Physical Development in Adulthood

4 Key excerpts on "Physical Development in Adulthood"

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  Human Growth and Development Across the Lifespan

  Applications for Counselors

  • David Capuzzi, Mark D. Stauffer(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  Part 6 Young Adulthood Passage contains an image

  Chapter 13 Young Adulthood: Physical and Cognitive Development

  Janet Froeschle Hicks and Brandé Flamez

  Young adulthood refers to individuals between adolescence and middle age (All Psychology Careers, 2014; Levinson, 1978). Despite fewer physical and cognitive changes occurring than previously seen during adolescence, gradual transitions in physical and cognitive development continue throughout the 20s and 30s. Physical and biological factors become evident through changes in appearance, strength, joints, bones, lung and heart functioning, as well as sexuality. Cognitive health habits during early adulthood correlate with later life memory and brain functioning. Given the connection between physical and mental health (Collingwood, 2010; Russell-Chapin & Jones, 2014) and the importance of self-care on future development, counselors are in optimal positions to assist early adults with decisions that affect quality of life. As a result, this chapter offers information on physical and cognitive changes for those in early adulthood as well as information counselors need to improve clients' current and future mental health.

  Box 13.1: Improving Client Health

  Carmela is a 20-year-old African American female who comes to you for counseling. She states that she has been told by her medical doctor that she is overweight and headed for health issues if she doesn't change her diet and start exercising. When asked if she is making these changes, Carmela states, “I am not worried about it now. I will worry about it when I get old—you know, when it really affects me.” As Carmela's counselor, what is your ethical responsibility? What might you say to Carmela?

  Definition of Terms

  To understand physical and cognitive development, a distinction must be made between several terms. Biological changes include the physical functioning of the human body whereas cognitions refer to brain- and memory-related aspects. Each term is described as follows.

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  Developmental Psychology For The Health Care Professions, Part Ii

  Young Adult Through Late Aging

  • Howard. S. Feldman(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  1 A Developmental Perspective on Adulthood

  Introduction

  Since the 1960s, there has been growing interest in and research on the adult years of the life cycle. Previously, developmental studies had focused on childhood and adolescence, in which an orderly relationship between age and growth was assumed. Adulthood had been looked at as a time of stability, the end point of earlier developmental processes. The changes presumed to occur during adulthood were typically seen as centering around issues of deterioration that take place gradually, universally, and in an age-related pattern. These assumptions are now being challenged, and the span of time between early adulthood and ultimate death has become an area of great research activity. The new orientation looks at human development as a life-long process with change taking place throughout every phase, and its goal is to identify which changes take place at which points in the life course and to establish the nature of the patterns and interrelationships of these changes. Throughout adulthood, individuals experience growth, stability, stagnation, and deterioration in many aspects of their lives. These processes are subject to an intricate interaction between biological, psychological, and socioenvironmental factors.

  We will be looking at three periods of adulthood identified on the basis of chronological age: young adulthood, from 18 to 40; middle adulthood, from 40 to 65; and later adulthood, from 65 until death. This division is somewhat arbitrary, although it has heuristic value; issues and events actually overlap these periods and may occur repeatedly throughout adulthood. The first chapter provides a general overview of adult developmental psychology and explores physiological changes in young and middle adulthood. The second and third chapters explore young and middle adulthood, respectively, and examine psychological issues that are dealt with during those periods, as well as the adult's involvement in relationships and work. The next three chapters focus on later adulthood, with the fourth looking at the relationship between health and aging and the fifth examining the research on cognitive changes that take place in later adulthood. The last chapter explores psychosocial processes such as coping, adaptation, retirement, and death in old age.

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  Human Behavior in the Social Environment

  Perspectives on Development, the Life Course, and Macro Contexts

  • Anissa Taun Rogers(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  In this chapter, we will explore some issues that tend to manifest during this particular time in life and consider the ways in which social workers can help young adults who face problems. DEVELOPMENTAL MILESTONES IN YOUNG ADULTS With the conclusion of puberty, physical development tends to stabilize, and many individuals enjoy peak physical performance during young adulthood. Many young adults also enjoy optimal physical health and find themselves relatively free of pain, disease, and illness. However, young adulthood is also a time when the negative consequences of lifestyle factors such as stress, smoking, overeating, substance use, lack of exercise, and poor sleep habits can begin to accumulate, causing illness and disease later in life. Many of the processes of cognitive development that occur earlier in life begin to stabilize during young adulthood. According to Jean Piaget (1972), most people reach the formal operations stage in their early teens, when they become capable of qualitative thought, using logic and reason to guide their thinking. However, while teenagers may have the cognitive abilities to think like adults, many theorists and researchers argue that cognitively, young adults are slightly different from their younger counterparts. Specifically, young adults may be more sophisticated in the ways that they proceed through formal operational thought than they were in their teen years. Some researchers further argue that young adults become more reflective and realistic as they gain experience, and they become more adept at applying knowledge to real-world situations. The development of these skills is very individualistic, however, meaning that not all people develop these skills fully or at the same time

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  Social Structure and Aging

  Psychological Processes

  • K. Warner Schaie, Carmi Schooler(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Psychology Press

    (Publisher)

  Population Studies Perspective is a broader area of inquiry that brings the contributions of a wide variety of disciplines to bear on our understanding of the demographic factors (Hauser & Duncan, 1959). The population studies perspective emphasizes that demographic factors are best understood in a context that includes the social, political, and economic evolution of the society whose population we are investigating. This chapter is based entirely on the situation in the United States, and I have serious reservations about the extent to which any of my ideas apply to other cultures.

  The adult development perspective concerns the psychological evolution of the individual from the time he or she reaches the socially defined beginning of adulthood to the end of the human life span. As used here, the word development implies neither contraction nor expansion but merely the cumulative response to one’s life history. Individual development involves the acquisition and accumulation of ideas, which we often differentiate into knowledge, attitudes, values, beliefs and ideologies, and psychological skills, to which we apply labels such as intelligence, learning, memory, creativity, thinking, problem solving, and coping. Further, the developmental perspective looks at the mind and its various dimensions as an evolving whole. This evolutionary perspective is useful for us to gain insights into the effects of aging on the interaction between the individual’s mental processes, subjective experiences, and adaptive strategies on the one hand and his or her social environment on the other (Atchley, 1983).

  Demographic effects on adult development can be both direct and indirect. For example, the size of one’s birth cohort directly influences the social context within which adult development takes place. Because peer groups are age graded and limited to a size that will allow face-to-face communication, as the size of an age cohort increases the larger the number of peer groups to be found within it, the greater the diversity of behavioral norms across peer groups, and the lower the sense of identity with the entire cohort (Mott, 1965). All these factors can influence which skills are reinforced and which are not. On the other hand, cohort size indirectly influences occupational development through its effect on the amount of competition within an occupational area. The degree of job competition in turn may influence the priorities given to various developmental issues. This topic needs further research.

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