CHAPTER 16

• Generativity versus stagnation


  Erikson's seventh stage of psychosocial development, in which the middle-aged adult develops a concern with establishing, guiding, and influencing the next generation or else experiences stagnation (a sense of inactivity or lifelessness).
• Generativity


  Erikson's term for concern of mature adults for finding meaning through contributing to society and leaving a legacy for future generations.
• The Big Five traits


  These are traits that are related to actual, physical differences in brain structures of adults.
• Medial orbitofrontal cortex


  It is an area of the brain involved in processing rewaeds.
• Neuroticism


  It is related to the volume of the brain areas associated with threat and punishment.
• Openness to experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism


  What are the Big Five traits?
• Conscientiousness


  It is being deliberate, organized, and disciplined. It tends to be highest in middle age.
• Agreeableness


  It is being straightforward, altruistic, and modest - and decrease in activity.
• Care


  What virtue is gained in the generativity versus stagnation stage?
• Midlife crisis


  In some normative-crisis models, stressful life period precipitated by the review and reevaluation of one's past, typically occurring in the early to middle forties.
• Turning point


  Psychological transitions that involve significant change or transformation in the perceived meaning, purpose, or direction of a person's life.
• Midlife review


  Introspective examination that often occurs in middle age, leading to reappraisal and revision of values and priorities.
• Ego-resiliency


  The ability to adapt flexibly and resourcefully to potential sources of stress.
• Developmental deadlines


  Time constraints on one's ability to accomplish certain things, such as the ability to have a child or to make up with an estranged friend or family member.
• Identity process theory (IPT)


  Whitbourne's theory of identity development based on processes of assimilation and accommodation.
• Identity schemas


  Accumulated perceptions of the self shaped by incoming information from intimate relationships, work-related situations, and community and other experiences.
• Assimilation and Accomodation


  What are the two processes that Piaget described that have been applied toward understanding identity development?
• Identity assimilation


  Whitbourne's term for effort to fit new experience into an existing self-concept.
• Identity accomodation


  Whitbourne's term for adjusting the self concept to fit new experience.
• Identity balance


  Whitbourne's term for a tendency to balance assimilation and accommodation.
• Assimilation


  It is the interpretation of new information via existing cognitive structures.
• Accomodation


  It involves changing cognitive structures to more closely align with what us encountered.
• Narrative psychology


  It views the development of the self as a continuous process of constructing one's life story - a dramatic narrative to help make sense of one's life and connect the past and present with the future.
• Generativity scripts


  These are constructed by highly generative adults and often feature a theme of redemption, or deliverance from suffering and are associated with psychological well-being.
• What was the name of the model that Carol Ryff and her colleagues developed that included six dimensions of well-being?

  Ryff Well-Being Inventory
• What are the six dimensions of well-being that was included in the Ryff Well-Being Inventory model?

  (1) Self-acceptance

  (2) Positive relations with others

  (3) Autonomy

  (4) Environmental mastery

  (5) Purpose in life

  (6) Personal Growth
• Ethnic conservatism


  It is an inclination to resist assimilation and cling to familiar values and practices that give meaning to life.
• Social Convoy theory


  Theory, proposed by Kahn and Antonucci, that people move through life surrounded by concentric circles of intimate relationships on which they rely for assistance, well-being, and social support.
• Social convoys


  Circles of close friends and family members of varying degrees of closeness, on whom they can rely for assistance, well-being, and social support.
• Socioemotional selectivity theory


  Theory, proposed by Carstensen, that people select social contacts on the basis of the changing relative importance of social interaction as a source of information, as an aid in developing and maintaining a self concept, and as a source of emotional well-being.
• According to Carstensen, social interaction has three main goals which are?

  (1) It is the source of information;

  (2) It helps people develop and maintain a sense of self;

  (3) It is a source of emotional well-being
• Marital capital


  Financial and emotional benefits built up during a long-standing marriage, which tend to hold a couple together.
• Empty nest


  Transitional phase of parenting following the last child's leaving the parents' home.
• Revolving door syndrome


  Also sometimes called as the "boomerang phenomenon." It is the tendency for young adults who have left home to return to their parents' household in times of financial, marital, or other trouble.
• Fillial crisis


  In Marcoen's terminology, normative development of middle age, in which adults learn to balance love and duty to their parents with autonomy within a two-way relationship.
• Sandwich generation


  Middle-aged adults squeezed by competing needs to raise or launch children and to care for elderly parents.
• Caregiver burnout


  Condition of physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion affecting adults who provide continuous care for sick or aged persons.
• Respite care


  Substitute supervised care by visiting nurses or home health aides while caregivers work or attend to personal needs.
• Kinship care


  Care of children living without parents in the home of grandparents or other relatives, with or without a change of legal custody.