Final Exam- Chapter 11

Question 1

Marker events for adulthood

Answer 1

Achievement and timing

• Completion of formal education
• Entering the adult workforce
• Leaving the family home
• Getting married
• Becoming a parent
• Many achieve these between age 18-24

Question 2

Take longer today to “grow up” than in earlier points in history; why?

Answer 2

1. Demand for highly educated work force & increased costs of education
2. Difficulties in earning a good income & achieve stable employment
3. Frequency of early, non-marital sexual activity & availability of contraception

Question 3

Arnett conceptualized adulthood

Answer 3

• The way the individual conceptualizes themselves
• Arnett found that the most important markers included accepting responsibility for the consequences of one’s actions & making independent decisions (rather than role transitions); & becoming financially independent

Question 4

Emerging adulthood

Answer 4

1. Increasing independence & autonomy
2. Influenced by the nature of economic development in our society
3. if many occupations require extended years of education, the work is postponed & marriage/partnerships & childrearing are likely to be delayed
4. Self-exploration & Self development
5. increased years of education & expanded economic opportunities
6. Importance of connection (to family) becomes clearer as children move out of adolescence
   delaying and avoiding responsibilities of adulthood

Question 5

Hendry & Kloep (2007)- Emerging adulthood

Answer 5

Concern that young people are inadequately prepared for adulthood & modern parents are overindulgent & push the wrong values (achievement vs. real life experience)

Question 6

Reaching Peak Physical Status

Answer 6

The relative importance of practice, training, knowledge, experience, & biological capacity varies from one skill to another

1. Skills that are based on muscle strength, flexibility, & speed of movement & response tend to peak early
2. Abilities that are heavily dependent on control, arm-hand steadiness, precision, & stamina tend to peak later
3. The greater the importance of cognitive factors in performance (e.g. strategy knowledge & use), the later the skill will top out.

Question 7

Maintaining Physical Status

Answer 7

Exercise, nutrition, avoidance of alcohol & cigarettes

Question 8

Young adults struggle with heeding the advice of living a healthy lifestyle

Answer 8

1. Heavy alcohol use
2. Poor diets, sleep habits, & exercise
3. Poor habits are likely a consequence of multiple factors: poor application of problem-solving skills to practical problems, a continuing sense of invulnerability, stresses of leaving home & facing social & academic demands

Question 9

Changing Brain in Young Adulthood

Answer 9

1. Resurgent growth of synapses occurs around puberty in some areas of the brain, followed by a long period of pruning, which continues into the early adult years. It may mean an expanded capacity for cognitive advancement.
2. Possible accelerated maturing of electrical activity in frontal cortex could mean early adulthood important for advanced development of frontal lobe functions, such as…
   - The ability to organize & reorganize attention,
   - To plan
   - To exercise control over one’s behavior and emotions.
3. Timing of college education may be ideally suited to possible heightened flexibility and plasticity of the frontal cortex in young adulthood.

Question 10

Piaget: Formal Operational Thinking

Answer 10

• Allows us to think logically about abstract concepts

- Discover interrelationships

Question 11

5th stage proposed: Postformal

Answer 11

1. Theories from Perry & Kitchner & others
2. Evolve as people begin to recognize that logical solutions to problems can come out differently depending on the perspectiveof the problem solver
3. Postformal thinkers can both understand the logic of contradictory perspectives & integrate them into a larger whole.

Question 12

Constructivist in Postformal Thought

Answer 12

Assumption that what one knows & understands about the world is partly a function of the way one’s thought is, or can be structured.
-One’s thinking can be gradually shaped and restructured as the individual confronts & accommodates his or her thinking

Question 13

Some theorists disagree with a 5th stage

Answer 13

• Thinking is still “Formal” but that the types of problems one encounters with age lead to more complex thinking
• Part of what people may learn as they confront adult problems & responsibilities is the limits of their own problem-solving abilities

Question 14

Schaie’s View of Adults Adjusting to Environmental Pressures- Acquisition stage

Answer 14

Able to learn a skill or a body of knowledge regardless of whether it has any practical goal or social implication (childhood & adolescence)

• Monitored by parents
• Child has the luxury of learning for learning’s sake; problems confronted are those with pre-established answers

Question 15

Schaie’s View of Adults Adjusting to Environmental Pressures- Achieving stage

Answer 15

Must apply intellectual skills to the achievement of long-term goals (young adulthood)

• Individual faced with making own decisions
• Answers may be less clear (ill-defined or ill-structured problems too)
• Schaie suggests that previously acquired skills are being sharpened & honed on a variety of problems; the answers to which affect multiple areas of life

Question 16

Schaie’s View of Adults Adjusting to Environmental Pressures- Responsible stage

Answer 16

Problem solving must take into account not only one’s own personal needs and goals but also those of others in one’s life who have become one’s responsibility (middle adulthood)

• Ill-define problems are still the norm, but answers must involve balancing one’s own needs & the needs of others
• Executive stage: one focuses heavily on learning about complex relationships, multiple perspectives, commitment, & conflict resolution

Question 17

Schaie’s View of Adults Adjusting to Environmental Pressures- Reorganization stage

Answer 17

Flexibility in problem solving is needed to create a satisfying, meaningful environment for the rest of life; -focus tends to narrow again to a changed set of personal goals and needs (e.g. retirement) (early old age)

Question 18

Schaie’s View of Adults Adjusting to Environmental Pressures- Reintegrative stage

Answer 18

cognitive efforts are aimed more and more at solving immediate, practical problems; motivated to conserve physical & psychological energy (old age)

Question 19

Schaie’s View of Adults Adjusting to Environmental Pressures- Legacy-leaving stage

Answer 19

work on establishing a written or oral account of their lives or of the history of their families to pass on to others – substantial use of long-term memory and narrative skill, decision making or use of judgment (oldest age)

Question 20

Sinnott (1984, 1998) on Postformal Thought/Fifth-stage thinking

Answer 20

1. The essence of postformal thought is that it is relativistic
   - The individual recognizes both the consistencies & contradictions among multiple systems of truth
   - Depending of the person’s goals or concerns, the person may make a subjective commitment to one (truth) at times, and at other times, the person may seek a compromised solution that integrates some of each perspective (not losing sight of the inherent contradictions)
   - If one remains aware of the inherent contradictions & realizes that each has some claim on being true, one is thinking postformally
   - Bottom line: truth is relative, but one truth system may be more valid than another depending on our goals.

Question 21

Chandler (1987; 1990): Postskeptical Rationalism (PR)

Answer 21

We make “rational commitments in the face of the clear
knowledge that other defensible alternatives to one’s view continue to exist”
-Inclined to see PR as a result of self-reflection, a growing metacognitive awareness that is the product of “an ongoing effort to reflect on the status of the general knowing process” & to understand its strengths & its limits.
-Doesn’t agree that PR is postformal thinking

Question 22

Perry’s Theory of Intellectual & Ethical Development

Answer 22

1. Perry was influenced by Piaget & proposed a stage-based theory that depicts the typical intellectual & ethical transitions experienced by students in higher education settings
2. Perry constructed a sequence of 9 “positions” or stages ranging from extreme dualistic thinking to high levels of personally committed beliefs

Question 23

Perry’s Theory of Intellectual & Ethical Development-Dualism

Answer 23

Position 1: Strict Dualism
Position 2: Multiplicity (Prelegitimate)
Position 3: Multiplicity (Subordinate)
Position 4: Late Multiplicity

Question 24

Perry’s Theory of Intellectual & Ethical Development-Relativism

Answer 24

Position 5: Contextual Relativism
Position 6: Commitment Foreseen
Position 7, 8, 9: Commitment and Resolve
*Changes in thinking are more qualitative than structural

Question 25

Position 1: Strict Dualism

Answer 25

Rigid adherence to authoritarian views, division between in-group & out-group; little questioning of authority

Question 26

Position 2: Multiplicity (Prelegitimate)

Answer 26

1. Influenced by the person’s first exposure to multiple ideas, answers to life’s questions, or points of view
2. Face-to-face with uncertainty exacerbated by the lack of structure to accommodate the volume of ideas
3. Individuals maintain the belief that some authority possesses the ultimate truth or right answers, but one has to find it
4. One must sort through & organize mental dichotomies

Question 27

Position 3: Multiplicity (Subordinate)

Answer 27

1. Individual grudgingly acknowledges the reality & legitimacy of multiple perspectives
2. Beliefs in a “just world” are now re-evaluated
3. Work effort does not always equal results
4. Awareness that authority figures don’t have all the answers

Question 28

Position 4: Late Multiplicity

Answer 28

1. Realization that even “experts” differ among themselves in regard to what is true; handled in one of two ways:
   - ̈ Oppositional: maintenance of dualistic style of thinking, but switch to the other side
   - ̈ Relative subordinate: understanding that some opinions are more legitimate than others; value of a perspective is now understood to be related to the supporting arguments & evidence for the position

Question 29

Position 5: Contextual Relativism

Answer 29

1. The individual can no longer accept the fiction that everyone’s ideas are as good as everyone else’s
2. There is sufficient detachment & the person can ‘step back’ and consider ideas more objectively
3. Allows the individual to appreciate the merits of diverse perspectives
4. Thinking about knowledge in context becomes more habitual

Question 30

Position 6: Commitment Foreseen

Answer 30

Thinking at this stage incorporates a measure of moral courage as the person begins to affirm what it is she or he believe in, knowing that the position in no more right or better than others

Question 31

Positions 7, 8, & 9: Commitment and Resolve

Answer 31

7: initial commitment
8: multiple commitments
9: resolve: person is resolved to continue to reflect on one’s commitments throughout adulthood

Question 32

Persons who refrain from taking the intellectual challenge necessary for growth through these stages, fallback to positions including…

Answer 32

including temporizing, retreat, and escape

Question 33

Temporizing

Answer 33

refers to delaying movement to the next stage

Question 34

Retreat

Answer 34

occurs when individuals revert back to dualistic thinking in times of stress in order to seek the intellectual security of absolute right & wrong

Question 35

Escape

Answer 35

characterizes a movement back to relativism when the demands of commitment prove too taxing

Question 36

Kitcher’s Model of the Development of Reflective Judgment

Answer 36

1. Proposed a 7 stage theory outlining the development of reflective judgment
2. Like Perry, Kitchner & colleagues found a predictable sequential progression
   - Moved from a belief in the existence of absolute, fixed certainty, to a kind of contextual relativism

Question 37

Kitchner concluded that thinking can be differentiated on the basis of 3 dimensions:

Answer 37

1. Certainty of knowledge
2. Processes used to acquire knowledge
3. The kind of evidence used to justify one’s judgment

Question 38

Reflective judgment

Answer 38

How people analyze elements of a problem and justify their problem solving

Question 39

Minority stress

Answer 39

1. The experience of prejudice and discrimination due to membership in a stigmatized group is very likely to increase

Question 40

Racial crossover effect

Answer 40

1. African American adolescents engage in less substance use than White adolescents. But the reverse is true in adulthood, when African Americans use substances more than Whites.