Age-Graded Changes in Middle Adulthood

           Many people would agree that as you age, your development as a human seems to take different turns that they may have never experienced previously. One of the defiant changes in middle age development is categorized as age-graded changes, which includes physical, cognitive, and life-task aspects. Two theorists have significantly contributed to the Age-Graded Changes research, who are known as Erik Erikson and Daniel Levinson. Through their research, these theorists have given us an idea based on how our age-graded changes effect out daily lives as we grow into middle adulthood. The changes may place physical, mental, and challenging life burdens on the individual because of the aging body that cannot remain in its youth state. As we development into middle adult years, the person will begin to find that such changes will cause unknown experiences, which gently or heavily force adaptation to the new phases of life. The life starts to transform in numerous ways, including physical, cognitive, and life-task as age-graded changes being to play a role in each person as they reach middle adulthood, causing an impact on the individual’s life and their family but there must be education and advocacy to support the middle-age population.

            Age-Graded Changes can be defined by three categories, which are physical changes, cognitive changes, and life-task or life-course changes in middle adulthood. Together, these three categories tell the development of humans as they reach middle adulthood and how it impacts their lives, leaving them to face different challenges that will come with each classification. Physical changes can be defined based the person’s body and how it begins to grow down, which is known as senescing. The decline in physical characteristics include things like sensory systems such as acuity and sensitivity to lighting and auditory stimulus but also change regarding nociception, which may cause inflammation and pain deep within the body. Men and women will also face varying declines in their bodies in middle adulthood such as andropause in men and menopause in women, which begins to change their reproductive system. The physical changes can heavily disrupt the individual’s daily life in activities like their job.

            Cognitive changes in adulthood are more complex and varying among each individual depending on their abilities to use the mechanics of intelligence and the pragmatics of intelligence. Developmental researchers have determined difference between mechanics, also known as fluid intelligence, and pragmatics, also known as crystallized intelligence because they both exhibit very different processes of our cognitive abilities. Fluid intelligence is described as the “basic operational characteristics that seem to directly reflect how well the ‘hardware’ of the nervous system is working, affecting the efficiency of processes like reasoning” (Broderick & Blewitt, 2015). Also, the executive functioning cognitive process is closely linked to fluid intelligence, and can be effected in middle adulthood by slowing the person’s ability use their working memory, practice flexibility, and use self-regulation techniques. The effects on working memory can cause the person to lose their capabilities of having a continuously active mind, meaning that they cannot attend to multiple pieces of information at one moment. On the other hand, crystallized intelligence is defined by every bit of procedural and declarative information that exists in our mind that has been acquired throughout a lifetime. Crystallized intelligence does not decrease as quickly as fluid intelligence and has also been shown to increase in middle-age, which depends greatly on the person’s cognitive processes and capabilities. Together, fluid and crystalline can help balance the cognitive loss, while decreasing the likelihood of overall declination of intelligence before reaching elder years. Mechanics and pragmatics also play a role in the person’s long-term memory and learning information, allowing middle-aged adults to perform well in memory related tasks and factual information tasks but may decrease in the short-term memory skillset.

             Last of the three age-graded changes is Life-Task, or Life-Course changes, which are “brought on by shifts in the life tasks that seem most important to is at different times of our life” (Broderick & Blewitt, 2015). Many theorists have taken a chance to discuss unique and important aspect of middle adulthood through various research studies. A commonality of each theorist is their research on the topic of generativity and how a person’s life structure evolves as they age. The individual must be able to establish generativity within their lives to ensure that they are capable of developing into middle adulthood and work towards generative accomplishments in areas such as career consolidation, mentoring, and giving. The theorist Erik Erikson tells us that middle-aged adults will pass through a stage of generativity, where they will practice various things like community service and child rearing to give their life an ultimate purpose. A theorist named Vaillant adds on to Erikson and sets forth a stage of life that is called the keeper of meaning, which is primarily described as the person’s willingness to expand generative concerns and work to preserve parts of their culture by doing more than making a productive contribution to life. Overall, life-task changes allow middle-aged adults to assess their life and hope to feel accomplished but also helps them search for ways to continue meeting needs.

            During these middle adulthood life changes, the families may also be affected by their loved one’s changes because they are now seeing and experiencing a new chapter in life. Now that the middle-aged adult is exhibiting various changes, it is natural to expect changes in their personality, whether it be because of their inability to remember to do something or that their personality traits and values are shifting due to generativity changes. The family members are now being influenced by the effects that aging is taking on their mother or father figure, which can be a challenge in many cases. A young-adult child of a middle-aged adult may not understand their parent’s inability to remember where the car is parked or why they are slower to learn how to use a smartphone but it is important that they adapt to these life changes. If the family member cannot understand why the person is changing, then they will be faced with challenges that may lead to arguments, which could transform a relationship in a negative way. It is also important that the family member understands that the mother or fathers physicality is going to change immensely, and is often aggravating to the middle aged person. In middle adulthood, the person may be experiencing difficulties with vision, hearing, and pains, which implies that they will be heavily relying on their family members to provide care and sometimes transportation for them. As parents age into middle adulthood, their children must be willing to change their lifestyles and accommodate their mother/father’s needs to be sure that they can live life fully. If the topic of age-graded changes where to go unaddressed by families, the individual may not thrive as they enter middle adulthood. A person in the beginning and late stages of middle adulthood need much support from all family members because it is a time in their lives that is entirely new and continuously changing. It is important for the family members to understand and adapt to the individual’s changes because their support will make a difference in the remainder of the middle-aged person’s life.

            As people in society, there must be education and advocacy given to those who are stepping into middle adulthood because it is a hard time in life due to many life and body changes. To make a shift, we might ask ourselves what I can do to help people and make a difference for those who are experiencing the transition into middle adulthood. By trying to make a difference in the lives of these adults, we may find it necessary to do our research and discover who middle adulthood effects more, whether it be people of a lower or higher socioeconomic status, we must determine whose lives we should be touched the most. Making a difference for these people will be all about education on the topic of age-graded change. I find it necessary to seek the knowledge needed to understand that your body, mind, and life-course will be changing immensely. We must teach them how to adapt to these changes without getting angry or discouraged when facing the reality of age and how it affects every aspect of life. Also, it is important that family members understand that their loved one will be beginning a new part of life and it will change their family dynamic as each person ages. The families should know and learn that their mother/father will be relying on them for support, encouragement, and assistance with newfound obstacles. Everyone in Family and Consumer Sciences should feel called to understand these aspects and changes in a person’s life as they reach middle adulthood, allowing them to be advocates for these individuals. As an advocate, you should take steps to educate people, provide information, feel a connection with the middle adulthood aged people, and work towards understanding why life takes a turn as you begin aging.

            In conclusion, age-graded changes consist of a variety of factors that affect those who are entering and living in middle adulthood. This time in a person’s life should be filled with support by loved ones and the community advocates because each life matters and we should hope that they feel that they have accomplished something in their lifetime. Generativity is the main topic of discussion in the sense that it affects how the person evolves and becomes a mentor to the younger individuals. Also, cognitive and physical changes should be substantially known because the middle-aged person will experience aches, pains, memory loss, and sensitivity to things that they have never felt before. Overall, the topic of age-graded changes is necessary for all individuals to learn about and discuss because we will all face middle adulthood and we should be prepared for the obstacles that will be presented in our lives.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Works Cited

Broderick, P. C., & Blewitt, P. (2015). The Life Span: Human Development for Helping   Professionals (4th ed.). Boston : Pearson .