Growing Old in a New Age Growing Old in a New Age
Program Lesson 6 Intellect, Personality, and Mental Health
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James Tate exercises his intellectual skills as a guide at Gettysburg |
Reasoning and spatial ability skills are regained in older adults with training |
Personality characteristics tend to be stable over the lifespan |
Reduction of stress can contribute to mental and physical health |
Learning Objectives
Discuss strengths and weaknesses of longitudinal and cross-sectional designs in the study of adult intellectual development
Video
The video consists of four segments. The first segment focuses on intellectual skills over the life span. The second segment reviews the current thinking on personality and aging. In the third segment, experts and elders discuss factors that promote or maintain good mental health in later life. The final segment provides a brief look at future directions for research in the psychology of aging.
Text
Video Quote: K. Warner Schaie, Ph.D., notes that personality plays a role in maintaining older adults' mental abilities
K. Warner Schaie: "We also know something about personality characteristics. It's very clear that people who are open to new experiences, whom we might call flexible people, tend to fare much better as they get older than people who tend to be rigid and who have to have everything their own way. Well, the interesting thing about old age is that things don't become simpler. If anything, they become more complicated. And those individuals who are comfortable in rolling with the punches tend to be the ones that weather it best and also maintain their abilities."
Chapter 6, "Personality and Mental Health in Old Age," presents information on stability and change in personality over the life course, how personality affects how we cope with and adapt to age-related and environmental changes, and the concept of successful aging. Also presented is information on mental disorders among older people, Alzheimer's disease, and use of mental health services.
Oliver Francisco: "My concept of spirituality in my younger years was intense, but kind of enclosed. And now those barriers are gone. And I see everything as spiritual...all of my relationships with other people, my relationship with the physical world. I've always enjoyed nature a great deal. But now it's a part of myself in a way that it had never been before. So my spirituality has grown. In fact, with many of the men I've talked with that's an area of our exploration right now...is the spirituality of ourselves as being in relationship to other people."
Herbert Benson: "Patients going through one of our studies, for example, who went through our program based on the relaxation response, nutrition, exercise, and cognitive restructuring, had lower blood pressures and required less medication. And of that 80 percent, 20 percent were able to stop their medications completely. And continued to have lower blood pressure. We've recently completed a follow-up study on these patients, follow-up of three to five years, and found the changes are maintained after that period of time. The blood pressure changes with the relaxation response have been proven by many laboratories from across the world."
Features of the Study and Faculty Guides
Study Guide (MySocKit)
Key points of the lesson, integrating video and text, are elucidated under the learning objective topics. Self-study questions help students prepare for exams. Descriptions of discussion and essay/research topics provide instructions for a variety of activities that may be assigned by the instructor. The Study Guide also provides a glossary of key terms and concepts covered in the telecourse and a listing of participants in the video.
Faculty Guide
The descriptions of discussion and essay/research topics presented in the Study Guide are reprinted in the Faculty Guide with tips for assigning the activities effectively. In addition, in-class activity suggestions and exam questions/answers are included. The Guide offers options appropriate for faculty using the telecourse in different settings, e.g., in-class, distance learning, interactive television, or a combination of formats. A Video Index helps instructors find segments of the video by time code and topic.
