Janet Belsky’s
Experiencing the Lifespan, 2e
Chapter 13:
Later Life: Cognitive and
Socioemotional Development
Robin Lee, Middle Tennessee State University
Understanding Later Life


The median age of the population
will change dramatically in the
next 25 years.
Median age – the age at which
50% of a population is older and
50% is younger.


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In Europe, 1 in 4 people will be
over 65.
In North American, 1 in 6 will
be over 65.
Although mainly a developed
world issue, in the developing
world the percent of older
adults will rise the most over
the next quarter century.
Why is the population
changing?

Life expectancy increases
 In the U.S., late life expectancy - number of
additional years a person can expect to live once
reaching age 65.



now almost 20 years
Baby boomers entering later life
 Baby boomers are reaching 60s.
Declining birth rates
 Recall that fertility has dipped well below the
replacement rate in Europe.
Exploring Two Elderly Stages

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
Young-old (60s and 70s)

Typically healthy, relatively wealthy

More likely to be physically frail and poor
The old-old (80 and older)
These two groups help explain
contradictory stereotypes about later life.

The upbeat, vigorous older adult experiencing
new adventures such as travel, etc. vs. the
depressed institutionalized elder who is
experience serious illness such as dementia.
Test your understanding of the
elderly
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Insert Table 13.1 on page 393
Understanding memory in later life
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People are more likely to attribute forgetfulness to
memory loss in older adults (vs. young or middleage adults).
Older people are hypersensitive to their memory
lapses. (Am I getting Alzheimer’s disease?)
For older adults, memory loss is a top-ranking
fear.
 Low memory self efficacy - giving up and
thinking “I can’t remember at my age ”- insures
that memory will be worse.
Memory and older adults: the facts

Research indicates that memory abilities do worsen
in older adults.


Ability to recall, remembering content, recalling where
objects are located
Older adults have difficulties with divided attention – a
difficult memory challenge involving memorizing material
while simultaneously monitoring something else.


Time pressure increases difficulties with memory.
Time pressure when learning something totally new (fluid tasks)
is particularly problematic.
Information-Processing and
memory change

Working memory – process of transforming
information into more permanent storage worsens with age.


Frontal lobe deterioration may cause this
smaller “bin space” and/or the loss of the
ability to selectively attend.
Physiological result: older people use more of
their “brain” to work difficult material through
their memory bins.
Memory System Perspective

1)
2)
3)
According to Memory System Perspective, memory is
divided in 3 types:
Procedural – Information remembered automatically

Physical skills or complex motor activity (ex. riding a bicycle)

Most resilient; last to go in patients with brain diseases

Resides in a different (lower) area of the brain
Semantic – ability to recall facts

George Washington as first president

Elderly can perform as well on this type of memory as
young

Moderately resilient; long-lasting crystallized knowledge
Episodic – the ongoing events of daily life

Recalling isolated events (what you had for breakfast last
Tuesday)

Highly fragile in everyone

Where real differences are seen between young and old
Interventions: Keeping memory finetuned (at any age)

Use Selective Optimization with
Compensation
1.
2.
3.

Use Mnemonic Techniques - strategies
to make things emotionally vivid

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Selectively focus on what you need to remember
Work hard to encode the information.
Write things down (e.g. take notes) so you don’t
need to remember on your own.
Basic principle: if it’s vivid emotionally we
remember it (try to get a visual image)
Enhance memory self-efficacy
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
With extra effort, memory can be good.
Older people who are conscientious can
improve memory.
Socioemotional Selectivity
Theory

Socioemotional Selectivity Theory – the time left to live
affects priorities and social relationships.
 Young people focus on the future
• engaged in unpleasant activities because of obligations (“I
need to do this to become X, Y or Z”)
 Older
adults focus on making the most of
present life
•
•
Social priorities shift to being with closest attachment figures
(Let me spend this precious time with family!)
Has the potential to be the happiest time of life.
Reprioritizing our lives in later life

According to socioemotional selectivity
theory, we tend to reprioritize our lives
as we get older.
Refusing to let insulting remarks pass
 Not wasting time on unpleasant people
 Spending more time with those closest to us
 Carefully choosing social obligations

Erikson’s psychosocial stage in
later life
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Integrity vs. Despair
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According to Erikson, reaching integrity
means reviewing one’s life and making
peace it.
Having a sense of usefulness and meaning
in present life
Having a sense of self-efficacy; feeling in
control
Tips for using the research on memory
and emotions
 Give people more time to learn difficult new material and provide a
less distracting environment.
 Don’t stereotype the elderly as having a bad memory; reinforce the
message that with work, anyone’s memory can be good.
 Give older adults chances to exercise their personal passions (recall,
being emotionally involved, fosters memory).
 Don’t expect older people to automatically want to make new
friends at their age.
 Don’t stereotype the elderly as unhappy—assume the reverse is true
in the young-old years– but understand that depression is a serious
risk when a person is frail and isolated.
Examining Retirement
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Most U.S. adults retire well before the traditional
marker, age 65 (retirement age is close to 60).
Because, on average, we live another 20 years, after
retirement it is now a full stage of life.
Retirement depends on governments offering
programs enabling their citizens to live without
working.
Therefore, in countries without a government
sponsored programs (mainly in the developing world),
people must stay on the job until they physically can
not work.
Countries offering government funded
retirement programs
Retirement and other Countries

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Germany: wonderful government support
th
 First government-funded retirement program developed in 19
century
 System designed to keep people financially comfortable
 Government replaces ¾ of person’s working income for life
 Stipends increases to standard of living, so people get more
financially comfortable with age
China: relying on family and feeling insecure
 Offers no government-funded retirement plan
 Citizens are encouraged to save for retirement
 Expectation is that children will take care of their parents
 However, shift is occurring where government is stepping in and
children feel less obligation to take care of parents.
U.S.: deteriorating pensions and savings; some guaranteed
government support
 Social Security – government-funded program
 Pension plans – savings accounts of employees
U.S. Retirement – Social Security

Social Security
 Developed by FDR in the Great Depression
 Operates as a safety net
 Pay into it and get funds when at retirement
 Designed to keep people from being destitute
not to fund a comfortable life
 The only income source for most low wage
workers.
 One problem is that the systems offers one of
the lowest stipends in developed nations.
U.S. Retirement – Pension Plans


Pensions: often employer-linked
 Workers put aside a portion of their paycheck
 Often matched by employer
 Funds placed in tax-free account
 At retirement, person either gets regular pay-outs
or one lump sum
 Often not available at low wage jobs
In the financial crisis of 2008, pension plans were
affected dramatically.
 Changes in pensions plans is causing more
bankruptcies among middle adults.
 Also causing many to postpone retirement of many
Americans.
Deciding to retire
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Factors that many consider
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Enough money to life without working (top ranking
motivation)
Physically ability to keep working (more apt to occur
among low income workers—especially those in
physically demanding jobs)
Job satisfaction– choosing to work after retirement age
due to liking the job.
Age discrimination can affect retirement decisions

Age discrimination– illegally laying off workers or failing
to hire or promote them on the basis of age.


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Is illegal in the U.S.
However, many corporations offer early buyouts
May be used by large corporations due to high salaries of older
employees
Retirement: positive or
negative?
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Positive
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Physical and mental health
Married
Financial stability
Consider retirement as a challenge; a new
phase of life
Leisure activities
Volunteering
Negative
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Not leaving work by choice – forced retirement
Financial concerns
Health concerns
Summing up retirement
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Retirement is an at-risk stage of life

Declining pensions plans
Strain on social security

Age discrimination

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Older workers are an at-risk group of
employees
Older people may be more at risk of being
poor

High rates of poverty in the old-old (and among
people who enter retirement relying just on
Social Security).
Widowhood


Death of a spouse – life’s most traumatic
change
Understanding mourning:
 Obsession with the loved one and the events
surrounding the death
 Impulse to search for ones spouse
(mirroring the attachment response that
occurs in infancy)
 Continuing bonds - Feeling that the spouse
is physically there
Other Facts About Mourning
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People gradually remake a new life, but the
process normally takes at least a year or more.
Turning to religion helps (and many people do
become more religious) within the first six
months.
While the memory of the spouse evokes feelings
of pain, after 2 years or when people are in the
recovery (working model) phase they can think
about their partner with bittersweet feelings.
People vary in the extent to which they are able to
construct a new, satisfying life.
Who Tends to Have Special
Trouble?

Widowhood mortality effect– risk of
death that occurs among surviving
spouses

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Men are more at risk, especially old-old men
Anyone with limited options for remaking a
new life.
People highly dependent on just a spouse
People in male dominated cultures
Surviving Widowhood
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Develop a network of attachments and fulfilling identifies outside
of your marriage before being widowed, to cushion the loss of
your life love.
You might want to draw on your faith in God, particularly in the
first months, and use the feeling that your spouse is with you as
you struggle to remake a competent new life.
Take comfort from your children, but understand that, after some
time, they will need to go on with their own lives. Your challenge
is to reach out to fiends in order to help you construct meaning
day by day.
Graciously accept emotional support – but don’t’ let loved ones
take over your life.
Try to see this tragedy as a challenge, an opportunity for
understanding that you can function on your own. You may find
that you are more resilient than you ever thought.