PSY 620P
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Later impact of sibling relationships
Erikson redux: Personality development
through the lifespan?
Cognitive functioning peaks?
Elder’s emotion regulation
Predictors of identity change
Waldinger, Vaillant, & Orav (2007)
Marchante
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Most studies assess adversity/neglect--& poor
parent relationships—as risk factors
Few studies have assessed sibling relationships
 Sibling conflict in middle childhood associated
with anxiety, depression, and delinquency in
adolescence
 Better siblings relationships in early adolescence
associated with less loneliness, depression, and
substance abuse in mid-adolescence
 In adults, sibling relationships associated with
mental health in cross-sectional designs
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Participants
 268 healthy, white male college students (ages 18-19)
recruited between 1939-1942
▪ “Sample chosen specifically for excellent mental health”
▪ 12 dropped out, 8 died in WWII; Final sample=229
Marchante
Marchante
• Family history of depression and poor sibling relationship quality before age 20
resulted in higher odds of MDD (controlling for quality of parenting in childhood)
• Family history of depression and poorer sibling relationships uniquely associated
with more use of mood-altering drugs
• Question: Other control variables to consider??
Marchante
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What are some mechanisms through which
childhood sibling relationships could affect
later depression?
Marchante
Erik Erikson’s Psychological Theory (1963)
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Psychodynamic
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One of first developmental theorists to argue that personality continues
to develop throughout lifespan
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Series of crises that need to be resolved; outcome can be either favorable
or unfavorable
Rochester Adult Longitudinal
Study (RALS)
 Investigation of the Eriksonian model begun in 1960s
at Rochester University
 Questionnaire measure of psychosocial development
administered to 349 students in 1965-1968 classes
 1977: F/U + new cohort of undergraduates added
 1988-89: F/U + new cohort of undergraduates added
 Follow-ups included measures of life events & identity
 Limitation of previous studies = use of Repeated
Measures ANOVA
Gender Moderation of Growth Curves
 Intercept: Women had higher Intimacy scores
 Slope:
 Men = consistent steady rise (linear change)
 Women = decelerating increase with peak in 40s
Gender x Cohort x Occupational prestige 
Industry
Men
Women
Cohort x Long term relationship 
Intimacy
Committed relationship (especially younger cohort) show elevated trajectory,
while not committed relationship show low intimacy and then slow increase
Conclusions & Questions to
Consider
 The authors state that results support the conclusion
that personality continues to develop through
midlife—do you agree?
 Authors argue that results “support the idea that
individuals can overcome early psychosocial deficits to
catch up with . . . initially more disadvantaged peers”
 Do you think this pattern would continue to hold up in
later cohorts (e.g., cohorts attending college in late 90s,
2000s, etc.)?
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Intuition posits: “typical adult” cognitive
abilities are stable
 However…
▪ Fluid intelligence (e.g., STM) peaks in early adulthood
▪ Crystalized intelligence (e.g., vocab) peaks in middle age
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Motivation to identify age-based change in
cognitive performance
 Widespread use of college students as controls
(may not be best practice)
 Lead to more optimal educational interventions
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Goal: Examine degree of heterogeneity in age of peak
performance
 Dataset: published, demographically stratified normative data from:
▪ WAIS-III (14 subtests)
▪ 2,450 healthy, Americans (ages 16-89)
▪ WMS-III (16 subtests)
▪ Half as many participants as WAIS-III, same age range
 Scaled scores  raw scores; & age group with highest
score was identified
Crystalized
Fluid Intelligence
However, more
complicated than the
dichotomy might
suggest…
Thoughts?
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Fine-grained analysis of heterogeneity in
peak performance age w/ fluid intelligence
 Internet-based methods; large samples, 5 tasks
 TestMyBrain.org
▪ Exp. 2 (N = 10,394; age 10-69)
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Digit Symbol Coding
Visual WM
Forward Digit Span (Verbal WM)
Vocabulary
▪ Exp. 3: (N = 11,532; age 10-71)
▪ Mind-in-eyes task (emotion perception)
GamesWithWords.org
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Cohort differences
 Internet-based sample = Wechsler-based sample
▪ For WM, and Processing Speed
▪ Not for Vocabulary (Internet ~65 vs. WAIS-III ~50)
▪ *Wechsler data 2-decades old*
▪ Flynn effect?
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Three cohorts:
▪ 74’ – 87’ (N = 9,155)
▪ 88’ – 97’ (N= 8,440)
▪ 98’ – 12’ (N = 9,255)
 10-item vocabulary test from General Social Surveys
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How do these results relate to your research?
 Peak performance?
 Internet-based data collection?
 Cohort effects?
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Would we find lifetime peak differences for
“non-cognitive” measures?
When are we fully developed?
Emotion Regulation in Older Age
Heather L. Urry and James J. Gross
R. Bernstein
• Older age is associated with losses in several domains:
• Physical
• Cognitive
• Social
• Yet, studies show older adults experience higher levels of wellbeing compared to younger adults (until very late in life)
R. Bernstein
• Losses experienced by older adults do not lead to lower levels
of well-being
• Does not explain increases in positive affect
• Reduced amygdala activation leads to reduced experience of
negative emotion
• Inconsistent as reduced amygdala activation should also lead to reduced
experience of positive emotion
• As people age, they get better at regulating their emotions
R. Bernstein
• Situation Selection – choosing the situations one will encounter on the
basis of the emotions that these situations are likely to produce
• Situation Modification – changing a situation one is in so as to influence
one’s emotional state
• Attentional Deployment – paying attention to certain aspects of the
situation or thinking of something else entirely
• Cognitive Change – reappraising the situation so as to change its
meaning in a way that alters the resultant emotional response
• Response Modulation – directly changing feelings, behavior, and
physiology after the multisystem response is already under way
R. Bernstein
• Older adults are more effective at situational selection and
attentional deployment
• Older adults report being better at controlling their emotions relative to
younger adults
• Older adults construct smaller, but closer social networks
• Younger adults are more successful using cognitive reappraisal
• Older adults are less successful a using detached reappraisal, but more
successful at using positive reappraisal, compared to younger adults
• Younger adults and older adults are similarly successful at
reducing outward expressions of emotion (response modulation)
R. Bernstein
SOC-ER Framework
People select and optimize particular emotion regulation strategies as a reflection of
available resources
• The size of the oval
indicates how much of
the resource is
available
• The size of the text
indicates the degree
of success/use of the
emotion regulation
process
R. Bernstein
Rumper, 2016
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What causes changes in perceived identity?
 Memories
 Morality
Rumper, 2016
Examine identity differences based on a relative or caretaker’s
perspective.
 Investigate similarities or differences across different
neurodegenerative diseases.
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 Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD)
 Alzheimer's Disease (AD)
 Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)
Rumper, 2016
 248 volunteers
▪ FTD n=76; AD n=114; ALS n=58
▪ 85% of caretakers were female
▪ 79% of patients were males
▪ 74% of caretakers responded about their spouse
Rumper, 2016
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Online Survey
 Symptomology
 Morality Personality Scale
 Relationship Deterioration items
Rumper, 2016
Rumper, 2016
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Two-way ANOVA
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Main effect for Disease
SEM
 Morality was the most powerful predictor of perceived
identity change across models
 Mediation Model
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Rumper, 2016
Rumper, 2016
Rumper, 2016
Would there be differences if there were multiple
people reporting identity change?
 This article focuses on the negative changes that occur
in neurodegeneration, could there be instances in
which positive changes could occur?
 If morality predicts identity, when is a person perceived
to have a stable identity?
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Rumper, 2016