Chapter 13

• Sexual maturity arrives during adolescence; cognitive maturity generally takes longer.
• Psychological maturity may depend on such achievements as discovering one’s identity, becoming independent of parents, developing a system of values, and forming relationships.
• three criteria defi ne adulthood: (1) accepting responsibility for oneself, (2) making independent decisions, and (3) becoming fi nancially independent
• Emerging adulthood - Proposed transitional period between adolescence and adulthood commonly found in industrialized countries.
• Behavioral factors—what young adults eat, whether they get enough sleep, how physically active they are, and whether they smoke, drink, or use drugs— contribute greatly to health and well-being
• Social integration is active engagement in a broad range of social relationships, activities, and roles (spouse, parent, neighbor, friend, colleague, and the like)
• Social networks can infl uence emotional well-being as well as participation in healthful behaviors, such as exercising, eating nutritiously, and refraining from substance use
• Social support refers to material, informational, and psychological resources derived from the social network, on which a person can rely for help in coping with stress.
• Alcoholism - Chronic disease involving dependence on use of alcohol, causing interference with normal functioning and fulfillment of obligations.
• Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) - Disorder producing symptoms of physical discomfort and emotional tension for up to 2 weeks before a menstrual period.
• INFERTILITY - Inability to conceive a child after 12 months of sexual intercourse without the use of birth control.
• Reflective thinking - Type of logical thinking that becomes more prominent in adulthood, involving continuous, active evaluation of information and beliefs in the light of evidence and implications.
• Postformal thought - Mature type of thinking that relies on subjective experience and intuition as well as logic and allows room for ambiguity, uncertainty, inconsistency, contradiction, imperfection, and compromise.
• Acquisitive stage (childhood and adolescence). Children and adolescents acquire information and skills mainly for their own sake or as preparation for participation in society.
• Achieving stage (late teens or early 20s to early 30s). Young adults no longer acquire knowledge merely for its own sake; they use what they know to pursue goals, such as career and family.
• Responsible stage (late 30s to early 60s). Middle-aged people use their minds to solve practical problems associated with responsibilities to others, such as family members or employees.
• Executive stage (30s or 40s through middle age). People in the executive stage are responsible for societal systems (such as governmental or business organizations) or social movements. They deal with complex relationships on multiple levels
• Reorganizational stage (end of middle age, beginning of late adulthood). People who enter retirement reorganize their lives and intellectual energies around meaningful pursuits that take the place of paid work.
• Reintegrative stage (late adulthood). Older adults may be experiencing biological and cognitive changes and tend to be more selective about what tasks they expend effort on.
• Legacy-creating stage (advanced old age). Near the end of life, once reintegration has been completed (or along with it), older people may create instructions for the disposition of prized possessions, make funeral arrangements, provide oral histories, or write their life stories as a legacy for their loved ones.
• Tacit knowledge - Sternberg’s term for information that is not formally taught but is necessary to get ahead.
• Emotional intelligence (EI) - Peter Salovey and John Mayer’s term for the ability to understand and regulate emotions; an important component of effective, intelligent behavior.
• Level 1: Orientation of individual survival - woman concentrates on herself
• Transition 1: From selfishness to responsibility - realizes her connection to others and thinks about what the responsible choice would be in terms of other people
• Level 2: Goodness as self-sacrifice - conventional feminine wisdom dictates sacrificing the woman's wishes to what other people want- and will think of her.
• Transition 2: From goodness to truth - the woman assesses her decisions not on the basis of how others will react to them but on her intentions and the consequences of her actions
• Level 3: Morality of nonviolence - the woman establishes a "moral equality" between herself and others and is then able to assume the responsibility for choice in moral dilemmas
• Commitment within relativism - students make their own judgments; they decide for themselves, finally, what they want to believe
• Spillover hypothesis - Hypothesis that there is a carryover of cognitive gains from work to leisure that explains the positive relationship between activities in the quality of intellectual functioning.