Final PAA

• Stability refers to the constant set of attributes that makes individuals who they are, such as someone's love for crime stories or psychological thrillers which may remain consistent from their 20s to their 40s.
• Change represents what happens to individuals over time that makes them different from their younger (and older) selves, for example, becoming more outgoing and sociable is a common pattern of personality development in adults.
• Patterns of development include continuous (slow and gradual), stages (with abrupt changes), typical (experienced by most adults), and atypical (unique to the individual).
• The two types of changes individuals could experience in their lives are inner changes (e.g., relationships, values, self-awareness) and outer changes (e.g., physical appearance, fitness, family life).
• Sources of change include normative age-graded influences, normative history-graded influences, and nonnormative life events.
• Normative age-graded influences are changes that happen to most adults as they grow older, examples include biological changes (gray hair), shared experiences (marriage, having children), and internal change processes (becoming more assertive).
• The social clock is an imaginary timeline defining the normal sequence of adult life experiences, influencing the timing of shared developmental changes.
• Ageism is discrimination based on age.
• Normative history-graded influences are changes affecting most adults in a generation due to historical events, cohorts experience unique patterns influenced by culture and cohort-specific events.
• Culture is the large social environment, impacting adult development and societal expectations.
• Cohort refers to a group sharing a common historical experience at the same stage of life.
• Nonnormative life events are unique events not shared with many others and may be nonnormative for anyone at any age timing (inheriting a large amount of money), or because of the timing (a spouse die in early adulthood, starting your own business at 65).
• Sources of stability include genetics, environmental influences, and epigenetic inheritance.
• Genetics contribute to stability through unique inherited genes influencing behaviors such as intelligence, physical characteristics, personality traits, and mental health
• Twin studies compare identical (monozygotic) and fraternal (dizygotic) twins to determine if certain behaviors are influenced by genes. The more similarity in identical twins suggests a genetic influence
• Environmental influences contribute to stability as environment has long-term effects, and studies show that early childhood environments can predict successful aging
• Vaillant’s research on environmental influences followed a group of 268 men since they were college students and found that individuals who grew up in warm, trusting homes are more likely to have happy and healthy lives. Also, adult development is a nonlinear process, quality of relationships play a crucial role in determining a person’s well-being later in life, and people can change and grow throughout their lives.
• The interactionist view suggests that genetic traits determine how one interacts with the environment and even shape the environment itself
• Epigenetic inheritance involves turning genes on and off without changing the DNA sequence. It modifies genes based on environmental events during the prenatal period and throughout life
• DNA methylation is a common epigenetic change where methyl groups are added to DNA, turning off genes. It can be influenced by factors like diet, stress, and exposure to toxins