Findings indicated: much interage consensus in expectations about the nature of adult development; the nature of adult development was perceived to be multidirectional (gains and losses coexist), although the overall conception implied increasing risk of decline and decreasing potential for growth across adult life span; and older adults held more…

Post-formal operational thought is characterized by both relativism and dialecticism. To examine age differences across adulthood in relativistic and dialectical thought, and to determine whether formal operations are necessary but not sufficient for these forms of thought, 20 young (mean age, 19.6), 20 middle aged (mean age, 46.2), and 20 older…

The quality and stability of sibling relationships during adulthood were assessed by comparing Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) themes of sibling affiliation, conflict, and separation at the periods of active child-rearing (CP) and the empty nest (EN). Thirty men and 30 women, equally divided between the two life stages, were randomly selected…

Although research in episodic recall memory, comparing younger and older adults, favors the younger adults, findings in semantic memory research are less consistent. To examine age differences in semantic and episodic memory recall, 72 young adults (mean age, 20.8) and 72 older adults (mean age 71) completed three memory tests under varied…

While most lifespan developmental theories of personality predict age-related changes in coping, little direct evidence exists for determining whether age differences in coping style are due to intrinsic developmental processes or to age differences in the kinds of stresses encountered. To evaluate age differences in coping strategies and whether…

Although studies using recall tasks to measure memory typically report age-related declines in performance for older subjects, little is known about how these research results relate to performance in actual situations. A study was undertaken to determine whether years of experience in a domain of knowledge could compensate for age-related…

Theorists have proposed very different patterns of adult age changes in masculine and feminine personality attributes; while some have predicted an increase in cross-sex typed individuals among older adults, others have predicted an increase in androgynous individuals. A study was conducted to further investigate adult age differences in levels of…

Attribution theory and gerontology would be enriched by the application of a life-span approach to attribution, involving increased attention to the age of the stimulus person and developmental factors associated with self-attribution. In studies on achievement attributions about older people, chronological age appears to be a more salient cue for…

A major issue concerning adult intellectual development is whether intellectual decline in late adulthood is uniform or ability-specific. Differential patterns of ability decline were analyzed by comparing data on longitudinal age change over the age range from 53 to 81 years from two successive 14-year periods (1956-1970 and 1970-1984). The…