Chapter 21: Adulthood: Cognitive Development
Chapter Preview
The way psychologists conceptualize intelligence has changed considerably
in recent years. Chapter 21 begins by examining the multidirectional
nature of intelligence, noting that some abilities (such as short-term
memory) decline with age, while others (such as vocabulary) increase with
age. This section includes a discussion of the debate over whether
cognitive abilities inevitably decline during adulthood, or may possibly
remain stable or even increase.
The chapter then examines the contemporary view of intelligence,
which emphasizes its multidimensional nature. Most experts now believe
that there are several distinct intelligences rather than a single general
entity.
The next section of the chapter discusses the cognitive expertise that
often comes with experience, pointing out the ways in which expert
thinking differs from that of the novice. Expert thinking is more
specialized, flexible, and intuitive, and is guided by more and better
problem-solving strategies. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion
of the recent shift in society in which family skills have become more
highly valued when performed by both women and men.
What Have You Learned?
The “What Have You Learned?” questions at the end of the text chapter
are reprinted here for your convenience in checking students'
understanding of the chapter contents.
1. How successful are geneticists at finding g?
2. What does cross-sectional research on IQ scores throughout adulthood
usually find?
3. What does longitudinal research on IQ scores throughout adulthood
usually find?
4. In what ways are younger generations more intelligent than older
ones, according to cross-sequential research?
5. How do historical changes affect the results of longitudinal research?
6. How does cross-sequential research control for cohort effects?
7. What factors does Schaie think have significant impact on adult
intelligence?
8. Why would a person want to be higher in crystallized intelligence
than fluid intelligence?
9. Why would a person want to be higher in fluid intelligence than
crystallized intelligence?
10. If you want to convince your professors that you are smart, what
might you do and what intelligence does that involve?
11. If you want to convince your neighbors to compost their garbage, what
might you do and what kind of intelligence does that involve?
12. What kinds of tests could measure creative intelligence?
13. What might a person do to optimize ability in some area not discussed
in the book, such as playing the flute, or growing tomatoes, or building
a cabinet?
14. How might a person compensate for fading memory skills?
15. How does the saying “Can’t see the forest for the trees” relate to what
you have learned about adult cognition?
16. Think of an area of expertise that you have and most people do not.
What mistakes do people make who are not experts in your area?
17. Two characteristics of experts—automatic and flexible— seem to work
in opposite directions. Explain how an expert could avoid the problems
of this polarity.
18. How specifically might intuition aid as well as diminish ability?
19. In what occupations would age be an asset, and why?
20. In what occupations would age be a liability, and why?
Chapter Guide
“On Your Own” Activities: Developmental Fact or Myth?; Portfolio
Assignment
AV: The Journey Through the Life Span, Program 8: Middle Adulthood;
Transitions Throughout the Life Span, Program 21: Middle Adulthood:
Cognitive Development
Classroom Activity: -Problem-Based Learning: Cognitive Development
During Adulthood
Teaching Tip: Student-Generated Lecture Summaries
I. What Is Intelligence?
Instructional Objective: To help students understand the
differences among the various methods of testing
intelligence and to recognize that intellectual abilities
can follow many different developmental patterns with
age.
AV: -Intelligence; IQ Testing and the School
Classroom Activities: -Cohort and Intelligence; “Test-Wise” Bias
1. Historically, psychologists considered intelligence to be a single
ability, what Charles Spearman referred to as g, or general
intelligence.
2. For the first half of the twentieth century, researchers believed that
intellectual ability rises in childhood, peaks during adolescence, then
declines steadily as age advances. This belief was based on the results
of cross-sectional research.
3. More recently, researchers have begun to doubt whether there is an
inevitable decline in cognitive functioning with age. The longitudinal
studies of Nancy Bayley and Melita Oden, for example, indicate that
the IQ scores of Terman’s gifted individuals increased between ages
20 and 50. A follow-up study by Bayley found that the typical person
at age 36 had improved on tests of vocabulary, comprehension, and
information.
4. The earlier evidence of a decline in cognitive ability may be
attributable to the shortcomings of cross-sectional research. Because
it is impossible to match people in every aspect except age, cohort
effects are inevitable. Longitudinal research also has shortcomings.
People’s performance on tests might improve with practice. Also, some
people leave the study; those who remain are usually the most stable,
well-functioning adults.
5. Throughout the world, studies have shown a general trend toward
increasing average IQ over successive generations. This trend is called
the Flynn effect.
6. To correct for the limitations of the cross-sectional and longitudinal
research methodologies, K. Warner Schaie developed the crosssequential research design for his Seattle Longitudinal
Study. Each time his original cross section of adults was retested on
primary mental abilities (longitudinal design), he also tested a new
group of adults at each age interval and then followed them
longitudinally as well, thus controlling for the possible effects of
retesting, as well as uncovering the impact of cohort differences.
Schaie’s results confirmed and extended what others had
found: People improve in most mental abilities in adulthood.
7. In testing older Germans, Paul Baltes found that not until the 80s
does every cognitive ability show age-related average declines.
II.
Components of Intelligence: Many and Varied
Instructional Objective: To help students recognize that
intelligence is multidimensional and practical.
AV: Intelligence, Creativity, and Thinking Styles; MI: Intelligence,
Understanding, and the Mind; Multiple Intelligences
Classroom Activities: Fluid and Crystallized Intelligence; Sternberg’s
Theory of Human Intelligence; Comparing Ideas About Intelligence;
Classroom Debate: “Resolved: The Multidimensionality of Intelligence
Makes Standardized IQ Testing Obsolete”; Intuition and the Intelligence of
Everyday Life
 “On Your Own” Activity: -Measuring Creativity
Critical Thinking Activity: Devising an Intelligence Test
1. In the 1960s, Raymond Cattell and John Horn differentiated fluid
intelligence and crystallized intelligence.
a. Fluid intelligence is flexible reasoning and is made up of
the basic mental abilities such as inductive reasoning, abstract
thinking, and speed of thinking required for understanding any
subject.
b. Crystallized intelligence refers to the accumulation of
facts, information, and knowledge that comes with education and
experience.
2. Fluid intelligence declines during adulthood, although this decline is
temporarily masked by an increase in crystallized intelligence.
3. Robert Sternberg has proposed that intelligence is composed of three
distinct parts: an analytic, or academic, aspect consisting of
mental processes that foster efficient learning, remembering, and
thinking; a creative aspect involving the capacity to be flexible and
innovative when dealing with new situations; and a practical
aspect that enables the person to adapt his or her abilities to
contextual demands.
4. Practical intelligence, sometimes called tacit intelligence, is
particularly useful in adulthood, when the demands of daily life are
omnipresent. Interestingly, practical intelligence is unrelated to
traditional intelligence as measured by IQ tests.
5. Which kind of intelligence is most valued depends on events in each
person’s life, partly because of culture and cohort, and partly because
of age.
III.
Selective Gains and Losses
Instructional Objective: To provide students with a sense
of the plasticity of intelligence and of how expertise
develops.
Teaching Tip: Expertise
1. A hallmark of successful aging is the ability to strategically use one’s
intellectual strengths to compensate for the declining capacities
associated with age. Paul and Margaret Baltes call this selective
optimization with compensation.
2. Some researchers believe that as we age, our intelligence increases in
specific areas that are of importance to us; that is, each of us becomes
a selective expert in a particular area.
3. Research suggests that four features distinguish the expert from the
novice.
a. Experts tend to rely more on their accumulated experience than on
rules to guide them and are thus more intuitive and less
stereotyped in their performance.
b. Many elements of expert performance are automatic.
c. The expert has more, and better, strategies for accomplishing a
particular task.
d. Experts are more flexible in their work.
4. In developing their abilities, experts point to the importance of
practice, usually 10 years or more and several hours a day before full
potential is achieved.
5. Research studies also indicate that expertise is quite specific, and that
practice and specialization cannot always overcome the effects of age.
6. Historically, research on expertise has focused on occupations that
once had more male than female workers. Today, more women are
working in occupations traditionally reserved for men. In addition,
domestic and caregiving tasks that were once considered women’s
work have gained new respect and are considered important when
performed by both women and men.