Did You Know...?
Middle Adult Development

Read each true/false statement and test your answers by placing your cursor over the question mark.

	In middle adulthood, pockets of fat settle around the abdomen, especially among men who don’t exercise.
	Women develop hearing difficulties at an earlier age than men do.
	Half the improvements in death rates and serious illness before age 70 are attributable to lifestyle.
	Menopause is a time of difficulty and depression for most women.
	The average level of testosterone in men declines markedly during middle age.
	Arthritis affects almost half of all men after age 50.
	Smoking rates have dropped more in European nations than in North America.
	Adults who drink alcohol in moderation may live longer than those who never drink.
	About two of every three middle-aged Americans are overweight.
	During middle age, mortality rates are higher for African Americans than for Asian Americans.
	Most developmentalists today conceive of intelligence as a single underlying ability.
	Both cross-sectional and longitudinal research indicate that intelligence declines systematically during adulthood.
	Intellectual abilities are multidirectional in that they can follow different trajectories with age.
	Individual differences in intelligence are “fixed” in that they remain roughly the same over the life span.
	Declines in fluid intelligence may be masked by increases in crystallized intelligence.
	Most middle-aged and older adults believe that practical intelligence is the least useful form of intelligence during adulthood.
	Cohort differences affect scores on intelligence tests.
	Cognitive abilities not affected by number of years of formal education.
	Compared to novices, experts tend to rely on more formal procedures in solving problems.
	Many psychologists favor problem-focused strategies for coping with stress.
	By about age 30, several personality traits stabilize and remain so throughout adulthood.
	In many cultures, rigid gender-role demands seem to loosen during middle age.
	Mot middle-aged men experience a midlife crisis that provokes a radical reexamination of their lives and leads to change.
	After the first ten years or so, the longer a couple has been married, the happier they are.
	Divorce in middle adulthood is generally easier to cope with then divorce earlier or later in life.
	Remarried people generally report higher rates of happiness than people in first marriages.
	With recent changes in the structure of the typical American family, family links have become significantly weaker.
	The relationship between parents and their children usually worsens as the parents pass through middle age.
	Middle-aged grandparents tend to be less involved with grandchildren than grandparents in the past.
	During middle adulthood, men and women engage in scaling back in order to balance work and parenthood.