Transcript 11-7: Well-Being Across the Life Span

Well-Being Across the Life
Span
Objective 11-7
Carmen Cortes
Diana Tinajero
Lily Yang
Brianna Hernandez
Priscillya Gunardi
Miss. Key
AP Psychology Period 5
2 December 2011
Objective 11-7
The moment we start living we start to grow
older.
People live their lives and don’t think about the
future very often, but a very common answer when
society is asked what they regret about their young
years they say, “taken my education more
seriously”(Kinnier and Metha, 1989).
It’s good to live life and think about it so that
later on you don’t have regrets.
Objective 11-7
 Many presume that over 65 years to be the worst
of times. Ronald Inglehart discovered when he
amassed interviews during the 1980s with
representative samples of nearly 170,000 people in
16 nations, older people reported that they had as
much happiness and satisfaction with life just like
younger people do.
 From early adulthood to midlife, people typically
experience a strengthening sense of identity,
confidence, and self-esteem but later in life
challenges arise such as, your body weakens, lose a
job, income shrinks, lose a family or friend or they
move away, etc.
Objective 11-7
Objective 11-7

Stability
-age is related to emotional differences
-as people age feelings are lessened
-there are always “average” feelings but as we age
excitement and or depression often occur less
EX: Compliments do not make older adults as elated, and
criticism affects them less as well.
 Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Reed Larson mapped
people’s emotions by signaling with electronic beepers to
report their current activities and feelings.
- teenagers moods are back to normal from elation or from
gloom in less than an hour
- adults emotions are less extreme but are longer lasting
Objective 11-7
 Amygdala of an older person shows a diminishing
activity in response to negative events while
maintaining its responsiveness to positive events.
 The bad feelings we associate with negative events
fade faster than do the good feelings we associate
with positive events.
 The positive feelings contribute to most older
people that life has been mostly good.
FIN..