New York University Social Beliefs Systems Discussion Select 2 of the following prompts What is the age-based double standard of perceived competence in y

New York University Social Beliefs Systems Discussion Select 2 of the following prompts

What is the age-based double standard of perceived competence in young and older adults?
What three factors must be considered when understanding social belief systems?
Are negative views of aging assimilated into adults’ views of themselves?
How does our use of primary and secondary control strategies change across the life span?
What is collaborative cognition?
According to McAdams, how does a life story develop over time?
What are the research findings concerning religiosity and ethnicity? CHAPTER EIGHT
Social Cognition
Stereotypes and Aging
• Learning Objectives
– How does the content of stereotypes about aging
differ across adulthood?
– How do young and older adults perceive the
competency of the elderly?
– How do negative stereotypes about aging
unconsciously guide our behavior?
Stereotypes and Aging
• Content of Stereotypes
– Stereotypes: A special kind of social knowledge
structure or social belief that represents organized
prior knowledge about a group of people that
affects how we interpret new information
– Young and older adults hold similar stereotypes
about aging.
Stereotypes and Aging
• Age Stereotypes and Perceived Competence
– An age-based double standard operates when
people judge older adults’ failures in memory.
• In this case, younger adults judge older adults who are
forgetful more harshly than older adults do.
• However, younger adults also make positive judgments
about older adults being more responsible despite such
memory failures.
Stereotypes and Aging
• Activation of Stereotypes
– Implicit stereotypes
• Automatically activated negative stereotypes about
aging guide behavior beyond our awareness.
– Implicit negative stereotypes can negatively influence
performance.
– Implicit stereotyping influences the way we
communicate with older adults.
• Patronizing talk
– Includes slow speech, simple vocabulary, careful enunciation,
a demeaning emotional tone, and superficial conversation
Stereotypes and Aging
• Stereotype Threat
– An evoked fear of being judged in accordance with
a negative stereotype about a group to which you
belong
• Do negative stereotypes influence the cognitive
functioning of older adults?
• Middle-aged adults are also susceptible to negative age
stereotypes.
• Influence of stereotypes is not restricted to memory.
– Physical aging is also a negative aging stereotype.
Social Knowledge Structures and Beliefs
• Learning Objectives
– What are social knowledge structures?
– What are social beliefs, and how do they change
with age?
– What are self-perceptions of aging, and what
influences them across adulthood?
Social Knowledge Structures and Beliefs
• Understanding Age Differences in Social
Beliefs
– Understanding age differences in social belief
systems has three important aspects:
• We must examine the specific content of social beliefs.
• We must consider the strength of these beliefs to know
under what conditions they may influence behavior.
• We need to know the likelihood that these beliefs are
being violated or questioned.
Social Knowledge Structures and Beliefs
• Understanding Age Differences in Social
Beliefs
– Age differences were found in the types of social
rules evoked in different types of situations.
• The belief “Marriage is more important that a career”
increases with age.
• Compare with “The marriage was already in trouble”
which has an inverted U-shaped relationship
– Cohort differences can be profound.
Social Knowledge Structures and Beliefs
• Self-Perception and Social Beliefs
– Self-Perception of Aging: Individuals’ perceptions
of their own age and aging
• The social stereotypes we hold about aging influence
what we believe about ourselves.
– Two frameworks for this influence:
• Labeling theory: When confronting an age-related
stereotype, older adults are more likely to integrate
into their self-perception
• Resilience theory: Confronting a negative stereotype
results in a rejection of that view
Social Judgment Processes
• Learning Objectives
– What is the negativity bias in impression
formation, and how does it influence older adult’s
thinking?
– Are there age differences in accessibility of social
information?
– How does processing context influence social
judgments?
– To what extent do processing capacity limitations
influence social judgments in older adults?
Social Judgment Processes
• Impression Formation
– The way we form and revise first impressions
about others.
– Declines in cognitive processing resources might
impact the social judgment process.
• Research suggests that we make initial snap judgments
and later correct or adjust them based on more
reflective thinking.
Social Judgment Processes
• Impression Formation (cont.)
– Older adults use less detailed information when
making an initial impression
– Negativity bias: When people allow their initial
negative impressions to stand despite subsequent
positive information
• Older adults are more prone to this bias
Social Judgment Processes
Social Judgment Processes
Social Judgment Processes
• Knowledge Accessibility and Social Judgments
– Social knowledge: When we are faced with new
situations, we draw on our previous experiences
stored in memory.
• Social knowledge structures must be available and
accessible to guide behavior.
– Source Judgments: Trying to determine the
source of a particular piece of information
• Age differences in knowledge accessibility depend on
the extent to which people rely on these judgments.
Social Judgment Processes
• A Processing Capacity Explanation for Age
Differences in Social Judgments
– Declines in cognitive processing resources might
impact the social judgment process.
• Research suggests that we make initial snap judgments
and later correct or adjust them based on more
reflective thinking.
• Thus, age-related changes in processing capacity might
make older adults more vulnerable to social judgment
biases.
Social Judgments and Causal
Attributions
• Attributional Biases
– Causal attributions
• Explanations people construct to explain their behavior
– Dispositional attributions
• Behavioral explanations that reside within the person
– Situational attributions
• Behavioral explanations that reside outside the person
– Correspondence bias
• Relying on dispositional information and ignoring
situational information
Social Judgments and Causal
Attributions
• Attributional Biases
– Research by Blanchard-Fields
• Older adults are more likely to make dispositional
attributions than younger adults.
• The correspondence bias in older adults only occurred
in negative relationship situations.
– The explanations people create to account for
behavior vary depending on:
• The type of situation
• The age of the person
• Whether strong social beliefs have been violated by a
person in the situation
Social Judgments and Causal
Attributions
Motivation and Social Processing Goals
• Learning Objectives
– How do goals influence the way we process
information, and how does this change with age?
– How do emotions influence the way we process
information, and how does this change with age?
– How does a need for closure influence the way we
process information, and how does it change with
age?
Motivation and Social Processing Goals
• Personal Goals
– Personal goals play a major role in creating
direction in our lives.
– Selective optimization with compensation (SOC) is
an important theoretical model.
• Growing older causes shift in priorities.
– Re-evaluating interests
– Shifting priorities means goal selection may be
perceived differently by older and younger adults.
– Goal selection requires that we thoughtfully
choose where to invest resources.
Motivation and Social Processing Goals
• Emotion as a Processing Goal
– Positivity Effect: Older adults avoid negative
information and focus more on positive
information when making decisions and
judgments, and when remembering events.
• Emotions may impede information processing.
• Focus on positive information can interfere with
decision making by causing older adults to miss
important negative information.
Motivation and Social Processing Goals
• Cognitive Style as a Processing Goal
– Cognitive Style: How we approach solving
problems.
– People with high need for closure cannot tolerate
ambiguity and like quick answers.
– It may be that limited cognitive resources and
motivational differences are both age-related.
– Declines in working memory may be related to
need for closure.
Personal Control
• Learning Objectives
– What is the multidimensionality of personal
control?
– How do assimilation and accommodation
influence behavior?
– What is primary and secondary control?
– What is the primacy of primary control over
secondary control?
Personal Control
• Multidimensionality of Personal Control
– Personal control: the degree to which one
believes that one’s performance in a situation
depends on something that one personally does.
– One’s sense of control depends on which domain,
such as intelligence or health, is being assessed.
Personal Control
• Control Strategies
– Brandtstädter’s (1999) three interdependent
processes:
• Assimilative activities
– Used when one must prevent losses important to self-esteem
• Accommodations
– Involve readjusting one’s goals and aspirations
• Immunizing mechanisms
– Alter the effects of self-discrepant information
Personal Control
• Control Strategies (Cont.)
– Heckhausen and Schulz’s view:
• Primary control helps change the environment to
match one’s goals.
– It involves bringing the environment into line with one’s
desires and goals.
• Secondary control reappraises the environment in light
of one’s decline in functioning.
– The individual turns inward toward the self and assesses the
situation.
Personal Control
Personal Control
• Some Criticisms Regarding Primary Control
– Cross-cultural perspectives challenge the notion of
primacy and primary control.
– In collectivist societies, the emphasis is not on
individualistic strategies such as those found in
primary control, but to establish interdependence
with others, to be connected to them, and bound
to a large social institution.
Social Situations and Social
Competence
• Learning Objectives
– What is the social facilitation of cognitive
functioning?
– What is collaborative cognition, and does it
facilitate memory in older adults?
– How does the social context influence memory
performance in older adults?
Social Situations and Social
Competence
• Collaborative Cognition
– Occurs when two or more people work together
to solve a cognitive task
– Collaborating with others in recollection helps
facilitate memory in older adults.
– Findings indicate that well-acquainted older
couples demonstrate an expertise to develop an
adaptive pattern of recalling information.
Social Situations and Social
Competence
• Social Context of Memory
– Importantly, the social context can serve a
facilitative function in older adults’ memory
performance.
– Thus, it is important not to limit our explanations
of social cognitive change simply to cognitive
processing variables, but to also include social
factors.
CHAPTER NINE
Personality
Levels of Analysis and Personality
Research
• Dispositional traits
– Consist of aspects of personality that are consistent
across different contexts and can be compared across
a group along a continuum representing high and low
degrees of the characteristic
• Personal concerns
– Consist of things that are important to people, their
goals, and their major concerns in life
• Life narrative
– Consists of the aspects of personality that pull
everything together, those integrative aspects that
give a person an identity or sense of self
Dispositional Traits Across Adulthood
• Learning Objectives
– What is the five-factor model of dispositional
traits?
– What happens to dispositional traits across
adulthood?
– What can we conclude from theory and research
on dispositional traits?
Dispositional Traits Across Adulthood
• The Case for Stability: The Five-Factor Model
– Consists of five independent dimensions of
personality:
•
•
•
•
•
Neuroticism
Extraversion
Openness to experience
Agreeableness
Conscientiousness
Dispositional Traits Across Adulthood
• Neuroticism
– Has six facets:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Anxiety
Hostility
Self-consciousness
Depression
Impulsiveness
Vulnerability
Dispositional Traits Across Adulthood
• Extraversion
– Has six facets in two groups:
• Interpersonal traits
– Warmth
– Gregariousness
– Assertiveness
• Temperamental traits
– Activity
– Excitement seeking
– Positive emotions
Dispositional Traits Across Adulthood
• Openness to Experience
– Has six areas:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Fantasy
Aesthetics
Action
Ideas
Values
Occupational choice
Dispositional Traits Across Adulthood
• Agreeableness (Opposite of Antagonism)
– Agreeable people are not:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Skeptical
Mistrustful
Callous
Unsympathetic
Stubborn
Rude
Skillful manipulators
Aggressive go-getters
Dispositional Traits Across Adulthood
• Conscientiousness
– Conscientious people are:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Hardworking
Ambitious
Energetic
Scrupulous
Persevering
Desirous to make something of themselves
Dispositional Traits Across Adulthood
• What Happens to Dispositional Traits Across
Adulthood?
– Costa and McCrae found:
• Over a 12-year period, 10 personality traits measured
by GZTS (a temperament survey) remained stable.
• Other studies similar to the GZTS found equivalent
• Results—however, in the very old, suspiciousness and
sensitivity increased.
Dispositional Traits Across Adulthood
• What Happens to Dispositional Traits? (cont.)
– Other studies have shown increasing evidence for
personality changes as we grow older:
• Ursula Staudinger and colleagues found that
personality takes on two forms:
– Personality Adjustment
» Developmental changes in terms of their adaptive value
and functionality.
– Personality Growth
» Ideal end states such as increased self-transcendence,
wisdom, and integrity
Dispositional Traits Across Adulthood
• What Happens to Dispositional Traits? (cont.)
– Current consensus of change in the Big Five with
increasing age
• Absence of neuroticism
• Presence of agreeableness and conscientiousness
– Studies also show decrease in openness to new
experiences with increasing age.
– Adjustment aspect with increasing age could be
normative.
– Personality changes are tied to cohort differences.
Dispositional Traits Across Adulthood
• Conclusions about Dispositional Traits
– Personality traits tend to be stable when data are
averaged over large groups of people.
– But, looking at specific aspects of personality in
specific kinds of people, there may be less stability
and more change.
Personal Concerns and Qualitative
Stages in Adulthood
• Learning Objectives
– What are personal concerns?
– What are the main elements of Jung’s theory?
– What are the stages in Erikson’s theory? What
types of clarifications and extensions of it have
been offered?What research evidence is there to
support his stages?
– What are the main points and problems with
theories based on life transitions?
– What can we conclude about personal concerns?
Personal Concerns and Qualitative
Stages in Adulthood
• What’s Different about Personal Concerns?
– Personal concerns:
• Are explicitly contextual in contrast to dispositional
traits
• Are narrative descriptions that rely on life
circumstances
• Change over time
– One “has” personality traits, but “does”
behaviors that are important in everyday life.
Personal Concerns and Qualitative
Stages in Adulthood
• Jung’s Theory
– Emphasizes that each aspect of a person’s
personality must be in balance with all the others
• Such as, introversion-extroversion and masculinityfemininity
– Jung was the first theorist to discuss personality
development during adulthood.
• He invented the notion of midlife crisis.
– Jung argues that people move toward integrating
these dimensions as they age, with midlife being
an especially important period.
Personal Concerns and Qualitative
Stages in Adulthood
• Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development
– Erikson was the first theorist to develop a truly
lifespan theory of personality development.
– His eight stages represent the eight great struggles
that he believed people must undergo.
– Each struggle has a certain time of ascendancy.
• The epigenetic principle = Each struggle must be
resolved to continue development.
Personal Concerns and Qualitative
Stages in Adulthood
• Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development
(cont.)
– The sequence of Erikson’s stages are:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Trust versus mistrust
Autonomy versus shame and doubt
Initiative versus guilt
Industry versus inferiority
Identity versus identity confusion
Intimacy versus isolation
Generativity versus stagnation
Ego versus despair
Personal Concerns and Qualitative
Stages in Adulthood
Personal Concerns and Qualitative
Stages in Adulthood
• Clarifications and Extensions of Erikson’s
Theory: Logan
– Logan argues that the eight stages are really a
cycle that repeats.
• trust ?achievement ?wholeness
– Slater (2003) expands on Logan’s reasoning on the
central crisis of generativity versus stagnation and
includes struggles between:
•
•
•
•
Pride and embarrassment
Responsibility and ambivalence
Career productivity and inadequacy
Parenthood and self-absorption
Personal Concerns and Qualitative
Stages in Adulthood
• Clarifications and Extensions of Erikson’s
Theory: Kotre
– Kotre contends that adults experience many
opportunities to express generativity that are not
equivalent and do not lead to a general state.
• Generativity as a set of impulses
• Five types of generativity:
–
–
–
–
–
Biological and parental
Technical
Cultural
Agentic
Communal
Personal Concerns and Qualitative
Stages in Adulthood
• Research on Generativity
– McAdams’s model shows how generativity results
from:
• Complex interconnections between societal and inner
forces
• Thus, creating a concern for the next generation and a
belief in the goodness of the human enterprise
Personal Concerns and Qualitative
Stages in Adulthood
Personal Concerns and Qualitative
Stages in Adulthood
• Theories Based on Life Transitions
– Among the most popular theories of adult
personality development
– Based on the idea that adults go through a series
of life transitions, or passages
• However, few of these theories have substantial
databases, and none are based on representative
samples.
– Life transitions tend to overestimate the
commonality of age-linked transitions.
Personal Concerns and Qualitative
Stages in Adulthood
• In Search of the Midlife Crisis
– A key idea in life transition theories is the midlife
crisis.
• The idea that at middle age we take a good look at
ourselves in the hopes of achieving a better
understanding of who we are
– Many adults face difficult issues and make behavioral
changes.
Personal Concerns and Qualitative
Stages in Adulthood
• In Search of the Midlife Crisis (cont.)
– However, very little data supports the claim that
all people inevitably experience a crisis in middle
age.
• Most middle-aged people do point to both gains and
losses, positives and negatives in their lives.
– This transition may be better characterized as a
midlife correction.
• Reevaluating ones’ roles and dreams and making the
necessary corrections
Personal Concerns and Qualitative
Stages in Adulthood
• Conclusions about Personal Concerns
– Evidence supports a sharp change in personal
concerns as adults age.
– Change is not specific to an age but is dependent
on many factors.
– All agree that there is a need for more research in
this area.
Life Narratives, Identity, and the Self
• Learning Objectives
– What are the main aspects of McAdams’s life-story
model?
– What are the main points of Whitbourne’s identity
theory?
– How does self-concept come to take …
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