How the Lifespan Perspective May Provide a Way of Better Understanding the Research Reviewed

Life-Span Perspective

A life bridge perspective on advice and crumbling emphasizes how the aggregating of experiences with ageism and ageist communication across the decades influence both attitudes toward aging and age-related behaviors.

From: Handbook of the Psychology of Aging (Seventh Edition) , 2011

Child Development at the Intersection of Race and SES

Margaret Beale Spencer , ... Traci English language-Clarke , in Advances in Child Development and Behavior, 2019

3.1 Life span perspective

The life span perspective conceptualizes human behavior equally influenced by developmental processes across biological, historical, sociocultural, and psychological factors from formulation to death (Lerner, 2002). It extended the theoretical focus of historically traditional developmental psychology with a focus on intra-individual processes for incorporating sociocultural influences. This allows researchers to evaluate the impact of social experiences on psychosocial processes and behavioral outcomes for children of color. Some of the virtually prolific work that exemplifies this perspective focuses on the role of racial socialization and intergenerational communication on children's racial attitudes and preferences. Socialization opportunities be in contexts where children have experiences and receive feedback about the explicit and implicit meanings regarding behavior and expectations. For illustrative purposes, highlighted are studies that accept addressed parental socialization practices on children's racial identity.

Parental pedagogy about racial history and strategies for addressing bigotry influences children's racial attitudes and preferences (Loma, 2006). Social scientists have become increasingly interested in the nature of communications from parents to children regarding ethnicity and race and the role these communications play in shaping or modifying racial identity attitudes. Race-related messages (racial socialization) contribute significantly to children's identity development and well-being. Stevenson (1994) posited that racial socialization was necessary to amend the impact of racial hostilities and for African American children to accomplish and develop positive self-images. Studies take frequently examined these processes through ii wide dimensions that represent messages about cultural socialization and preparation for bias.

Research suggests that Black parents embrace both American and African-based values and endeavour to instill both value systems in their children. Given the historical factors explored under a life span perspective, adults' values and history of sociocultural experiences with discrimination affect parental socialization strategies (eastward.g., see Hughes & Johnson, 2001). Black parents value honesty, academic success, and family responsibility, and they teach these values to their children. They are also likely to embrace culturally singled-out values, which include kin networks, respect for the elderly, and mutual cooperation and sharing (Loma, 2001; Murry et al., 2005). Parents emphasize humanistic values over more ethnic-specific parenting practices and values (Marshall, 1995). African American parents also wish to raise children with values and expectations common for all. They come up to understand that although they may raise their children to care for others with respect—given the myriad contexts navigated—they and their children will not always encounter respect from others. Nevertheless, racial and ethnic minority parents report more frequent cultural socialization than preparation for bias for their school-age children (Hughes, 2003). Given the intersectional impact of minority condition and social course bias confronted, one wonders if the orientation for more general cultural socialization alone is plenty for combating the actual synergistic and adverse bear on of bias. Contextual experiences of less than ideal "individual-context fit" may outcome in positive or negative adaptive processes.

Salient is that a life span perspective provides a framework for exploring multidimensional processes that impact individual developmental outcomes. The focus emphasizes the fluidity of development over fourth dimension and affords opportunities for because the impact of contextual influences on the development of children of color.

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Religion and Spirituality

S.H. McFadden , in Encyclopedia of Gerontology (Second Edition), 2007

Contexts for the Study of Religion, Spirituality, and Aging

The life span perspective embraced by most people who study aging processes and older adults emphasizes the environmental of evolution. This means that gerontologists pay shut attention to contextual bug that affect the people they report, the way they formulate their research questions, the methods they employ to gather data, and the conclusions they attain from analyzing the results of the inquiry. The ages of research participants, the shaping events of cohorts' development, and the historical period in which the research is conducted influence the information added to the cognition stream in gerontology. This is no less true for the study of religion and spirituality than for other topics addressed in this encyclopedia. Therefore, it is important to examine some of the contextual issues that have affected the report of organized religion and spirituality since the early 1990s. These contexts bear upon both researchers and the persons who participate in their research.

Some gerontologists, especially those who conduct qualitative research from a feminist, postmodern perspective (a practiced case is the work of Janet Ramsey and Rosemary Blieszner), believe it is important to be aware of how the personal perspectives of researchers bear upon the enquiry enterprise. Equally author of this article, as well as the previous ane, I come to the study of faith and spirituality from the field of study of psychology, especially the psychology of religion. Psychologists accept studied faith for over a century, although their work has not received broad recognition in the field. Recently, however, this has begun to change, and many of the contextual forces driving increased interest in religion and spirituality among gerontologists are as well affecting psychologists. Enquiry on religion and spirituality has become more scientifically rigorous and thus more adequate in mainstream scholarly journals. The emerging expanse of 'positive psychology,' which has received widespread attention in the discipline, has created a supportive climate for research on religion and spirituality past emphasizing man strengths, self-transcendence, forgiveness, awe, wonder, gratitude, and hope.

Another influence on the topics reviewed here comes from the fact that my work has been conducted in an environment in which religion, spirituality, and aging are studied primarily from Christian and Jewish perspectives. Although at that place are some excellent publications on Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim older persons and the ways their religious beliefs bear on various outcomes such equally satisfaction with life, the majority of current research publications focuses on participants from either Christian or Jewish denominations, or participants who identify with no religious groups. With the rapid increment in ethnic and religious variety in the United States, besides as the growth of research on crumbling in other parts of the earth, this state of affairs will undoubtedly shortly change, and gerontologists who study organized religion and spirituality will demand to include other earth religions in their studies.

Several streams of religious idea and action have converged in the early catamenia of the twenty-showtime century and accept shaped the full general intellectual climate, sometimes referred to as the Zeitgeist. These include worldwide attention to terrorist groups that claim their actions spring from devotion to religion. Since September xi, 2001, the word 'terrorist' has often been connected with two other words: 'fundamentalist' and 'Muslim.' This has resulted in stereotypes that foster prejudice about all persons who might be called fundamentalists or who comprehend the Abrahamic faith tradition of Islam. Another influence on the public's thinking about faith, particularly in the United states, comes from tensions between organized religion and science, and between religion and politics. This has prompted considerable discussion in academic circles of a wide variety of bug related to how religious organized religion affects individuals and social groups. Nonetheless, gaps still exist in scholars' cognition of religious diverseness – gaps sometimes reinforced past social attitudes. For case, the noisy debate about the relation betwixt religion and politics in the United states has solidified stereotypes of evangelicalism and fundamentalism past connecting them with the political category of the 'religious right.' Like all stereotypes, these neglect to recognize the multifariousness and complication of evangelical and fundamentalist forms of Christianity.

Some of the increased attention to religious topics has resulted from observations of the rapid growth of sure religious groups. Evangelical Christian congregations (oftentimes not denominationally affiliated), forth with Roman Catholic parishes serving racial and ethnic minority populations, are expanding rapidly, while traditional, 'mainline,' White Protestant congregations are shrinking. Organized religion communities that are growing oft emphasize programs designed to concenter families and meet the spiritual needs of children and immature adults. In contrast, many religious older people accept roots in congregations that are non experiencing this kind of growth. The accent on promoting congregational growth past serving younger people tin lead to the decision that faith communities with high median ages (east.g., those serving mainline Protestants or Jews) are 'dying' and thus a poor 'investment' of religious groups' resources. In other words, ageism can be merely as prevalent in religious organizations as in secular settings.

With some exceptions, Christian and Jewish seminaries that educate the next generation of congregational leaders take tended to focus on ways to nurture young families rather than on ministry with aging persons. This situation may be slowly changing, however. With greater recognition of aging demographics, some recent publications have received attention because of their thoughtful treatment of theological and pastoral care issues related to older persons. For example, Stanley Hauerwas – a theologian in one case described equally 'America'due south leading theologian' by a popular news magazine – has collaborated with several colleagues to edit a volume that addresses the theological and ethical challenges to aging Christians in the xx-first century. Some examples are the tension between secular and religious views of sources of tardily-life well-beingness, moral obligations of crumbling persons, conflicts between capitalist and religious assumptions nigh dying and death, intergenerational continuity in religious communities, memorial and funeral practices, Christian meanings of suffering, and responses to calls for md-assisted suicide. A volume on Jewish pastoral care edited by Rabbi Dayle Friedman, a leader in seminary training for rabbis working with elders, contains many capacity relevant to work with older persons, including those with dementia. Authors of these chapters wrestle with the nature of healing relationships, pastoral responses to suffering, Jewish understandings of prayer and presence, and Jewish pastoral care for people who are very sick, dying, or grieving losses.

Prompted in office past greater awareness of the number of people with dementing diseases and the need to provide holistic care that values the personhood of all who suffer from Alzheimer's affliction and related dementias, practitioners and researchers are paying attention to their spiritual needs and potential for spiritual growth. Testify of this tin can be seen in the 2nd volume of Aging, Spirituality, and Faith: A Handbook, which has 4 chapters entirely devoted to dementia; the commencement volume had none. The periodical Dementia devoted an entire outcome in 2003 to the subject area of spirituality and dementia. Topics covered included effects of personal spirituality on the quality of life of persons in early-stage dementia, experiences of Christian, Jewish, and non-religious spousal caregivers, and approaches to spiritual intendance of persons with dementia. In addition, Elizabeth MacKinlay, Managing director of the Centre for Ageing and Pastoral Studies in Australia, has edited several books that accost dementia.

MacKinlay'south work highlights numerous artistic ways of applying the scholarship and research of theologians, ethicists, and social scientists to the design of supportive interactions with older adults. Long interested in late-life low and the possibility that hope tin arise from despair, MacKinlay argues that some persons tin can be helped by being encouraged to explore their need for ultimate meaning in life. Pastoral caregivers and other practitioners attuned to spiritual needs can assist people in finding ways to experience transcendence of disability and loss. Out of this kind of nurturing relationship, older persons may discover a renewed sense of intimacy with God and other persons. In addition, MacKinlay'south inquiry has documented how spiritual reminiscence in small groups can help even those with dementia to detect a deeper sense of life meaning.

Another example of the convergence of inquiry and practice comes from work on caregiving. This has been a topic of great interest to gerontologists for many years and has been the object of considerable enquiry. A number of studies have identified religion as an important variable that buffers caregiver stress, particularly amid African Americans who perceive greater rewards from caregiving, in all likelihood because of the comfort they experience in religious practices, including prayer. This research supports the important work of faith communities in providing various forms of help to caregivers such as respite care, back up groups, and education about caregiving and the needs of delicate elders.

Conducting research on issues related to religion and spirituality has always been challenging considering of the circuitous, multidimensional nature of the subject. The current intellectual climate has added to the challenge, while paradoxically as well making it possible for more of this work to be done with scientifically sound methods. For case, having adequate funding and institutional back up for their work has meant that researchers tin can conduct large, national probability studies of diverse samples of older persons. In the United states, numerous private foundations as well as federal agencies like the National Institute on Aging accept supported this work, and scholarly journals at present publish articles on religion that never would accept appeared twenty years ago. On the other hand, some researchers worry that some funding sources may promote religious or political agendas that are incompatible with the pursuit of science. Nevertheless, there have been many of import developments in the study of religion, spirituality, and aging in the last decade.

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Adulthood: Dependency and Autonomy

H.-Westward. Wahl , in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2001

i On the Complexities of Dependency and Autonomy in Developed Life

From a life-bridge perspective, childhood and adolescence are periods when striving toward autonomy and reducing dependency are among the nearly important developmental tasks (Havighurst 1972). By young adulthood, or at the very latest by middle adulthood, one is normally expected to have accomplished this successfully. Conversely, quondam age may be characterized, at least to some extent, equally a life period that poses the risk of condign dependent or losing i'southward autonomy. However, the general assumption that autonomy gradually replaces dependency and then dependency gradually replaces autonomy over the life course is clearly simplistic.

Cultural relativity becomes particularly obvious in the autonomy–dependency dynamics across the life span. For case, while the developmental goal of maintaining autonomy in a wide variety of life domains over the life span is one of the highest values in most Western cultures, ane of the most 'normal' elements of many developing countries' cultures is reliance on children in the subsequently phases of life. Second, although autonomy and dependency play their roles as private attributes, both should be regarded predominantly as contextual constructs depending strongly on situational options and constraints. For example, the dependent self-intendance behavior of an 85-year-old homo or adult female may not reflect physical or mental frailty at all, but may primarily result from the overprotective behavior of family unit members and professionals (Baltes 1996). Third, autonomy and dependency should both be regarded as multidimensional, that is, gain in autonomy in i life domain does non automatically atomic number 82 to reduced dependency in other life domains and vice versa. For example, being able to run into the everyday challenges of life in an independent manner does not necessarily preclude a younger individual from relying strongly on parents or pregnant others when making crucial life decisions (such every bit selecting a partner). Fourth, and finally, autonomy and dependency take stiff value connotations which shape activity. In Western cultures, independent behaviors are generally regarded as positive and highly adaptive, worth supporting by all means, whereas dependency has negative value connotations and should exist avoided at all costs. Such global value attributions tin can be questioned in terms of life complexity and richness. For instance, emotional dependency upon some other person lies at the heart of mature intimate relationships. Conversely, striving for autonomy may become detrimental when confronted with astringent chronic illness, which necessitates help, back up, and the delegation of control to the external environment. These differentiations accept to exist kept in mind equally nosotros examine autonomy and dependency in middle and old age more closely.

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Aging and Memory in Animals

P.R. Rapp , in Encyclopedia of Neuroscience, 2009

Introduction

From a life-bridge perspective, crumbling comprises the late component of a genetically determined program of development, maturation, and senescence, interacting with a complex assortment of ecology factors. Commonly viewed as a process of deterioration, growing sometime is associated with sharply increased risk for many diseases and disabilities that compromise independent living, placing a heavy burden on families, caregivers, and gild. Withal, a bulk of people successfully suit certain physical signs of crumbling, and in fortunate cases, former age tin stand for a rewarding menstruum of new intellectual date, novel pursuits, and accomplishment. Such positive outcomes become increasingly unlikely in the confront of failing cognitive part, and partly for this reason, disorders that lead to diminished mental capacity are among the nigh feared consequences of aging. The leading cause of dementia, Alzheimer'southward illness, ultimately results in a dumbo amnesia, gradually robbing patients of the lifetime of memories that define their personal history and identity. Even in the absenteeism of disease, many people feel memory impairment that, although relatively balmy, can crusade considerable feet and compromise the quality of life. Every bit the populations of industrialized countries rapidly historic period ( Figure 1 ), we face up a growing claiming of identifying ways to promote salubrious cognitive aging and to maximize optimal functioning.

Figure 1. Society is aging chop-chop; the historical and projected percentages of the US population that is over 65 and 85   years. Results compiled from United states of america Census Agency figures.

Research has illuminated many of the key features of age-related cognitive decline in humans; enabled past advances in in vivo brain imaging, it has begun to reveal how the neural systems arrangement of memory is contradistinct. Studies of cerebral crumbling in humans are complicated by a variety of methodological factors, however, and they are limited by the range of applicative experimental approaches. A vexing result is that individuals in preclinical stages of Alzheimer'south disease and other disorders affecting noesis are difficult to identify with conviction. Equally a consequence, it is often unclear to what degree observed impairment is attributable to disease rather than normal nonpathological aging. Relating these deficits to underlying biological causes is likewise problematic, and although noninvasive imaging techniques continue to yield remarkable discoveries, defining the neurobiological mechanisms of cerebral aging requires experimental approaches not suitable for investigation in humans. Research in beast models has played a disquisitional role in efforts to address these issues.

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Civic and Political Engagement

C. Flanagan , L. Wray-Lake , in Encyclopedia of Boyhood, 2011

Developmental Changes During Adolescence

From a life-span perspective, the adolescent and young adult years are times in life for exploring 1's identity and charting a path for the future. This exploration entails seeking purpose, deciding on beliefs and commitments, and linking to others (in organizations, religious traditions, or social causes) who share such commitments. Developing a world view and an ideology enables youth to organize and manage the vast array of choices the world presents, consider where they fit, and program a management for their hereafter.

However, in that location are major differences in the ways that an early or a late adolescent would conceive of many political issues. These differences are due to the growth in societal cognition that occurs during the adolescent years and to older adolescents' greater exposure to politically relevant topics and divergent points of view. Late adolescents are more capable than early adolescents of understanding abstract concepts such as democracy and of appreciating the roles and interrelationships of various institutions and artillery of regime within their own nation and internationally. With respect to cognitive capacities, older adolescents are improve able to meet an result from different perspectives and to integrate different points of view as they class opinions.

Late adolescents can appreciate the implications of their ain (equally well as states' or corporations') deportment on abstract 'others' and thus can imagine and accept a position on, for example, the labor and environmental practices of multinational corporations. They also have a greater awareness of how individual actions can accept an bear on on the public. Thus, compared to early on adolescents, they are more capable of agreement the lifetime impact of passive smoking on a nonsmoking partner or of hydrocarbons on the ozone layer. They are also better equipped to understand the rationale for laws that may constrain individual behavior in the interests of protecting the public welfare.

This does not mean that late adolescents are less committed to the rights of individuals. In fact, the conception and defense force of individual rights changes between early and late adolescence. Whereas early adolescents endorse individual rights to protection and the fulfillment of needs, with age, immature people increasingly endorse the individual'south right to self-conclusion, an independent voice, and privacy. Between early and late adolescence, youth are increasingly likely to defend an private's right to make his/her own decisions about wellness and risk. Compared to early adolescents and to their own parents, tardily adolescents are more committed to civil liberties and are more tolerant of points of view that differ from their own. At the aforementioned time, this ardent commitment is tempered in tardily adolescence with a defense of the government's right to constrain individual behaviors in the interests of public wellness.

Tardily adolescents and young adults capeesh principled reasoning and can separate another person'south political views from their friendship with that individual. They should, therefore, be able to passionately contend political issues without personalizing the differences. As is truthful for adolescents and adults of all ages, however, this separation takes practice and is nearly hands washed when modeled by civic leaders.

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Psychopathology, Bereavement, and Aging

Susan Krauss Whitbourne , Suzanne Meeks , in Handbook of the Psychology of Aging (Seventh Edition), 2011

Summary

We have applied a life-span perspective to understanding the nature of the major psychological disorders in afterward life, focusing on differentiation past when in the life class symptoms are first expressed and on summarizing research evidence on gamble and protective factors every bit these evolve over the life course. Most existing data on aging and psychopathology practise not, however, have a life class perspective but instead describe prevalence data and associated symptoms without the backdrop of the individual's past and present life experiences. Even studies that take into account psychiatric history practice not often examine this history in the context of the rest of the individual's personality, self-concept, or social context.

To gain a fuller appreciation of the strengths and the vulnerabilities of older adults being evaluated for psychological disorders, psychologists working with these populations, both as researchers and equally clinicians, should instead place the individual against a chronological backdrop that regards the expression of symptoms every bit a reflection of the multiple intersecting factors impinging on the individual at any one indicate in time that may accept changed from the by and may change in the futurity. Rarely do we take the luxury, in clinical settings, of longitudinal data against which to evaluate the older adult. Thus, adequate cess should include a thorough history-taking, the use of informants, and the use of multiple information sources from a diverseness of disciplines. Research on late-life psychopathology could be greatly strengthened by assessment of early on life adventure and protective factors, recognizing that prospective studies are not necessarily sufficient to capture the lifelong advantages or disadvantages individuals bring to old age. These advantages and disadvantages, which at the individual level are integral to the individual's identity, at the group level may provide u.s. with tools that can optimize both functional and psychological well-being.

The epidemiological data surveyed in this chapter suggest that proportionally fewer older adults suffer from psychopathology than younger adults. This lower prevalence is no doubtfulness at to the lowest degree partially explained by differential mortality, merely also suggests that older adults may bring coping strategies to the chore of coping with mental illness that younger people have not nonetheless adult. Understanding, and capitalizing on, such strategies volition allow usa to remember nigh treatment of disorders in late life not only in terms of remission of symptoms, only as well in terms of maximizing quality of life. The majority of older adults maintain high levels of subjective well-being, even in the face of serious health problems and physical limitations. Those who suffer symptoms of mental illness should likewise be evaluated with the goal of restoring or optimizing well-being and independence.

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Emotions

1000.L. Schmidt , R. Schulz , in Encyclopedia of Gerontology (Second Edition), 2007

Theoretical Perspectives on Emotion in Older Adults

Research that derives from an explicit life span perspective of development and focuses on emotions is still relatively rare. One of import exception to this general conclusion is the work on socioemotional selectivity theory (SST) by Carstensen and colleagues, which postulates that in belatedly life, social interaction is increasingly more likely to be motivated by attempts to regulate emotion and increasingly less likely to be motivated by information-seeking goals. This in turn affects the type of social partners chosen past older people as well equally the types of social interaction in which they engage. A broad array of evidence is available to support this proffer, including the fact that every bit social contacts reject with age, older persons are more likely to prefer familiar over unfamiliar social partners and are more probable to think most social partners in affective terms.

Another approach to considering the role of emotions in the context of development throughout the life course is articulated by Schulz and Heckhausen in their life span theory of control. They posit a motivation for master control (i.e., having bear on on the external world) equally a major driving force in both survival and development. In this model, emotions serve as the fuel of a regulatory arrangement whose major goal is to maximize the main control potential of the organism. Both positive and negative impact generated through interactions with the environs accept the potential of energizing the organism toward further primary command striving. Secondary control processes (i.due east., having bear upon on the internal cognitive earth of the private) serve the office of protecting and enhancing primary control and are closely linked to emotions. An emotional response can instigate a secondary control process, which in turn promotes the motivational resource needed for main control striving. Thus, the emotions system serves as a signal and as a motivational resource in shaping human behavior. This view is fundamentally different from SST in that information technology claims that emotions cannot be ends in themselves, although they may serve as proximal goals in specific situations. Another way of putting this is that maximizing primary control, rather than feeling good, is a major goal of human development. This view of the experience of emotions emphasizes their role as facilitators or mediators of main control and is consistent with Nico Frijda's evolutionary perspective reflected in his argument that "the homo mind (is not) fabricated for happiness merely instantiating the blind biological laws of survival" (1998: 354).

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Background of Social Validity

Stacy L. Carter , in The Social Validity Manual, 2010

PBS Criterion II: Life Span Perspective

The second critical feature of PBS involves a life span perspective. This feature of PBS is differentiated from practical behavior analysis in that it redefines the maintenance of behaviors and information technology proposes examining changes in behavior and lifestyle for lengthy periods of time that include decades of change rather than months of success. Within practical behavior assay, maintenance is measured by beliefs change that persists when a treatment procedure is removed or discontinued. Inside PBS, the measurement of maintenance is replaced with the examination of how treatment might be farther adult or modified to ensure continued success, merely treatment is never completely removed. The treatments developed within PBS are considered to be pliable in that they might never be removed but rather modified to see the changing lifestyles of those involved with the treatment.

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Personality development in close relationships

Christine Finn , ... Franz J. Neyer , in Personality Development Across the Lifespan, 2017

Peers

In dissimilarity to kinship or romantic partners, the definition of peers equally a relationship category is somewhat unclear. This may be due to the fact that peer relationships incorporate different characteristics and functions across the life bridge. For example, peer relationships can include peripheral ties to neighbors, classmates, or colleagues, and likewise very close relationships with friends; each different type of peer relationship fulfills singled-out functions of instrumental or emotional support (Kahn & Antonucci, 1982; Trinke & Bartholomew, 1997). In a similar vein, peers may influence the individual at two levels: the group level and the human relationship level (Reitz, Zimmermann, Hutteman, Specht, & Neyer, 2014).

Grouping-level effects describe the influence of ane's whole network of peers on that individual. According to group socialization theory (Harris, 1995), peer effects on personality development tin can be explained in terms of assimilation and differentiation processes. Assimilation pertains to the adoption of group norms that guide behaviors, thoughts, and feelings, resulting in increased similarity of grouping members over time. In dissimilarity, differentiation pertains to differences in group status and social comparisons, resulting in increased dissimilarity of grouping members over time. Both types of grouping-level effects have mainly been causeless to occur from childhood to young adulthood. With regard to assimilation processes, Kerr, Lambert, Stattin, and Klackenberg-Larsson (1994) plant that shy boys but non shy girls became more outgoing from age half dozen to 16 years; the authors attributed this modify to the specific behavioral norms of boys' and girls' respective peer groups. Social inclusion in one's peer network was also shown to affect the development of cocky-esteem during adolescence (Hutteman, Nestler, Wagner, Egloff, & Back, 2015). Even so, articulate empirical evidence is lacking with regard to the differentiation processes that explain why personality characteristics differ between individuals from the same peer group. Overall, the data on grouping-level furnishings are deficient and largely limited to childhood and adolescence.

Relationship-level furnishings may explain private differences in personality evolution within peer groups. Specific dyadic relationships such as with one'southward best friend or roommate have been assumed to be more than important from young adulthood on. The social relations model (Kenny & la Voie, 1985) and the personality and social relationships framework (PERSOC; Back et al., 2011) address the influence of human relationship-level effects on personality evolution. Both approaches presume that peer dyad members shape each other'south feelings, thoughts, and behaviors through repeated interaction patterns. For example, steeper increases in openness and conjuration, and decreases in conscientiousness were shown for immature adults living with roommates equally compared to young adults living with their parents (Jonkmann, Thoemmes, Lüdtke, & Trautwein, 2014). In addition, support provided by one's best friend predicted increases in extraversion from historic period 17 to 23, whereas higher levels of conflict predicted decreases in extraversion and self-esteem (Sturaro, Denissen, van Aken, & Asendorpf, 2008). With regard to the differentiation between shut and peripheral ties, Mund and Neyer (2014) establish that less insecurity and higher closeness and disharmonize with friends predicted decreased neuroticism, whereas more closeness and importance for more than peripheral relationships predicted decreased extraversion and conscientiousness from young to centre machismo. As these examples illustrate, most research on peer influence on personality development has not looked beyond young adulthood, ignoring the role of friends in middle and old age (Wrzus, Zimmermann, Mund, & Neyer, in press). Although it has been established that peer networks decrease in size and importance as family relations become more of import in old age (Lang, 2000; Van Tilburg, 1998; Wrzus et al., 2013), the effects of peers on personality evolution in this phase of life remain unclear.

Do findings match the life bridge hypothesis?

The research reviewed in this department at least partly supports the life span perspective. Both grouping-level (Kerr et al., 1994) and human relationship-level effects (Jonkmann et al., 2014; Sturaro et al., 2008) in adolescence and young machismo may mirror age-graded relationship transitions such as entering schoolhouse or university, which open new networks and pave the fashion to peer influence on personality evolution. Still, peers may also play a role in less normative life transitions such as international mobility experiences. Spending time abroad affected personality evolution in boyhood and young adulthood by ways of social inclusion and the feel of relationship fluctuation (Hutteman et al., 2015; Zimmermann & Neyer, 2013). All in all, the current state of research suggests that peer furnishings decrease after childhood and boyhood and are only small to negligible during young adulthood (Wrzus & Neyer, in press). Still, over again, most studies are express to the younger ages and empirical findings on peer effects in later periods of life are rare.

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Comparative and Cross-Cultural Studies

C.50. Fry , in Encyclopedia of Gerontology (Second Edition), 2007

Life Class

One of the major theoretical breakthroughs in gerontology has been the emergence of the life span perspective. Initially, gerontology coalesced with a focus on old age. Old historic period and all its diversity cannot be isolated from the rest of adulthood. Consequently, the life course became a major unit in gerontological research. Cross-cultural research challenges the fashion nosotros have modeled the life class.

A long-continuing problem in social anthropology suggested ways in which age tin be formalized into an explicit principle of social organization. A number of small societies make relative historic period a criterion by which the males are organized into historic period-stratified groups. Cohorts of boys are initiated into an age class. These classes are sometimes called age sets or generation sets and are bounded groups that are opened for recruitment and then closed once they are complete. A more junior set is then opened. All men are members of a set, and sets are ranked in seniority – boys, warriors, householders, elders, and so forth. The specifics of how the historic period classes are organized are quite variable, merely in the formality of historic period organization such concepts as historic period grading, age stratification, and historic period norms were documented in simpler social contexts and sharply defined.

Life courses are seen as part courses ordered by age norms and expectations. Cohorts enter adulthood upon completing a finely age-graded organization of formal education. Jobs and spousal relationship signal full adult status. Within families, generations get more distinctive due to lower fertility and childbearing occurring well-nigh commonly in the 20s or very early on 30s. Inside jobs, we find seniority and for some career ladders based on seniority, experience, and greater responsibility. A new stage is entered with retirement and an get out from the labor force. Although private function courses are variable, life courses are seen as sequenced and staged. The life grade is divisible into intervals distinguished by age-sensitive status transitions.

Age class systems and a staged life form appear to be parallels in differing cultural contexts. Beyond defining graded categories, the similarity vanishes. Age classes are political institutions organizing males in a public arena. For the almost part, they are almost salient in the junior classes; they see diminishing significance for the more than senior males. Age classes practise not organize all of life and ordinarily only indirectly affect women. The staged life grade is a nearly-universal expectation from youth to erstwhile historic period. This view of the life course is also restricted to industrialized societies, particularly to the centre classes of those societies. People in pocket-sized-scaled societies practise non run into life equally sequenced through life stages. Historic period-sensitive roles are not conspicuously demarcated. Formal education is rare and not universal, thus in that location are no finely age-graded classes. Wage labor is intermittent, and in that location is no real task market. No 1 retires from subsistence activities. Fertility is higher, and families are much less differentiated by historic period, with siblings who may exist separated by twenty or more than years. Under these circumstances, people take life courses that annotation youth and old age, merely they are more functionally and individually defined. Even in industrialized societies, people who are marginalized in poverty aspire to, but notice difficult to attain, a sequenced life course.

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