Biological Theory
These theories assume that aging is a time of decline rather than growth
Biological Theories of Aging
This widely cited theory looks at the individual development throughout one’s lifetime. A key assumption is that the later half of life is defined by individual differentiation and intra-individual plasticity.
Lifespan development theory
A central assumption of this theory is that the various actors (such as parent and child or elder and youth) each bring resources to the interaction or exchange and that resources need not be material and will most likely be unequal
Social Exchange Theory
These are repeating segments of noncoding DNA at the ends of chromosomes. They shorten with each cell division and determine how fast your cells age and when they die.
Telomeres
When assimilation from surrounding culture leads to self-definitions that, in turn, influence functioning and health
Stereotype Embodiment
This theory states that mutations (genetic damage) will produce functional failure eventually resulting in death.
Somatic Mutation Theory
This theory explains the change in social contact by the self-interested need for emotional closeness with significant others, which leads to increasingly selective interactions with others in advancing age.
Socio-emotional selectivity theory
Its proponents argue that to understand the present circumstances of elderly people we must take into account the major social and psychological forces that have operated throughout the course of their lives
Life course perspective theory
Elizabeth Blackburn, the author of The Telomere Effect, won this prize for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase
Nobel Prize (in Physiology or Medicine, 2009)
Predicts mortality and aging related diseases in inherited telomere syndrome patients
Telomere Attrition
This theory describes how life itself uses energy to support cellular and molecular processes and it’s inherently destructive
Rate-Of-Living Theory
This is a model of psychological and behavior adaptation where the main focus is specific areas of competence
Selective Optimization with Compensation theory
This term focuses on individual agency and social behavior within larger structures of society, and particularly on the subjective meanings of age and the aging experience
Social Constructionism
_______ is the number of years of our healthy life. ________ is the years we live with noticeable disease that interferes with our quality of living
Health Span, Disease Span
Telomere protective proteins, with balanced roles to help dynamically regulate telemorase expression
Shelterin
This theory discusses why survival and reproductive success declines at old age
Evolutionary Senescence Theory
These abilities have been shown to decline with age, while these abilities are more stable across the lifespan and may even display some growth with age.
Fluid Abilities and Crystallized Abilities
This theory focuses on gender as a main organizing principle for social life across the lifespan that changes the experience of aging
Feminist Theories of Aging
These are cells that are alive but have stopped dividing. They also leak pro-inflammatory substances that make you more vulnerable to pain and chronic illnesses
Senescent Cells
An example of this is the patronizing forms of speech directed at the old by the young
Old-Age Cues/Elderspeak
This idea from the evolutionary theory of aging proposes that the same allele may have beneficial and larger effects early in life but harmful effects later in the lifespan
Antagonistic Pleiotropy
List three “big five” factors of personality.
Neuroticism, extroversion, openness to experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness
This perspective applied to aging maintains that socioeconomic and political constraints shape the experience of aging, resulting in the loss of power, autonomy and influence of older persons. From whom is the theory drawn from?
Marx and the Political Economy Theory
The natural limit that human cells have for dividing, which is mostly likely a influenced by the length of telomeres (when telomeres become critically short, cells stop dividing)
Hayflick Limit
The average number of additional years that those with more positive self-perceptions of aging lived longer
7.5 Years