Transcript Objective 11-4

Aging and Intelligence
Module 11
AP Psychology
Rachel Brady
Daniel Torres
Bailee Barnett
p.3
Phase1: Cross-Sectional
Evidence for Intellectual Decline
• In Cross sectional studies researchers test and compare people
of various ages, when giving intelligence test to representative
samples of people researchers consistently find that older adults
give fewer correct answers than do younger adults
• David Wechsler, creator of the most widely used adult
intelligence test, concluded that the decline of mental ability with
age is part of the general aging process of the organisms as a
whole
Phase 2:Longitudinal Evidence
For Intellectual Stability
• Longitudinal Study: research in which the same people are
restudied and retested over a long period.
• Until late in life, intelligence remained stable. On some tests, it
increases.
• The myth that intelligence sharply declines with age, has been
proven false.
Examples:
• At 89 years old, Frank Lloyd Wright was the architect who
designed New York City's Guggenheim Museum.
• At age 70, John Rock developed the birth control pill.
• At age 78, Grandma Moses took up painting, and she painted
after age 100.
Phase 3: It All Depends
•
-Longitudinal studies may be inaccurate because the people that
survive to the end of them may be bright, healthy people whose
intelligence is less likely to decline.
-Intelligence is not a single trait, but a number of distinct skills
and abilities.
-With age, people lose recall memory and processing speed, but
they gain vocabulary and knowledge.
-Crystallized intelligence: one's accumulated knowledge and
verbal skills- tends to increase with age.
-Fluid intelligence: one's ability to reason speedily and
abstractly- tends to decrease with age.
For example:
-Mathematicians and scientists (fluid intelligence) produce most
of their creative work during their late twenties or early thirties,
but those in literature, history, and philosophy (crystallized
intelligence) tend to produce their best work in their forties,
fifties, and beyond.
-Poets (fluid intelligence) tend to reach their peak earlier than
prose authors (crystallized intelligence).
Social Development
• Many differences between younger and older adults are created
not by the physical and cognitive changes that accompany
aging but by life events associated with family relationships and
work
• A new job means new relationships new expectations and new
demands
• Marriage brings the joy of intimacy and the stress of merging
your life with another’s
• The birth of a child introduces responsibilities and significantly
alters your life focus
• The death of a loved one creates and irreplaceable loss and
need to reaffirm your own life