FRHD 2060 Midterm Exam #1 Questions with Correct
Answers
The Life Span Perspective - ✔✔Divides human development into two phases: an
early phase (childhood and adolescence) and a later phase (young adulthood,
middle age, and old age). The early stage is characterized by rapid increases in
people's size and abilities and later changes are slow and abilities continue to
develop as people continue adapting to the environment
Multidirectionality - ✔✔Development involves both growth and decline; as
people grow in one area they may lose in another and at different rates e.g.
Vocabulary increases but reaction time slows down
Plasticity - ✔✔One's capacity is not predetermined or set in concrete. Many skills
can be trained or improved with practice even in late life and there are no limits
to the degree of potential improvement
Historical context - ✔✔Each of us develops within a particular set of
circumstances determined by the historical time in which we are born and the
culture in which we grow up
Multiple causation - ✔✔How people develop results from a wide variety of forces
e.g. Biological, psychological, sociocultural, and life-cycle
Three critical factors - ✔✔1. As people age, they begin to focus on abilities
deemed essential for functioning
2. People then optimize their behaviour by focusing on this more limited set of
abilities
3. People learn to compensate for declines by designing work around strategies
,SOC (Selective Optimization Compensation - ✔✔Approach explains how people
shift more and more resources to maintain function and deal with biologically
related losses
The four forces of development - ✔✔Biological, psychological, sociocultural, life-
cycle
Biological - ✔✔Include all genetic and health related factors that affect
development e.g. Menopause, facial wrinkling, and changes in the major organ
systems
Psychological - ✔✔Include all internal perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and
personality forces, which make up the characteristics that we notice about people
that make them individuals
Sociocultural - ✔✔Include interpersonal, societal, cultural, and ethnic factors that
affect development and provide the overall context in which we develop
Life-cycle - ✔✔Reflect differences in how the same event or combination of
biological, psychological, and sociocultural forces affect people at different points
in their lives. Provides the context for the developmental differences of interest in
adult development and aging
Biopsychosocial framework - ✔✔Provides a complete overview of the shapers of
human development
, Cohort - ✔✔A group of people born at the same point in time or within a specific
time span
Normative age-graded influences - ✔✔Experiences caused by biological,
psychological, and sociocultural forces that occur to most people of a particular
age e.g. Menopause
Normative history-graded influences - ✔✔Events that most people in a specific
culture experience at the same time (may be biological, psychological, or
sociocultural e.g. 911
Nonnormative influences - ✔✔Random or rare events that may be important for
a specific individual but are not experienced by most people could be favorable
e.g. Winning the lottery or bad e.g. Layoff
Primary aging - ✔✔Normal, disease-free development during adulthood.
Inevitable changes such as menopause, decline in reaction time, etc.
Secondary aging - ✔✔Developmental changes that are related to disease,
lifestyle, and other environmentally induced changes that are not inevitable e.g.
Pollution
Tertiary aging - ✔✔Rapid losses that occur shortly before death e.g. Terminal
drop in which intellectual abilities show a marked decline in the last few years
before death
Chronological age - ✔✔Defining age based on how long we have been alive (a
shorthand index variable along with gender, ethnicity, etc.)
Answers
The Life Span Perspective - ✔✔Divides human development into two phases: an
early phase (childhood and adolescence) and a later phase (young adulthood,
middle age, and old age). The early stage is characterized by rapid increases in
people's size and abilities and later changes are slow and abilities continue to
develop as people continue adapting to the environment
Multidirectionality - ✔✔Development involves both growth and decline; as
people grow in one area they may lose in another and at different rates e.g.
Vocabulary increases but reaction time slows down
Plasticity - ✔✔One's capacity is not predetermined or set in concrete. Many skills
can be trained or improved with practice even in late life and there are no limits
to the degree of potential improvement
Historical context - ✔✔Each of us develops within a particular set of
circumstances determined by the historical time in which we are born and the
culture in which we grow up
Multiple causation - ✔✔How people develop results from a wide variety of forces
e.g. Biological, psychological, sociocultural, and life-cycle
Three critical factors - ✔✔1. As people age, they begin to focus on abilities
deemed essential for functioning
2. People then optimize their behaviour by focusing on this more limited set of
abilities
3. People learn to compensate for declines by designing work around strategies
,SOC (Selective Optimization Compensation - ✔✔Approach explains how people
shift more and more resources to maintain function and deal with biologically
related losses
The four forces of development - ✔✔Biological, psychological, sociocultural, life-
cycle
Biological - ✔✔Include all genetic and health related factors that affect
development e.g. Menopause, facial wrinkling, and changes in the major organ
systems
Psychological - ✔✔Include all internal perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and
personality forces, which make up the characteristics that we notice about people
that make them individuals
Sociocultural - ✔✔Include interpersonal, societal, cultural, and ethnic factors that
affect development and provide the overall context in which we develop
Life-cycle - ✔✔Reflect differences in how the same event or combination of
biological, psychological, and sociocultural forces affect people at different points
in their lives. Provides the context for the developmental differences of interest in
adult development and aging
Biopsychosocial framework - ✔✔Provides a complete overview of the shapers of
human development
, Cohort - ✔✔A group of people born at the same point in time or within a specific
time span
Normative age-graded influences - ✔✔Experiences caused by biological,
psychological, and sociocultural forces that occur to most people of a particular
age e.g. Menopause
Normative history-graded influences - ✔✔Events that most people in a specific
culture experience at the same time (may be biological, psychological, or
sociocultural e.g. 911
Nonnormative influences - ✔✔Random or rare events that may be important for
a specific individual but are not experienced by most people could be favorable
e.g. Winning the lottery or bad e.g. Layoff
Primary aging - ✔✔Normal, disease-free development during adulthood.
Inevitable changes such as menopause, decline in reaction time, etc.
Secondary aging - ✔✔Developmental changes that are related to disease,
lifestyle, and other environmentally induced changes that are not inevitable e.g.
Pollution
Tertiary aging - ✔✔Rapid losses that occur shortly before death e.g. Terminal
drop in which intellectual abilities show a marked decline in the last few years
before death
Chronological age - ✔✔Defining age based on how long we have been alive (a
shorthand index variable along with gender, ethnicity, etc.)
