Researchers typically begin by deciding how to mea­sure the topic of interest. For example, the first step toward resolving Leah and Sarah’s discussion about remembering grocery items would be to decide how to measure remembering. Gerontologists usually use one of three approaches: observing system­atically, using tasks to sample behavior, and ask­ing people for self-reports. In […]

LEARNING OBJECTIVES • What approaches do scientists use to measure behavior in adult development and aging research? • What are the general designs for doing research? • What specific designs are unique to adult development and aging research? • What ethical procedures must researchers follow? L eah and Sarah are both 75 years old and […]

Does Personality in Young AdulthoodDetermine Personality in Old Age? Lest you think the controversies underlying adult development and aging do not reflect ongoing debate, consider the case of personality in adulthood. Perhaps no other topic in gerontology has resulted in such heated debates as whether people’s basic personality remains the same throughout adulthood or undergoes […]

Is it your genes or experiences that determine how intelligent you are? If a young adult woman is outgoing, does this mean she will be outgoing in late life? If people change, is it more gradual or sporadic? Is aging the same around the world? These and similar questions have occupied some of the greatest […]

When you are asked the question “How old are you?” what crosses your mind? Is it the number of years since the day of your birth? Is it how old you feel at that time? Is it defined more in terms of where you are biologically, psychologically, or socially than in terms of calendar time? […]

Culture and ethnicity jointly provide status, social settings, living conditions, and personal experi­ences for people of all ages, and they influence and are influenced by biological, psychological, and life-cycle developmental forces. Culture can be defined as shared basic value orientations, norms, beliefs, and customary habits and ways of living. Culture provides the basic worldview of […]

All the forces we have discussed combine to cre­ate people’s developmental experiences. One way to consider these combinations is to consider the degree to which they are common or unique to people of specific ages. An important concept in this approach is cohort. A cohort is a group of people born at the same point […]

Gray hair, remembering, activity levels—Why do adults differ so much on these and other things? This question requires us to understand the basic forces that shape us. Developmentalists typically consider four interactive forces (shown in Figure 1.8): • Biological forces include all genetic and health — related factors that affect development. Examples of biological forces […]

LEARNING OBJECTIVES • What four main forces shape development? • What are normative age-graded influences, normative history-graded influences, and nonnormative influences? • How do culture and ethnicity influence aging? • What is the meaning of age? • What are the nature-nurture, stability-change, continuity-discontinuity, and the "universal versus context-specific development" controversies? L evar Johnson smiled broadly […]

Take a look around at the people you see in your everyday life in your hometown. There have never been as many older adults as there are now, espe­cially people over age 85. Why? Most important, health care improved during the 20th century, and many fewer women died during childbirth. Let’s take a closer look. […]