IDSP 465/565: Issues in Gerontology

1. IDSP 465/565: Issues in Gerontology Controversy 3: Does Intellectual Functioning Decline with Age?

2. Does Intellectual Functioning Decline With Age? • The view that intelligence and creativity decline with age is widely shared • A common stereotype that older people take longer to learn new things is true, but it doesn’t usually affect everyday performance • Chronological age alone doesn’t explain much about learning ability • Lack of practice, differences in learning styles, and motivation explain much more • Many obstacles hinder scientific research on intellectual and creative functioning in late life • Especially finding a basic definition of creativity

3. Elements of Cognitive Function • Fluid Intelligence – intelligence applied to new tasks or the ability to come up with novel or creative solutions to unforeseen problems • Creativity has been linked to fluid intelligence • Crystallized intelligence – reflects accumulated past experience and the effects of socialization • Crystallized intelligence reflects gains made in practical, everyday life expertise – aka, wisdom

4. Elements of Cognitive Function (cont.) • In some societies around the world (particularly in the East),old age is viewed as an appropriate time for spiritual exploration and artistic development • This may be enhanced by the fact that the sources of creativity and productivity in later life are complex and result from many different factors • Many examples of creativity in later life focus on extraordinary older people • But ‘ordinary’ people also show increased abilities in new ways of thinking and acting with innovation and creativity

5. The Classic Aging Pattern • Creativity is difficult to define or measure • But social scientists have been researching and measuring intellectual for a long time • Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) – the best measure of global or general intelligence in use today; includes verbal and performance scales • Verbal scores tend to remain stable; performance scores tend to decline • Classic aging pattern – the persistent difference in scores on measures of verbal and performance intelligence

6. Measures of Late-Life Intelligence • The validity problem – the problem of measuring “real” intelligence • Has helped fuel the debate over whether any positive cognitive developments come with age • Everyday intelligence – aka, “common sense”; involves pragmatic or social judgment, which is more than abstract reasoning • Everyday problem solving – aka, expertise in life planning • Wisdom – an expert knowledge system derived from experience and capability of dealing with pragmatic problems

7. Studies of Age and Cognitive Function • Cross-sectional studies – look at groups of young and old people at a single point in time • Longitudinal studies – follow the same individuals over many years • Make more sense in this area because cross-sectional studies tend to overestimate the impact of chronological age • Have found the steepest average intellectual declines come after age 60

8. Studies of Age and Cognitive Function (cont.) • Young people taking IQ tests may do better than older people for several reasons: • Tend to be more familiar with test taking from recent experience in school and are have less test anxiety • Many older people have internal ageist beliefs that cognitive functioning declines, and that they won’t do well • Lack the levels of formal schooling that younger people have • Longitudinal studies have also found that few people show any “global” declines in intelligence as they age

9. Studies of Age and Cognitive Function (cont.) • Cognitive reserve capacity – the degree of unused potential for learning that exists at any given time • Aging is accompanied by a clear loss in cognitive reserve capacity • Although fluid intelligence declines with age, crystallized intelligence abilities increase • Decrement with compensation – declines in cognitive ability among older people can often be compensated for by the expertise acquired with aging

10. Correlates of Cognitive Stability • Difference between “realists” and “optimists” in the debate over the causes and meanings of the measured declines in IQ scores with age • Basic personality and temperament change little after the age of 30 • E.g., extroversion, conscientiousness, openness to experience, etc. – dispositions that predict how people will adapt to changing life circumstances • When intelligence is defined as “the ability to think and learn new things,” there is a lot of plasticity, or potential for growth even at advanced ages

11. Creativity in an Aging Population • Discussions of wisdom and aging should remind us how little we know about what is possible in old age • Studies of older people in previous decades may not be a good basis for judging what older people are capable of today or in the future • Art critic Ananda Coomaraswamy believes, “It is not that the artist is a special kind of person, but rather that each person is a special kind of artist.”