Chapter 15 & 16 - Middle Adulthood Flashcards
(27 cards)
Generativity versus stagnation
Generativity involves reaching out to others in ways that give to and guide the next generation.
Midlife Crisis
substantial inner turmoil during the transition to middle adulthood. Self-doubt and stress may prompt major restructuring of the personality.
Possible Selves
Future-oriented representations of what one hopes to become and what one is afraid of becoming. Possible selves are the temporal dimension of self-concept -what the individual is striving for and attempting to avoid.
“Big Five” Personality Traits
Neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness
Neuroticism
Individuals who are prone to worrying, temperamental, self-pitying, self-conscious, emotional, and vulnerable.
Extroversion
People who are affectionate, talkative, active, fun-loving, and passionate.
Openness to experience
People who are imaginative, creative, original curious, and liberal.
Agreeableness
Individuals are soft-hearted, trusting, generous, acquiescent, lenient, and good-natured.
Conscientiousness
People are hard-working, well-organized, punctual, ambitious, and preserving.
Feminization of Poverty
A trend in which women who support themselves or their families have become the majority of the adult population living in poverty, regardless of age and ethnic group.
Kinkeeper
Members of the middle generation, usually take. on the role of gathering the family for celebrations and making sure everyone stays in touch.
Skipped Generation Families
Grandparents live and rear grandchildren but apart from children’s parents.
Sandwich Generation
Widely used to refer to the idea that middle-aged adults must care for multiple generations above and below them at the same time.
Burnout
A condition in which long-term job stress leads to mental exhaustion, a sense of loss of personal control, and feelings of reduced accomplishment.
Glass ceiling
Or an invisible barrier to advancement up the corporate ladder.
Presbyopia
Around age 60, the lens loses its capacity to adjust to objects at varying distances entirely - “old eyes.”
Glaucoma
A disease in which poor fluid drainage leads to a buildup of pressure within the eye, damaging the optic nerve.
Presbycusis
Hearing loss resulting from adult-onset hearing impairments.
Climacteric
The midlife transition in which fertility declines
Menopause
Apart of the climacteric phase including the end of menstruation and reproductive capacity; occurs on average in the early fifties among North Americans. Women who smoke or who have not borne children tend to reach menopause earlier.
Osteoporosis
When age-related bone loss is severe during ages 50 and older; most of whom are women.
Type A Behavior Pattern
Extreme competitiveness, ambition, impatience, hostility, angry outbursts, and sense of eagerness, hurriedness, and time pressure; a study found that Type As are more than twice as likely to developed heart disease.
Hardiness
A set of three personality qualities - control, commitment, and change that enable people to try their best to turn life’s challenges into opportunities for resilience.
Crystallized intelligence
Refers to skills that depend on accumulated knowledge and experience, good judgment, and mastery of social conventions – abilities acquired because they are valued by the individual’s culture.
