in 10 feel great stress once a week.

17. Gender Differences in Stress • Married women admit to feeling more stress than men. • Gender-role perspective for women: roles of nurturers and caretakers more stress in contrast to male roles. • Stress Reported by Nontraditional versus Traditional College Students • More stress for nontraditional students.

18. Stages of Stress Reaction 1. Alarm reaction 2. Stage of resistance 3. Stage of exhaustion • Perception of situation, social support cushions stress.

20. Suicide in Young Adulthood • Rates of young black males committing suicide have risen since the late 1980s.

21. Sexuality • Heterosexuality • By age 22, 90% of young adults have engaged in sex with multiple partners. • Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Attitudes and Behaviors • Rigid gender roles have given way to acceptance; more similarities than differences in human relationships.

22. Cognitive Development

23. Post-Formal Operations • Piaget • Knowledge is not absolute but relativistic • Accept the contradictions in life and the existence of mutually incompatible systems of knowledge • Must find some encompassing whole by which to organize their experience

25. Thought and Information Processing • The step-by-step mental operations that we use in tackling intellectual tasks. • Cognitive Development in College Students

26. Knefelkamp • Developmental Instruction Model • Structure • Diversity • Experiential learning • Personalism

27. Moral Reasoning

28. Moral Reasoning • Different approach for men and women • Gilligan: Men and women have different moral domains. • Men: right and rules; “ethic of justice” • Women: an obligation to exercise care and avoid hurt; “ethic of care”