LEARNING OBJECTIVES • What are the main points in Piaget’s theory of cognitive development? • What evidence is there for continued cognitive development beyond formal operations? • What is the role of both emotion and cognition in cognitive maturity? E ddie, a student at a local university, thought the test he had just taken in […]

As you have seen, older adults do not perform as well on tests of some primary abilities as younger adults, even after taking the moderators of perfor­mance into account (Schaie, 1995). In considering these results, investigators began asking whether there was a way to slow down or even reverse the declines. As we saw earlier, […]

Problems in Detecting Lifestyle Effectson Intellectual Functioning In an interesting debate in the literature, researchers from two major longitudinal studies on intellectual change in older adulthood (the Victoria Longitudinal Study and Canadian War Veterans Study) found conflicting results regarding the effects of an active lifestyle on intellectual functioning. On the one hand, Pushkar, Etezadi, Andres, […]

Based on the research we have considered thus far, two different developmental trends emerge: We see gains in experience-based processes but losses in information-processing abilities. The continued growth in some areas is viewed as a product of lifelong learning. The losses are viewed as an inevitable result of the decline of physiological processes with age. […]

Because so many primary mental abilities have been identified, some researchers think it may be easier to understand intellectual development by looking at interrelationships among them. Careful consideration of the relationships among the primary mental abilities has resulted in the identification of secondary mental abilities, which are broad­ranging skills, each composed of several primary abilities […]

One of the most important research projects on adult intellectual development is the longitudinal study being conducted by K. Warner Schaie and his col­leagues in Seattle, Washington, which began in 1956 as Schaie’s dissertation (Schaie, 1996, 2005). This study has not only uncovered most of what we know about how primary mental abilities change across […]

Because the psychometric approach focuses on the interrelationships among intellectual abilities, the major goal is to describe the ways in which these relationships are organized (Sternberg, 1985). This organization of interrelated intellectual abilities is termed the structure of intelligence. The most com­mon way to describe the structure of intelligence is to picture it as a […]

One thing is clear about the ways people view intelligence—everyone considers it a complex con­struct. In the big picture, then, intelligence consistsof many different types of skills. Theories of intel­ligence, therefore, are multidimensional; that is, they specify many domains of intellectual abilities. Although people disagree on the number of dimen­sions, they do agree that no […]

LEARNING OBJECTIVES • How do people define intelligence in everyday life? • What are the major components of the life-span approach? • What are the major research approaches for studying intelligence? A fter Toni graduated from high school she decided to start her own pet-sitting business. She started small, but ultimately cornered the market in […]

7.1 DEFINING INTELLIGENCE Intelligence in Everyday Life • The Big Picture: A Life-Span View • Research Approaches to Intelligence • Discovering Development: How Do People Show Intelligence? 7.2 DEVELOPMENTAL TRENDS IN PSYCHOMETRIC INTELLIGENCE The Measurement of Intelligence • Age-Related Changes in Primary Abilities • Secondary Mental Abilities • Moderators of Intellectual Change • Current Controversies: […]