NIOS Class 12 Psychology Chapter 14 Adulthood and Aging

NIOS Class 12 Psychology Chapter 14 Adulthood and Aging Solutions to each chapter is provided in the list so that you can easily browse throughout different chapters NIOS Class 12 Psychology Chapter 14 Adulthood and Aging and select need one. NIOS Class 12 Psychology Chapter 14 Adulthood and Aging Question Answers Download PDF. NIOS Study Material of Class 12 Psychology Notes Paper 328.

NIOS Class 12 Psychology Chapter 14 Adulthood and Aging

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Also, you can read the NIOS book online in these sections Solutions by Expert Teachers as per National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) Book guidelines. NIOS Class 12 Psychology Chapter 14 Adulthood and Aging These solutions are part of NIOS All Subject Solutions. Here we have given NIOS Class 12 Psychology Chapter 14 Adulthood and Aging, NIOS Senior Secondary Course Psychology Solutions for All Chapter, You can practice these here.

Adulthood and Aging

Chapter: 14

PSYCHOLOGY

Intext Questions & Answers

Q. 1. List the factors in memory performance of the elderly.

Ans. (i) Belief about memory.

(ii) Use of memory strategies.

(iii) Life styles of elderly.

Q. 2. How can be everyday intelligence of the elderly be judged?

Ans. It can be judged through their ability in reading road maps, understanding labels, filling out forms, understanding conversations, doing shipping and performing daily jobs.

Q. 3. What factors cause depression in old age? 

Ans. Biological factors like the biochemical disturbances and socio-cultural factors (like retirement, isolations etc. cause depression in old age).

Q. 4. Name three psychological interventions. 

Ans. (i) Seeking help through mental health service.

(ii) Family therapy.

(iii) Societal intervention.

Terminal Exercises

1. What are the major developmental tasks for the middle aged people?

Ans. It is believed that most of the development ends with adolescence. Only wisdom continues to grow during adulthood. However, there are many specific development tasks during adulthood and old age requiring the grown up to engage in specific development and make special adjustments in life. In this respect the perspectives given by Havighurst and Levison are quite relevant.

Achieving adult civic and social responsibility, Establishing and maintaining an economic standard of living, Assisting teenage children to become responsible and happy adults, Developing adult leisure time activities, Relating to one’s spouse as a person, Accepting and adjusting to the physiological changes of middle age and Adjusting to ageing parents.

2. Describe some of the external changes taking place with advancing age.

Ans. External changes refer to the outward symptoms of growing old. The more observable changes are those associated with the skin, hair, teeth, and general posture. 

There are changes in the skin. The most pronounced change is wrinkling. Wrinkling process begins during middle years. Skin also becomes thick, hard and less elastic. It becomes brittle and dry. 

With advancing age, the hair of the person continues to turn white and loses its lustre. It continues to thin. By the age of fifty-five, about 65 percent of men become bald. 

It is estimated that at age 65, fifty percent of people have lost all their teeth. For many, dentures become a way of life. Over the time, the production of saliva is diminished. This increases the risk of tooth decay. 

Physical strength begins to decline from age 30 to age 80 and above. Most occurs in the back and leg muscles, less in the arm muscles. There is a progressive decline in energy production. Bones become increasingly brittle and tend to break easily. Calcium deposits and disease of the joints increase with age.

Muscle tissue decreases in size and strength. Muscle tone becomes increasingly difficult to maintain with age because of an increase in fatty substance within the muscle fibres. This is often caused by the relative inactive role thrust on the elderly in our society. Exercise can help maintain power and sometimes even restore strength to the unused muscles. Changes in the general posture become more evident in old age.

The loss of teeth, balding and greying of the hair, wrinkling of the skin, and lack of physical strength all have a potentially negative effect on an individual’s self-concept and confidence. 

3. What happens to the cardiovascular system during old age?

Ans. Cardiovascular systems which include the heart and the blood vessels show the effects of normal ageing rather slowly. With the ageing process there is a decrease in the elasticity of blood vessels and blood cell production also. Increase-in time required for heart to return to rest and arterial resistance to the passage of blood is also found. Many old individuals are found to be suffering from high blood pressure. However, healthy old individuals are found to have blood pressure similar to those of young healthy individuals.

4. What are the economical problems in old age? 

Ans. How does one cope with increasing age? Different people adopt different coping strategies to meet their life challenges. Some of the effective coping strategies may be summarised as follows:

(i) The elderly need to develop an attitude of flexibility so that they may adapt to life’s pressures and problems of old age.

(ii) They need to recognize that they have to explore new ways of coping with their life events.

(iii) The elderly need to make greater use of information seeking and of problem solving rather than withdrawing or isolating.

(iv) Increasing one’s self-confidence, self reliance, developing healthy attitude about one’s strengths and weaknesses, learning and maintaining effective coping skills and adopting an active approach toward the environment are some of the important ways of making healthy adjustments in old age.

(v) Enlarging social networks is another way of coping with life problems.

Participating in various group activities such as joining clubs and certain organizations for informal social interaction is very helpful for the aged. Building a social network of people of their own age group in the neighborhood or elsewhere provides them with greater opportunity to share their life circumstances and find emotional expression to their existing problems. Through such social networks, one can get an unconditional expression of approval, share secrets, provide new experiences to each other, and develop trusting relationships.

(vi) Involvement in grand parenting helps elderly satisfy many of their personal and emotional needs. Grandparents can serve as important role models. Old people find these roles emotionally self fulfilling and tend to derive self satisfaction through achievement of their grandchildren.

5. What are the chief goals of psychological interventions?

Ans. All of us need to turn to others (friends, relatives, professionals) for help in times of severe stress. In this section we will examine what kinds of psychological interventions can be used for dealing with difficulties of elderly and enabling them to cope with life on a daily basis. Our chief concern with elderly can be improving their quality of life. The attempt needs to be in the direction of building adaptive resources. The most important goals of psychological interventions are:

(a) Insight into one’s behaviour.

(b) Anxiety or depression relief.

(c) Adaptation to a present situation.

(d) Improving self-care skills.

(e) Encouraging activity.

(f) Facilitating independence.

(g) Accepting one’s weakness and difficulties.

(h) Improving interpersonal relationships.

There are several psychological interventions which are needed for the aged and have proved to be very useful. Some of the important ones are described below:`

A. Seeking Help through Mental Health Services.

Old persons can be provided help from professionals or from family, friends or neighbours to solve their personal or social problems. Many of their problems may be solved by joint family members. Depending on their resources, elderly need to seek professional help for their personal and family matters. Counselling psychologists can help people prepare for and cope with potentially stressful life events like retirement, death of spouse and financial insecurity. They can be motivated to have an active orientation toward oneself and the world and to keep their options open.

B. Cognitive Behavioural Interventions.

Elderly persons seem to be lacking realistic feedback about themselves from others, and thus make ‘thinking errors. Feelings of inadequacy about one self can lead to fear, anger, frustration and depression. Cognitive therapy is very effective in substituting irrational thoughts with rational thoughts. Relaxation training helps reducing anxiety and tension. 

Cognitive – behavioural interventions have been found to be useful in treating depression, anxiety, memory loss, and response speed in the aged.

C. Behavioural Interventions.

Behavioural interventions are based on positive and negative reinforcing stimuli. Elderly persons for example can be given positive reinforcement such as verbal or material reward for the desired self-care behaviour and negative reinforcement (depriving of reward) for the undesirable aggressive behaviour. It is relatively brief and economical. However, it requires a great deal of expertise to use effectively.

D. Family Therapy.

Family therapy aids in adjustment to various life problems such as retirement, family care giving role, grandparenthood, family conflicts between young and the aged, coping with illness of elderly, and family decisions about institutionalisation of the elderly people. If properly handled, family therapy can strengthen the feelings of love, closeness and interdependence.

E. Societal Intervention.

In addition to changing the individual, we might like to change the environment or the context in which a person functions. Attention needs to be paid to home environment, activity programmers, as well as to neighborhood and community in which the person lives. Societal intervention would involve altering attitudes towards the aged and increasing the older person’s reliance on the community, family, and friends.